useless way, clothing that I don’t wear anymore,” “I prefer quality clothes to modern
clothes,” and “I prefer durable clothes to modern clothes.” A convenience sample
was recruited in the month of April 2016, through our academic network in six
Romanian university centers (Bucharest, Constanta, Timisoara, Galati, Pitesti, and
Iasi) and also via social media. From the initial 388 participants, 36 entries were
eliminated due to incomplete answers or extreme values regarding the average
student age. The data collection process was carried out through an online survey,
and participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. The final sample was
composed of 352 Romanian students, with an age between 18 and 25 years (average
21.08 years, standard deviation 1.5). The gender distribution follows fairly the
existing proportion for social science studies, with 79.8% females and 20.2%
males. Also, 38.4% of the participants were originally from a rural environment
and 61.6% from an urban environment.
10.3.2 Method
We use factor analysis to explore the factorial structure of the scales. In the first
stage, we explore the correlations between items within each scale, measure the
internal consistency, and remove items that are found to measure different dimensions than the rest of the items. After setting the final versions of the scales, we check
the appropriateness of factor analysis using the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin statistic and
proceed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We present some of the
goodness of fit measures and discuss the results in terms of construct validity for
each of the reduced scales.
10.4 Results and Discussions
The answers to the control questions illustrate the relevance of the analyzed behaviors for students. For the food case, few (0.56%) said they never bought food or
prepared a meal (5.9%), with more than 80% buying frequently and roughly 50%
preparing it also on a regular basis. For the clothing case, almost 90% of the
participants state that they buy clothes by themselves, and low percentages are
obtained for the second statement – “I receive clothes as gifts.” This item is slightly
rephrased from the original one – “I don’t have to pay for my clothes” – giving the
increased autonomy of our student population, by comparison with teenagers. We
conducted a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and found that there are significant differences between the distributions of the answers involving buying clothes, compared
to buying food. A similar relationship between the mean obtained for buying food
and that obtained for buying clothes mirrors the original study of Fischer et al.
(2017), for the German sample of teenagers: Romanian students buy more clothes
(average 4.6) than food (average 4.4) for themselves. We admit that the distributions
10 Sustainable Consumption Behavior Among Romanian Students
163
clothes,” and “I prefer durable clothes to modern clothes.” A convenience sample
was recruited in the month of April 2016, through our academic network in six
Romanian university centers (Bucharest, Constanta, Timisoara, Galati, Pitesti, and
Iasi) and also via social media. From the initial 388 participants, 36 entries were
eliminated due to incomplete answers or extreme values regarding the average
student age. The data collection process was carried out through an online survey,
and participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. The final sample was
composed of 352 Romanian students, with an age between 18 and 25 years (average
21.08 years, standard deviation 1.5). The gender distribution follows fairly the
existing proportion for social science studies, with 79.8% females and 20.2%
males. Also, 38.4% of the participants were originally from a rural environment
and 61.6% from an urban environment.
10.3.2 Method
We use factor analysis to explore the factorial structure of the scales. In the first
stage, we explore the correlations between items within each scale, measure the
internal consistency, and remove items that are found to measure different dimensions than the rest of the items. After setting the final versions of the scales, we check
the appropriateness of factor analysis using the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin statistic and
proceed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We present some of the
goodness of fit measures and discuss the results in terms of construct validity for
each of the reduced scales.
10.4 Results and Discussions
The answers to the control questions illustrate the relevance of the analyzed behaviors for students. For the food case, few (0.56%) said they never bought food or
prepared a meal (5.9%), with more than 80% buying frequently and roughly 50%
preparing it also on a regular basis. For the clothing case, almost 90% of the
participants state that they buy clothes by themselves, and low percentages are
obtained for the second statement – “I receive clothes as gifts.” This item is slightly
rephrased from the original one – “I don’t have to pay for my clothes” – giving the
increased autonomy of our student population, by comparison with teenagers. We
conducted a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and found that there are significant differences between the distributions of the answers involving buying clothes, compared
to buying food. A similar relationship between the mean obtained for buying food
and that obtained for buying clothes mirrors the original study of Fischer et al.
(2017), for the German sample of teenagers: Romanian students buy more clothes
(average 4.6) than food (average 4.4) for themselves. We admit that the distributions
10 Sustainable Consumption Behavior Among Romanian Students
163