Developing a scale to measure problems in finding a good fit

The purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to develop a scale for measuring consumers' perceived problems of finding a good fit (PFGF) and (2) to provide evidence of several types of scale validities including nomological validity through examining the relationship between PFGF and body esteem based on attribution theory.

Scale development took place in three steps: (1) An initial pool of items was generated based on a previous study; (2) preliminary quantitative tests of reliability and validity of items were performed, including confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs); and (3) final scale validation through a discriminant and nomological validity test was conducted using CFA and the structural equation model (SEM). CFAs and SEM with the mediation effect were performed using Preacher and Hayes' (2008) bootstrap procedure in Mplus.

Of the 20 items (four items for physical, eight items for aesthetic and eight items for functional) generated in Step 1, a total of 14 items (four items for physical, five items for aesthetic and five items for functional) were remained through preliminary tests of reliability and validity of the scale in Step 2. In Step 3, the 14 items were finalized and validated through testing the hypothesized mediating effect of internal attribution of fit problems between the PFGF scale and the measures of body esteem. The results of consumers' internal causal attribution process of fit problems supported attribution theory.

The study contributes to understanding consumer fit perceptions by developing a scale to assess PFGF that may be a key factor influencing multiple apparel shopping behaviors. The multidimensional scale of perceived PFGF should be useful to provide solutions to PFGF based on information from customers. Better understanding of perceived PFGF will ultimately increase consumer satisfaction with apparel.