Modelling Children's Buying Literacy

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Johannes Hartig; Professor Dr. Gunnar Mau; Professorin Dr. Hanna Schramm-Klein; Privatdozent Dr. Michael Schuhen (†)
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 413901277

The proposed project aims at systematically analyzing the purchasing competence, purchasing behavior and the purchasing decision-making processes of (school) children as well as at testing hypotheses concerning the structure of the purchasing competence. This should lead to an identification of fields in which children displaydeficits where they require protection or support in the market. In order to achieve this, the declarative and procedural skills that are important for competent purchasing decisions of children are determined and challenges children are confronted with when doing their shopping are analyzed. These findings are incorporated into the development of knowledge questions and a computer-based realisticpurchase simulation. The written knowledge questions serve the gathering of the knowledge and the understanding of fundamental concepts that are relevant for purchasing decisions. In addition to this,motivational variables that can be assumed to have an effect on competent purchasing behavior are collected. The simulation records competent behavior in a close to reality purchase situationby assigning realistic tasks. This instrument will be applied to a more extensive sample in a main study after a successful revision of the contents by a pilot study. Thus, the previous research in this field is enriched by three aspects: The results will (1) analyze the dimensional internal structure of declarative knowledge and decision-making behavior in simulated consumption situations and will in this way describe the structure of the construct purchasing competence in greater detail. (2) At the same time, the extent of the purchasingcompetence of schoolchildren between 8 and 10 is described systematically for the first time with regard to cognitive, self-regulative and conative aspects and (3) the impact of relevant motivational variables such as e.g. the ability of self-control and of looking to the future is examined. Furthermore, with the developed instrument a method validated by behavioral measures for the recording of the purchasing competence of children is at the research community's disposal for the first time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants