Measuring college students' choice criteria of credit cards: scale development and validation

Despite the growing debate about college students' credit card debt (Roberts 1998; Manning 1999; Warwick and Mansfield 2000; Palmer et al. 2001; McNamara 2003) and students' choice criteria of retail banks (Thwaites and Vere 1995), few attempts have been made to uncover the actual underlying factors explaining college students' attraction to credit cards. Specifically, the simple question that appears to have been overlooked in the literature is what is the compelling reason for a college student to want to own and use a credit card? This paper aims to contribute to the marketing literature by developing and validating a scale that measures college students' choice criteria of credit cards. The findings identify four key choice criterions that were named (1) "buying power," (2) "incentives," (3) "firm's reputation," and (4) "good credit rating." The reliability and validity of the scale were assessed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The paper concludes by discussing theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and future research directions.