Backward Design for Financial Literacy Program Success
Maximize the impact of your financial education program by employing a backwards design planning method and gaining an understanding of your participants before instruction begins.
Backward Design. Backward design is an educational method that has instructors utilizes or develop financial literacy curriculum with the end goal in mind. Ask yourself – What is it that you want the students to know when they graduate the course? Then design a program that is in alignment with those goals.
In order set effective goals, it is critical that you understand your audience and their current capabilities, motivation and mindset. Follow the pre-event measurement tips below to learn how you can understand your audience.
Pre-event measures. Before you ever begin to teach money management lessons to your audience, the NFEC suggests that you perform three measures:
Survey
When planning a financial literacy initiative, obtaining information about participant interests directly from the source can be invaluable. The survey is aimed at learning what participants are looking for and the challenges they’re currently experiencing. Here are some sample questions that can form the basis of a participant survey:
- What financial topics would you be most interested to learn?
- How would you like the information to be delivered?
- What days of the week and times of day do you prefer?
- How far would you be willing to travel to attend a live event?
- What would be the ideal length of the event, course, or program?
- With what knowledge or skills would you like to leave the training?
- Why do you want to learn this information?
- How will the program specifically benefit you?
Pre-Test
The NFEC provides a detailed pre-test which gives you a solid measurement tool to demonstrate the results of your event. Pre-testing is essential to gauge the effectiveness of the coursework. The pre-test serves as your baseline measure across three areas: 1) participant motivation to learn, 2) knowledge of personal finance subject matter, and 3) ability to identify the first steps toward improving one’s financial situation.
The same test is administered after your financial literacy event to tell you how well the program worked. Comparing pre-test to post-test results also helps the program obtain future funding from foundation sponsors.
Consult
The consultation piece can be extremely valuable to inform and design an effective program for optimal results. Involving the actual participants in the planning process ensures maximum buy-in and gives them a sense of ownership. Taking this opportunity to let people know they’re helping create classes for themselves and for future audiences will increase the program’s value and build their self-esteem.
Consulting with the audience not only guides program design, but also gives you personal information about the participants. The more you know in advance about your audience demographics and motivations, the better you can prepare and tailor the materials to meet their specific needs. You can adjust the curriculum and your delivery methods to gain the best bottom-line results.