Subject Descriptions
The purpose of this course is to develop capability to understand, analyze, and interpret big data on consumer behaviors. This course provides introduction to the core concepts big data problems, data management methodologies, and analytical methods and tools. Based on the theoretical and methodological knowledge on big data analysis, exercises to interpret the analysis results are covered. After this course, students are expected to be able to apply big data to understand and anticipate consumer behaviors in the market.
As the social function has been divided and complicated, consumer problem is getting various and complex. This course intends to give an overview of the various aspects of current consumer problems, their socioeconomic and cultural context, and possible solutions. The course will facilitate student discussions on the various consumer issues from the consumerism and consumer welfare viewpoints, and lead to find practical resolutions including educational and political ones.
Microeconomics and marketing theories regarding the industry and profit maximizing firms are applied to analyze and understand the market. This course emphasizes on advanced topics relevant to analysis of the current market mechanism.
In this class, basic research design methods employees in the study of consumers are examined. Students will participate in a consumer pilot research project, practice collecting data, and interpret and report research results.
This course deals with the nature of consumerism, and the history and structure of the consumer movement. Students will discuss the role of consumer activities, and compare consumer movements among various countries. This discussion will lead to envisioning the future of global consumerism.
This course provides an opportunity to develop consumer expertise and to understand various consumer activities and their roles in the local community for students who will grow into consumer experts. This course consists of lectures about the basic knowledge of consumer-related activities, community-based projects, and an evaluation and sharing session. Community-based project practices include participating in consumer education, consumer counseling and redress, and consumer research conducted by government and public institutions, consumer non-profit organizations, specialized institutions, and research institutions. Students are expected to have deeper understanding of the current consumer issues in the community and to acquire problem-solving capabilities through practical experiences.
This course provides various methodologies to develop new products by delving into theoretical and practical needs analysis of consumers. It will help students to build consumer needs not only into new products but also into policies and services.
This course researches consumer behavior as a foundation for consumer protection and education.
The objective of this class is to investigate occurrence, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of consumer complaints. Students are expected to use counseling principles and skills in decisions of solving consumer complaints.
This class aims at analyzing consumer’s information behavior. Investigation of desirable information policy through searching advertisements as information giving environment is covered.
Topics included in this class are; concepts and the evolution of consumer education, consumer problems of special groups (children, adolescent, and the elderly), consumer socialization, consumer competency, and development of consumer education programs.
This course covers an introduction to financial goal setting and financial planning process in various life-cycle stages and financial status. Topics include budgeting, credit, saving, investing, personal taxation, insurance, retirement and estate planning.
Consumer Leadership course is designed to introduce ‘leadership’ as a key competence needed for consuemr science professions in order to change their organizations, society and market environment more consumer centric. In the course, the concept and related theories of leadership will be discussed, and current trend in leadership studies will be explored. Also, how the concept of contemporary leadership can be applied in Consumer Science context will be explored.
The objective of this course is to study financial planning principles and practices taught through a case study approach. Students are encouraged to analyze and evaluate financial decisions made by consumers at various points in the life cycle and apply counseling skills to aid consumers facing financial decisions, especially, investment and risk management.
Distribution is an important function that connects the gap that exists between producers and consumers. With globalization and IT development, the market environment is rapidly changing. The distribution channels and distribution environment are also rapidly changing as active consumer involvement in the value creation process is increasing from consumer perspective, and consumer oriented maketing is required from the marketing perspective. The purpose of Consumer Distribution is to provide a systematic overview of the meaning of distribution, the steps of distribution processes, and distribution related consumer choices and decision making processes. Consumer problems that could arise during the distribution process and their potential remedies will be discussed, and pro-consumer distribution and retail management cases will be studied to provide insight about the future direction of distribution practice that is beneficial for both consumers and producers.
Consumer Trend Analysis is the most advanced curriculum in the area of market research. In this class, students will learn quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques to predict consumer trend in the market. How to understand consumer’s consumption trend and how to collect the information of consumption trend will be discussed as well.
This course aims to investigate which consumption is good in the context of the interrelationship of the individual consumption, society, and environment. Especially, it will cover theoretical perspectives of consumption ethics, practical issues of ethical consumerism, and specific examples of ethical issues of consumption in the area of industry. It is expected that students will improve the ability for analysis and appreciation of ethical conflicts in consumption, and the capacity for ethical reflection and judgement on the levels of individual consumer, companies, and related policies.
Through this course, we will study the cultural significance of consumption. Students will examine the interaction between product consumption and popular culture by identifying various meanings of consumption culture in modern capitalist society under historical perspective and digging up dynamic characters of modern consumption culture. Using comparative method, we’ll make our understanding about consumption culture of other countries far and wide. And then, students will also get through Korean culture of consumption and discuss its problems and desirable future models.
The course acquaints students with the basic approaches to consumer policy. They will perform economic analyses of specific consumer policy issues. Three specific areas of policy intervention are addressed: markets characterized by imperfect information, anti-trust and regulation of “natural” monopolies, and the political-economy of consumer protection. Policy discussions are reinforced through the use of specific real-world examples.
This course is an introduction to the family as a unit of production and consumption. Students will examine changes in economic requirements during the family life cycle. Another area of study includes contemporary economic problems that affect the family economic welfare.
The goal of this course is to provide a understanding of how to empower and protect consumers in the financial market. Topics such as introduction of financial market and financial services, financial consumer behaviors, financial consumer protection issues will be discussed.
The goal of this course is to provide a understanding of how to empower and protect consumers in the new global market. Topics such as consumer behaviors, retail environment, marketing strategies, and consumer laws and policies in the global market are discussed to understand new consumer issues in the new global market.
ICT developments have great impact on the way consumers behave and live. The goals of this course are provide an understanding of the nature of ICT market and new consumer issues in ICT market. Topics such as introduction to ICT market and services and ICT consumer empowerment and protection issues will be discussed.
The purpose of this course is to introduce and to provide opportunities to exercise qualitative research methods that are currently used to analyse consumer needs and behaviors. Students learn various qualitative data collection/analyse methodologies and practice those methodologies within the context of empirical research.
Students will learn the logics and methods of basic statistics. They will practice reading and evaluating social science researches. Written assignment and in-class exercise will be given. The basic statistical techniques to analyze data, test hypothesis and interpret findings will be covered.
Readings on Consumer Science Classics
The class is to read over books and/or articles of ‘classic’ level on various issues about Consumer Science from the emergence of the science to recent topics on the 4th industrial revolution. The course will provide a deeper understanding of Consumer Society for students who are majoring and interested by Consumer Science.
This course covers a concise review of the key aspects of consumer studies and family resource management. The course will focus on synthesizing the conclusion drawn from different fields of study.
Retirement Planning & Financial Counseling is developed to examine current financial status and to identify financial problems for getting solutions of successful retirement and financial welfare. In this class, students will study following subjects; why financial planning is important, what is the retirement planning prepress, how the retirement planning works, etc. Practical cases will be discussed with efficient communication skills and counseling techniques.
The class deals with consummer protection laws. Students are encourgaed to analyze the legal issues of (1)Fair trade and anti-trust, (2) Laws on consumer safety, credit, and information, (3) price determination and consumer participation, (4) legal procedure of consumer right realization, and (5) the issues not applied in Korea.
This class includes discussion and research reviews about the theories and researches in relation to time use. The course examines time management concepts and applications of time as ‘the core resource to one’s life plans’ and investigates changes in time allocations made by family members and individuals. The course pursues to enhance the expert ability as well as the individual ability of time management.
Consumption in modern society is not only a driving force of the economy but also major means for expressing individuals’ identity. As modern consumers purchase products and services by various motives and complex process not just by needs, it is necessary to delve into psychological process that affects consumption decision making. This class focuses on applied practice of consumption rather than purely psychological thoertical approaches.
This introductory course is designed for freshmen in Consumer Science major. this course provides introduction to perspectives of consumer science, consumer behaviors and problems in the market, and efforts to improve consumer rights and interest. Students are expected to understand the importance of understanding consumers and consumption in the current market and the role of consumer science to improve consumer sovereignty.