Project

Fit for Finance – Encouraging financial literacy in VET programmes

n the wake of current economic and social trends, financial literacy - defined here as the ability to reasonably deal with money and financial matters - has become a key issue, even for learners at VET schools.

Rido / Fotolia

IThe main objective of “Fit for Finance”, a two-year R&D project co-funded by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), is to develop an instructional financial literacy concept that satisfies the requirements and needs of VET schools. This concept should support teachers responsible for general education classes in planning and implementing effective financial literacy lessons.The R&D project is guided by the principle of “improving practices through practices”. The development, testing and evaluation of instructional scenarios will take place in close cooperation with teaching staff. Regular discussions with groups of experts will also enable networking between key stakeholders in the national financial literacy debate and the Swiss VET sector.

Method

In the first phase of the project, the aim will be to assess current implementation of measures to encourage financial literacy at Swiss VET schools. This will be achieved primarily by means of a written questionnaire distributed to general education teachers at 28 VET schools in all three linguistic regions of Switzerland. Information will be gathered to ascertain such things as learning difficulties as well as improvement potential and support needs concerning the promotion of financial literacy. In the second phase of the project, exemplary instructional scenarios to encourage financial literacy among learners will be developed, tested and evaluated. In accordance with a design-based research approach, development activities will be pursued in close cooperation with the teaching staff concerned. Implementation will be documented and assessed by means of targeted observation and videotaping. For the evaluation, various steps will be taken: a test procedure will be used to measure learning effectiveness; learners will be asked to fill out a written questionnaire and take part in interviews which will allow the identification of learning needs and assess learning effectiveness; teaching staff will be asked to keep a logbook of their experiences; finally, project activities will be externally validated by a group of experts. The knowledge gained over the course of the R&D project will then be summarised in the form of guidelines and best practices for teaching staff at VET schools.