Investigation of the effect of consumer education on the elementary education students to prevent showy consumption

The aim of this study is to determine the efficiency of consumer education given to the students in primary schools II. level in the prevention of consumption based on showing off according to the theory of multiple intelligences.Research is experimental design and the sampling was done from 6/A-B-C, 7/A-B-C-D and 8/A-B-C-D classes of 2009-2010 academic year at Nihat Başakar Primary School of Altındağ District in Ankara based on the two hundred and eighteen (n = 218) the students.In this study, a questionnaire created by the researcher was used as a means of data collection by the researcher. The questionnaire consists of four sections and 44 questions. The questions identifying demographic characteristics of individuals are given in the first section of the questionnaire.The questions evaluating the awareness of the issues related to the consumer education are given in the second section. The questions about having consumer education and the state of consumption are given in the third section. The fourth section consists of 24 sub-items, including the thoughts about the consumer behavior of individuals, based on the choice of one of three criteria of evaluation given in the form of questions, ?agree?, ?sometimes agree/sometimes disagree? and ?disagree?. The questionnaire was revised with the students who are outside the sample of students in the fifth grade in the same school.The revised questionnaires were given to pre-training classes that make up the sample and the pre-test was applied administered to students in the last week of March.After the preliminary tests were applied, the sampling group was trained in April and May under the title heading of consumer education in accordance with the activities of the six intelligence fields of multiple intelligences theory. Training subjects given to the students are limited with the consumer, consumer behavior, conscious consumer, consumer education whereas the titles to be applied with show-off consumption are limited with the theory of multiple intelligences. Following the completion of the training, the last test was given in the first week of June to the students who make up the test sampleThe responses of the students participating in the study to the pre-test and final test were analyzed with SPSS 17.0 statistical software.When the differences between the means were tested with t-test between dependent groups, the t test revealed that the difference between the means of the pre-test and post-test is insignificant (p < .001). This result shows that the consumer education given to the students has a positive impact on the knowledge of the students about the showoff consumption.Various suggestions were made to educate the consumers in the light of findings.Keywords: Consumer education, showing off based on the consumer, the theory of multiple intelligences.