In conceptualizing internal validity, Miles and Huberman (1994:278) stated that internal validity is dealt with by questions such as ‘Do the findings of the study make sense?’ and ‘Are they credible to the people we study and to our readers?’ Similarly, Gliner (1994) described triangulation as a method of highest priority in determining internal validity in qualitative research. The content validity survey was therefore conducted as part of the triangulation procedure to verify the interview findings by showing that Negative Brand Personality traits are perceived as negative (Miles and Huberman, 1994), as some traits mentioned by respondents from interviews were perceived in a positive light whilst other respondents perceived traits in a negative light. For example, some respondents
~ 140 ~
referred to ‘Flamboyant’ as positive while others referred to it as negative. The perspective from which the traits were addressed was based on the syntactical rationale. Therefore, Study B sought to confirm whether traits assigned were perceived in a positive or a negative light.
4.5.1 Respondents
From the 100 content validity surveys that were distributed to Aston university students, 37 were completed and returned (N=37). A convenient student sample was used as student perceptions of Negative Brand Personality traits were not formulated any differently to other consumers (Maehle and Supphellen, 2010). All respondents self-volunteered and no incentive was offered for the respondents’ participation.
From the survey results, 62% of the respondents were male while 38% were female. In terms of age group, 43% of the respondents were between the age of 21 and 26, 41% were between 26 and 33, 14% were between 37 and 45, and 2.7% were 46 or over. Traits were shortlisted based on the overall percentage of consumers that perceived the trait in relation to brands as being either positive or negative. If 50% or more of the sampled population perceived a given trait as positive, the trait was eliminated with no further analysis.
4.5.2 Content Validity Survey Procedure
The content validity survey consisted of structured questions to verify if the traits mentioned in interviews are perceived as negative outside the interview setting. Structured questions such as ‘Is this trait within the context of branding seen in a positive or negative light?’ were asked in order to clean ambiguous traits. Ambiguous traits are traits seen by some of the interview respondents as positive and by others as negative. In order to clean the ambiguous traits displayed in transcripts, a separate content validity survey was employed asking consumers to rate all perceived negative traits as either positive or negative by ticking a box (Appendix E displays the format of the content validity survey).
Consistent with established scale development procedures (Churchill, 1979; DeVellis, 2003), and to ensure a comprehensive list of Negative Brand Personality items, a review was conducted on established negative human personality items to identify relevant traits. The search produced an additional three potential Negative Brand Personality items (‘intimidating’, ‘selfish’ and ‘repulsive’)
~ 141 ~
and these were included in the content validity survey. All items were constructed using established guidelines on item writing (Angleitner and Wigging, 1985) which emphasize the importance of using simple, straightforward language appropriate for the reading level of the scales’ target population and for avoiding trendy expressions, colloquialism and other language for which familiarity can be considerably varied.
The content validity survey was designed by firstly briefing the respondents about the study. The consent form defined Negative Brand Personality using a similar definition to Aaker’s (1997) definition, to ensure consistency across respondents. Instructions on how to fill out the survey were presented to the respondents both orally and in writing. Respondents were instructed to think of any fashion brands they were familiar with, as the purpose was to confirm that traits are perceived in a negative light and are not confounded by positive perceptions. Respondents were then instructed to tick a box to indicate whether they perceive the trait presented on the content validity survey to be either positive of negative. The Negative Brand Personality traits used in the content validity survey were obtained from Table 4.3.
The purpose of this study was to refine the list of all the possible Negative Brand Personality traits obtained from existing human personality scales that include negative characteristics and the items generated from interviews.
4.5.3 Results of the Content Validity Survey
From the initial pool of 45 items, three items were predominantly perceived (i.e., by more than 50%
of respondents) as positively associated rather than negative. These three highlighted traits displayed in Table 4.5 are ‘Flamboyant’, ‘Traditional’ and ‘Nostalgic’, and were eliminated from the study. No expert judgment was involved at this stage as this study investigated Negative Brand Personality from a consumer perspective.
Table 4.5 displays a summary of the Negative Brand Personality traits that are perceived by the sample as negative traits.
~ 142 ~
Table 4.5: Display of the statistics in percentages of traits perceived as either Positive or Negative.
N.B: Highlighted traits were eliminated due to relatively high percentage of respondents perceiving the trait as positive relative to the percentage of respondents perceiving the trait as negative.
To further purify and refine Negative Brand Personality traits, a sorting task was conducted which is detailed in the subsequent section.
Brand Personality Trait % of sampled population who perceived trait as positive
~ 143 ~