Cash or Card: Consumer Perceptions of Payment Modes - Scholarly ...

solid data, the issue of generalisability remains and so it is recognised that the findings of this
study may only be applicable to the population studied.
4.3: Study Locus and Participants
As explained in Section 1.5 the type of purchase characteristics affects the payment mode
choice - so the purchase context needs to be specified. As Section 2.5.1.1 shows, the
majority of the studies are in the context of supermarket type purchases so, to enable useful
comparisons with extant research, this study also uses the supermarket context.
Homogeneity of participation is deemed necessary for this research in order to limit
confounding factors. Given the exploratory nature of the study, discussion would be enriched
if the participants had a degree of shared life experiences so participants will be identified via
a non-probability, criterion-based, purposeful sampling process (Hair, Lukas, Miller, Bush,
and Ortinau, 2009; Patton, 2002). Non-probability sampling is when participant selection is
based on the researcher’s judgment regarding the characteristics of the population and the
needs of the research (Fink, 2003a). The limitation of this approach is that there is no
assurance of representativeness within statistical specification of error tolerance as it is based
on certain assumptions about variability in key characteristics and relies on the adequacy of
drawing up the population listing. Clearly then, regardless of the sample size, that such
sampling represents the entire population cannot be known, so it is difficult to generalize the
results beyond the specific sample used.
The only demographics that seem to consistently link to payment mode choice, in particular
debit card use, are age, education and income (see sections 2.5.1 and 2.5.2). It is feasible
however that life phase and ethnicity could also affect money perceptions and ethnicity, age
and education details will therefore be identified. Income proved problematic due to ethical
concerns raised by the University. Thus, although not a wholly acceptable solution,
participants were drawn from postal code areas with household incomes. Although the
relationship between gender and payment mode remains uncertain (See Sections 2.5.1 and
2.52 ), since as 73% females as compared to 27% males are the main household shoppers in
New Zealand, females are selected as the target population (see Nielsen Reports, 2011).
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