Improving financial literacy in secondary school students: An randomized experiment

Improving financial literacy in secondary school students: An randomized experiment

• Zhu, Alex Yue Feng Lingnan University
• Yu, Wai Mui Christina The Education University of Hong Kong
• Chou, Kee Lee The Education University of Hong Kong

Youth & Society, 2019

Sage Publications, Inc.

2019

• N Students & Student Services
  • NF Student Finance

Adolescents Financial Education Financial Literacy Secondary School Students Randomized Experiment

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Secondary Education

Financial literacy is a multicomponent construct comprising financial knowledge, attitude, behaviors, and well-being. Financial literacy in young people helps them to achieve financial independence and escape from intergenerational poverty. Recent assessments, however, reveal that youth financial literacy is unsatisfactory. Financial education should be provided for students during secondary school as a natural context in which to establish young people's financial literacy. Empirical evidence from randomized experiments studying the impact of financial education on secondary school students, however, is limited. To address this research gap, we performed a randomized experiment with 270 Form-3 (U.S. equivalent Grade 9) secondary school students in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results demonstrated that objective financial knowledge, financial attitudinal variables, and financial well-being variables could converge into the latent construct of financial literacy, while all financial behavioral variables converged into another latent construct of financial behavior; of note, the two latent constructs were not significantly correlated. SEM results also revealed that our financial education program significantly improved financial literacy, but did not have a significant effect on financial behavior in the short term. These findings contribute to existing financial literacy research by facilitating more accurate measurement and detailing the near-term effects of financial interventions at the adolescent stage in young people. Copyright © 2019 The Author(s).

• English

Journal Articles

• 0044118X

• 10.1177/0044118X19851311

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/ba91acdb

2019-12-09