Modelling Children's Buying Literacy

本研究旨在系统地分析学龄儿童的购买能力、购买行为和购买决策过程，并检验有关购买能力结构的假设。这应导致查明儿童在哪些领域表现出他们需要在市场上保护或支持的缺陷。为了实现这一点，确定了对儿童做出有效的购买决定很重要的陈述性和程序性技能，并分析了儿童在购物时面临的挑战。这些发现被纳入到知识问题的开发和基于计算机的现实购买模拟中。书面知识问题有助于收集知识和理解与采购决策相关的基本概念。除此之外，还收集了可以假设对胜任购买行为有影响的动机变量。该模拟记录了在接近现实的购买情况下的胜任行为，通过分配现实的任务。在先导研究成功修订内容后，这一工具将在主要研究中应用于更广泛的样本。因此，本研究从三个方面丰富了前人的研究：(1)分析了模拟消费情境中陈述性知识和决策行为的维度内部结构，从而更详细地描述了结构购买力的结构。(2)首次从认知、自我调节和意念三个方面系统地描述了8-10岁学龄儿童购买能力的程度；(3)考察了相关动机变量的影响，如自我控制能力和展望未来的能力。此外，利用所开发的工具，通过行为测量验证的用于记录儿童购买能力的方法首次被研究界使用。

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.