MRKT20055 - Science of Consumer Behaviour

General Information

Unit Synopsis

Consumption is a universal phenomenon of human society, and understanding consumer behaviour is fundamentally critical to marketers and policymakers. This unit explores the science of consumer behaviour, an interdisciplinary field that integrates knowledge and discovery from marketing, psychology, anthropology, sociology, demography, and economics. In this unit you will examine models and frameworks of consumer decision making, as well as the impacts of internal and external factors on thoughts, feelings, and actions of consumers. Furthermore, you will learn to implement consumer behaviour principles to facilitate the development of successful marketing campaigns.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level 9
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisite: MRKT20052.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2025

Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 20%
2. Presentation 30%
3. Written Assessment 50%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 75.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 13.33% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student feedback.
Feedback
Students would desire to engage in activities where they can be guided to apply and analyse the concepts and theories.
Recommendation
The teaching staff in the future offerings of this unit will continue to provide students with the opportunities to participate in interesting and practical activities that would benefit their learning and understanding of consumer behaviour relevant concepts and theories.
Action Taken
This recommendation has been implemented.
Source: Staff self-reflection.
Feedback
Consumer behaviour in the digital contexts has emerged as a valuable area that would benefit students' growth and development, and enhance their future employability.
Recommendation
The teaching staff in the future offerings of this unit will embed to the learning and teaching materials for this unit useful examples, cases, or other resources related to consumer behaviour in the digital contexts.
Action Taken
This recommendation has been implemented.
Source: Student feedback.
Feedback
Positive student evaluation/comment about clear unit requirements, useful learning materials, and staff's good practice in encouraging students to interact.
Recommendation
The teaching staff in the future offerings of this unit will be encouraged to keep providing students clear unit requirements, keep utilising high-quality learning resources that benefit students in their consolidation of consumer behaviour relevant concepts or theories, and keep encouraging students to interact among themselves and with teaching staff during the learning and teaching related activities.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student feedback and staff self-reflection.
Feedback
There is a need to make improvement on this unit, particularly in terms of providing useful assessment feedback so that students can learn from their assessments and gain beneficial knowledge/skills from the feedback.
Recommendation
The teaching staff in the future offerings of this unit will be encouraged to pay attention to the quality of assessment feedback during the assessment marking/moderation process, and ensure the assessment feedback is educational as well as can enhance students' knowledge/skills.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Assess critical situational influences that shape consumer behaviour
  2. Examine decision-process influences associated with consumer behaviour
  3. Analyse the influences of internal and external factors on consumer behaviour
  4. Use consumer behaviour principles to solve marketing problems
  5. Identify new trends in consumer behaviour theories and applications.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Written Assessment •
2 - Presentation • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Knowledge • • • • •
2 - Communication • • • •
3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills • • • • •
4 - Research • • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 - Written Assessment • • •
2 - Presentation • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • •