The rapid growth of student loan debt has led to increased public attention on college students' financial aid and financial behaviour. This study addresses the psychological process underlying effective college student financial behaviour and its determinants. A model modified based on planned behaviour theory is proposed and empirically tested using a sample of 243 college students. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is employed to examine the model fits and to investigate the relationship among the proposed factors. The determinants of financial behaviour identified by this study include attitude, intention, and perceived behavioural control, past behaviour, subjective norm, behavioural beliefs, subjective norm beliefs, and control beliefs. Additionally, this research examines the relative importance of these determinants and tests the role of beliefs.
In this study, 312 respondents were asked to indicate their attitude toward smoking and their smoking behavior. Attitudes were assessed by a direct attitude measure (4 items) and a series of 15 belief statements about the possible consequences of smoking. Next, respondents were asked to select the 3 consequences they found most important. Attitude scores derived from these important beliefs were more predictive of behavior than those based on all 15 beliefs, and far superior to attitude scores based on the remaining 12 beliefs. Differences between the 2 groups (smokers vs. nonsmokers) were more pronounced when attitude scores were based on important beliefs, and disappeared for scores based on nonselected, less important beliefs. It is argued that incorporating belief importance in expectancy-value models helps to assess the structure of attitudes and could improve our insight in the determinants of behavioral preference.
Berzelius failed to make use of Faraday's electrochemical laws in his laborious determination of equivalent weights.