Improving financial literacy in college of business students : modernizing delivery tools

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and test through an experiment, an innovative online video teaching module that significantly improves financial literacy in college of business students. Specific business major financial literacy levels are also tested. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 244 college of business students were given a financial literacy test. Half of the students were exposed to the “treatment” (watched a video module), while other half were not. The videos comprised 67 min of micro-lectures that students could download, free of charge, at their own convenience. The researchers analyzed the impact of a previous personal finance course on students’ financial literacy levels and tested across four business majors. Findings: The video intervention was the most successful at increasing financial literacy, surprisingly more so than having taken a past personal finance course. Interaction effects were not significant. Four college majors were tested with a shorter, improved financial literacy measure – finding, to our surprise that non-quantitative business majors (particularly marketing students) are not less financially literate than other majors. Supporting past research, the authors found that female and African-American college students performed significantly lower on the test. Originality/value: The research adds value to the literature by developing and testing a modern, novel teaching innovation to improve financial literacy in young adults. Using an experimental setting, the authors showed that the innovation was more effective than the commonly proscribed personal finance course. This is one of the few studies to measure financial literacy levels for specific college of business majors.