New Jersey Teens Tapped for Retail Market Research.

Byline: Lauren Coleman-Lochner

Mar. 29--Ten teenage boys stare intently at the halter-clad mannequin.

Then they take notes.

After all, this is a school-time excursion to Garden State Plaza, and they are not playing hooky.

They and 30 other Mahwah High School mall rats are serving as guinea pigs, providing Wall Street with reams of market research rendered in the direct, in-your-face manner teenagers master so thoroughly.

Mahwah is the fifth stop and the only New Jersey school on a nine-school national tour for Jeff Klinefelter, a wholesome-looking Minnesotan who is a senior retail analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray's Minneapolis headquarters, near the mother of all malls, The Mall of America.

The goal, of course, is to see what young people think of the big mall stalwarts that court their …