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Family Clothing Consumption: Comparison of Two Methods for Collecting Data
Author(s) -
Saltford Nancy C.,
Roy Linda A.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
home economics research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 0046-7774
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x8101000210
Subject(s) - clothing , recall , consumption (sociology) , data collection , psychology , family income , sample (material) , demography , advertising , geography , economics , business , statistics , sociology , mathematics , social science , economic growth , chemistry , archaeology , chromatography , cognitive psychology
The objective of this study was to determine the differences between two methods of collecting clothing consumption data: diary and recall. A sample in which there was a high proportion of low‐ and middle‐income families was drawn from school census data in Ithaca, New York. The study was limited to families with elementary school children. Forty‐three families kept diaries of all clothing purchases for a period of one month. Another 50 families were visited at the end of the same month and asked to recall purchases made over the preceding month. By collecting clothing consumption data exclusive of other consumer expenditures, differ ences between the recall and diary methods of data collection, found in earlier research, have been minimized. In this study there were no differences between either the demographic characteristics of the diary or recall samples, or in quantity and expenditure data collected. Costs for time and transportation for the researchers were higher with the diary than the recall method since two visits to each household were required. This study indicates that the recall method can successfully be used to gather family clothing consumption data.