Three Elements to a Successful Financial Literacy Education Program Leslie E' Linfield, Esq' October

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Three Elements to a Successful Financial Literacy
Education ProgramLeslie E. Linfield,
Esq.October 29, 2008Building Assets of People,
Families Communities
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The easiest way for your children to learn about
money is for you not to have any. Katharine
Whitehorn
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There are three parts to a successful financial
literacy education program

• They are
• Quality Financial Education Products
• Qualified and Trained Financial Educators
• Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

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Quality Financial Education Products

• There are over 1,000 financial literacy education
  programs available today for the K-Adult market,
• This does not include the materials that
  organizations produce for their own use.

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Quality Financial Education Products

• What should a quality financial literacy
  education program entail?
• How do you tell a good program from a bad
  program?
• Is this objective or subjective?
• What tools are out there to help you?
• Standards and Benchmarks

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Quality Financial Education Products

• Testing students knowledge based on the content
  of the program will help you determine if the
  program is effective.
• Pre-testing gives you a baseline
• Post-testing will show you knowledge
  transferences
• 10-25 questions
• Multiple choice or true/false is acceptable

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Quality Financial Education Products

• National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance
  Education were created by the Jumptart Coalition
  for Personal Financial Literacy
  (www.jumpstart.org)
• National Standards for Adult Financial Literacy
  Education were created by the Institute for
  Financial Literacy (www.financiallit.org)

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Qualified and Trained Financial Educators

• Do you use paid staff or volunteers?
• Do they receive special training?
• Are they experienced educators?
• Are they required to do ongoing professional
  development?
• What makes a good educator?

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Qualified and Trained Financial Educators

• Professional certification as a financial
  literacy educator
• Ongoing professional development
• Student evaluation of the educator
• Supervisor evaluation of the educator

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Qualified and Trained Financial Educators

• Center for Financial Certifications offers the
  Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF)
• Heartland Institute of Financial Education offers
  the Certified Financial Educator (CFE)

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• However, even with the wide range of measures
  being used, the majority of financial education
  programs are still evaluated using "program
  output" criteria such as the number of program
  participants, number of programs delivered, and
  number of educational materials distributed.
  These measures are not adequate when assessing
  the effectiveness of financial education and can
  often be misleading since they do not capture
  changes in knowledge or financial behavior.
  Effective program evaluations identify whether
  program participants achieve intended learning
  outcomes such as those associated with knowledge,
  skills, and behavior.
• (Are We Making the Grade? A National Overview of
  Financial Education and Program Evaluation? Dr.
  Lyons et al. 2006)

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• Program output bad!
• Number of people attended
• Number of classes per year
• Number of pamphlets handed out
• So what is an effective financial literacy
  program evaluation?

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• You and your funders will want to see several
  things
• Demographics information on your students,
• Students confidence levels about their personal
  finances,
• Students attitudes about their personal finances
  and,
• Students behaviors regarding their personal
  finances.

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• Demographics information will tell you who is
  attending your education session
• Gender
• Age
• Employment Status
• Educational Attainment
• Marital Status
• Veteran Status
• Income Status
• Race

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• Demographics information can help you to better
  define your service population
• Apply for grant programs
• More specifically tailor education programs
• Avoid Program Output reporting

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• Behavioral Economics Based Evaluation
  (confidence, attitude, behavior surveying) will
  allow you to determine if your overall financial
  literacy education program is having an impact by
  looking at the students before and after.
• This is done with pre and post surveying.

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Measuring Confidence

• This measure allows you to see how they feel
  about the questions

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Measuring Attitudes

• This measure allows you to see how they think
  about the questions

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Measuring Behavioral Change

• This measure allows you to see how they intend to
  change or actually did change their behavior

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• Take the results of the pre-testing and
  post-testing to demonstrate students actual
  financial literacy knowledge acquisition
• This helps you to show what the students have
  learned through your program

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Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

• National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE)
  Financial Education Evaluation Online Toolkit
  (www.nefe.org)

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Successful Financial Literacy Education Program

• The three parts needed for an effective financial
  literacy education program are
• Quality Financial Education Products
• Qualified and Trained Financial Educators
• Evaluation Program in Place to Measure Results

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Effective Financial Literacy Education Evaluation
Program

• The three components of an effective evaluation
  program include
• Pre and post testing based on the actual
  education program to show knowledge transferences
• Student supervisor evaluations of the educators
  to ensure qualified instruction
• Pre and post surveying of students to measure
  behavioral changes

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Thank you!

• For any questions, please contact
• Leslie Linfield
• llinfield_at_financiallit.org
• 207-221-3613