Designing research to reveal the young child's emerging competence

The focus of this paper is to suggest factors which a marketing researcher should consider in designing experimental procedures that are congruent with the young child's cognitive capacities. Several components of the experimental environment are identified as important in designing an age-appropriate task: familiarity with factual information, context, verbally presented information, and the goal of the experimental task. A young child's strategies for processing an experimental task that exceeds his or her cognitive capacities are considered. Finally, the paper addresses implications for marketing researchers when tailoring experimental procedures to young children.