Got Personal Finance Questions? We’ve Got Answers.
If you’re running a personal finance education program and you’re not fully using tests, you’re wasting one of the most valuable assets a program can generate – data. If you’re asking the wrong personal finance questions, you’re probably getting data that are not as useful as they could be. The right data show you potential weaknesses and guide a program to success. Formal test data also prove the efficacy of a program and show that the students have taken initiative toward important self-improvement. These assets can be used for the advancement of the programs and individual participants.
The Right Personal Finance Questions and Answers Uncover Important Facts
We test students on the level of their financial knowledge from personal finance basics through advanced levels. Standard curriculum includes creating a personal financial system. Upon course completion, we track their implementation in order to determine the ultimate measure of success of any course, the students’ improved financial situation. This is difficult to measure because of natural participant bias, a behavioral phenomenon of students reporting a better financial situation than actually exists for them.
We also measure less obvious potential pitfalls that threaten to undermine students. Financial behaviors take long-term focus to change and they can be challenging to track. Financial sentiment describes a person’s relationship with money and can be multi-faceted and determined through well-worded personal finance questions.
Personal Finance Questions and Answers Maintain Critical Timing in Learning
Webb’s Depth of Knowledge chart tells us that learning takes place one step at a time and can be measured in the personal finance test. The first step is the ability to recall and reproduce the data. Then students learn skills and concepts. Next comes the ability to think strategically and finally they enter the advanced realm of extended thinking. This order must be followed for a strong foundation of understanding. If a course progresses too quickly, students get frustrated. Too slowly and they become bored. Either way, they lose interest if this balance is not monitored and maintained.
Even personal finance multiple choice questions can reveal flaws in this critical timing. Whether you are a personal financial coach or educator, it is important to challenge your learners and clients with questions that push them upward on the Depth of Knowledge scale.
