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Elizabeth J. Tisdell, Edward W. Taylor, and Karin M. SprowPenn State Harrisburg

A Practical Resource for Financial Educators

Toward a Culturally Responsive and Transformative Learning Approach to Financial Literacy Education for Adult Learners in Community-Based Programs:

The full report is available at www.nefe.org/research.

©2011 National Endowment for Financial Education. All rights reserved.

CONTENTSTable of

Author Biographies 3

Acknowledgements 4

I. Introduction 5

II. A Summary of the Study and Its Findings 7

III. What Does It Mean In Practice 9

A. Defining The Terms: Culturally Responsive Transformative Learning for Financial Literacy 10

B. A Model Of Culturally Responsive Transformative Financial Education 11

C. Specific Suggestions for Practice 13 1. Understand and address the complexities of culture 13 2. Engage in a critically reflective practice 14 3. Help learners get in touch with their own beliefs

about money 184. Adapt or develop curriculum to reflect learners’

life circumstances 21 5. Continually develop strategies for evaluation 24 6. Remember that financial behavior change

is a multistage process 27

IV. Conclusion 29

V. References 30

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Author BiographiesDr. Elizabeth J. Tisdell, Professor of Adult Education; Coordinator, Adult Education Doctoral Program, Penn State Harrisburg

Dr. Elizabeth J. Tisdell is professor and the coordinator of the doctoral program in adult education at Penn State Harrisburg. She holds a doctorate in adult education from the University of Georgia (1992) and has performed numerous research studies in regard to dealing with diversity and equity/women’s issues in adult education. Tisdell was the 2008 recipient of the Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship at Penn State Harrisburg, and has received several internal grants from Penn State University related to adult education. Her research publications have appeared in numerous scholarly journals. Tisdell’s research has focused largely on how educators deal with diversity, equity issues, and gender issues in their curriculum and pedagogy in adult education settings, and on how they can draw on multiple forms of knowledge construction in order to create culturally responsive and inclusive adult learning environments in various settings in higher education, medical education, and community-based settings. In this particular research project she has explored these issues in relation to the world of financial education. Dr. Tisdell is the author of the 1995 monograph Creating Inclusive Adult Learning Environments: Insights from Multicultural Education and Feminist Pedagogy, the 2003 book published by Jossey-Bass, Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education, and the co-editor of two adult education source books, Popular Culture, Entertainment Media, and Adult Education in 2007, and Team Teaching and Learning in 2000. She is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, and is currently the co-editor of the journal Adult Education Quarterly.

Dr. Edward W. Taylor, Professor of Adult Education, Penn State Harrisburg

Dr. Edward W. Taylor is professor of adult education at Penn State Harrisburg. He holds a doctorate in adult education from the University of Georgia (1993) and has performed numerous research studies related to adult education, particularly in the area of transformative learning and non-formal adult education settings such as in communities, museums, and environmental settings. Taylor’s research interests fall within three areas of adult education: adult cognition and learning (transformative learning theory), teaching in non-formal settings (such as parks, museums, consumer education sites), and, more recently, in medical education as well as financial literacy education. His research has appeared in book chapters and in the journals Adult Education Quarterly, International Journal of Lifelong Education, The Journal of Museum Education and International Journal of Consumer Studies among other scholarly journals. He recently published two edited books, Transformative Learning in Practice (2009, edited with Jack Mezirow), and an adult education sourcebook, Teaching for Change: Fostering Transformative Learning in the Classroom (in 2006). In addition to his publications, Dr. Taylor has received several internal grants from Penn State University and the Cyril Houle Emerging Scholars Program ($40,000 award) sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. He is also serving as a consulting editor of the Adult Education Quarterly (2006–2011). In addition to this research project on financial literacy educators, Dr. Taylor has also worked on a financial education project dealing with women and financial literacy with Dr. Tahira K. Hira, who also served as a consultant on this project.

Dr. Karin M. Sprow, Project Director, Penn State Harrisburg

Dr. Sprow is the Project Director for the English as a Second Language (ESL) Specialist and Leadership Certificate Program in Teacher Education at Penn State Harrisburg. Her research interests include financial literacy education and critical media literacy, particularly related to diversity and equity issues and transformative learning in adult education. She has completed a research study on financial education and Latino populations. She currently is continuing this research on community and financial education, and is working on research related to the transformative experiences of faculty and ESL teacher/learners in the online learning environment.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank several individuals for their important contributions to this research project and practical resource development.

In regard to the research project itself, special thanks goes to Dr. Auden Thomas, director of the Center Survey Research (CSR) at Penn State Harrisburg, who consulted with us in the overall design of the survey methodology, and worked with her staff at CSR to help develop a survey list of contacts, run the survey online, and develop a preliminary analysis of survey data. Laura Getz developed an initial online list while Tim Servinsky, research associate at CSR, contacted many financial literacy organizations to solicit help in encouraging participation among their constituents. Stephanie Wehnau, assistant director of CSR, helped in the design of the survey itself, oversaw the process of putting it online, and monitored the collection of the online survey data and its initial analysis. Thanks to all at CSR for the help in the survey process.

We would also like to thank two very important consultants on this project. Dr. Neil Boyd of Lycoming College offered his careful consultation on the statistical analyses employed in this study. Dr. Tahira K. Hira, executive assistant to the president and professor of personal finance and consumer economics at Iowa State University, offered her expertise in financial literacy education and research. This research project and the write-up of the final report that also informs this practical resource are much stronger in light of our consultants’ keen analytical skills and their knowledge of statistics as well as financial literacy education and research.

Finally, this study was made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). The respondents to the survey and especially the insights provided by the educators we interviewed offered numerous insights for the development of this practical resource. The authors would like to thank the participants in our study, and thank NEFE for its continuing commitment and dedication to research and education promoting financial literacy.

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I. Introduction “I have them draw a picture with crayons and some paper about their financial situation…

And then we go around the room and we share them and what happens is that people start

talking externally about their financial issues, because now they’re holding up this picture

and they’re talking about the picture rather than pointing at themselves and saying this is the

financial situation that is me, because now it’s on this paper. Whether it’s sad faces or raining

or stormy weather or clouds, it’s transformed the feeling of themselves and taken them outside

and put it on the paper and now they’re all talking about it and they’re sharing it with everyone

else. Every class is just the most amazing pictures and the most amazing stories that people

have of their lives.” —Jerry, financial educator

FINANCIAL LITERACy EDUCATION IS CLEARLy A NEED FOR ADULT LEARNERS. THE QUESTION AT THE FOCUS OF THIS RESOURCE IS “HOW CAN FINANCIAL EDUCATORS GO ABOUT EDUCATING ADULT LEARNERS IN A WAy THAT IS CULTURALLy RESPONSIVE TO WHO THEy ARE AND IS BASED ON TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORy AND PRACTICE?” WE BEGIN WITH BRIEF ExAMPLES (USING PSEUDONyMS) OF A FEW FINANCIAL EDUCATORS WHO WE INTERVIEWED IN A STUDy ExPLORING HOW FINANCIAL EDUCATORS GO ABOUT TRyING TO EDUCATE ADULTS FROM UNDERSERVED POPULATION GROUPS IN COMMUNITy-BASED SETTINGS.

JERRy. Jerry is a financial educator from the Northeast. He describes how he engages his learners at the beginning of the financial education process in a way that he hopes is transformative. The point of his opening drawing activity, described previously, is to help learners create a picture of the reality and emotions related to their financial lives, symbolize it, begin to take it outside of themselves, and use it as a beginning point for discussion and analysis. The learners draw the picture, and then say whatever they want about it to the class. Jerry finds out something about the learners, they begin to connect and interact as a learning group, and he discovers what they need to learn and tailors his class accordingly. At the end of the weeks-long class, they draw a new picture of their financial reality and examine how the picture, and their financial knowledge and financial realities, have changed.

Jerry’s technique is reflective of a culturally responsive and transformative learning approach to financial education and he uses it in a way that is relevant to his particular teaching context. He sees learners regularly over a period of weeks, and so has the luxury of a longer time frame than other financial educators may have. Some financial educators only see their learners once or twice in a financial education seminar, so they need to find other ways of responding to the relevant learning needs in the cultural context of their particular constituency.

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VERA. Vera is a Latina educator from the Midwest. She typically leads financial education seminars or sessions as part of a larger educational or community development program. In a single financial education session, which is part of a leadership summit for primarily Latino and African American young adults, she taps into their experiences as they consider various topics (including the dangers of too much engagement with payday lenders that are disproportionately present in their communities). At other times, she team teaches with bank professionals who partner with her community organization to host financial education seminars with adult learners. In that setting, she acts as a cultural translator, explaining what some of the banking concepts mean for the learners and their community. On still other occasions, she is a guest presenter in classes at the local community college or in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, providing information on basic finance or foreclosure prevention, using examples they can relate to in language the community understands.

GLoRiA. Gloria is an African-American financial planner and educator from the West Coast who holds financial education workshops and seminars in local communities. “I let the culture drive the lesson,” she explains. Given that she works with many different community groups, she goes on to say, “I learn about the community,” and notes, “I don’t have to be Asian to be able to work well in an Asian community. I don’t have to be Latino to work well with a Latino community … I just have to care.”

In the community financial education workshops she runs, she pays attention to who the learners are and who asks the most questions, and then she invites them to be part of a financial education coaching group. This is part of capacity building in the community. “They don’t need some expert coming in, you know, back and forth, telling them what to do,” she says. “They need the capacity in the community. And people who speak the language and understand the emotions and care about the people there in ways that are different from me. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I go home!”

Financial educators have many options for attempting to be culturally responsive and facilitating transformative learning with their adult learners. Culturally responsive education intentionally takes into account the specific cultural background of the learners, including their ethnicity, race, economic class, gender, cultural values, and attitudes in developing curricular materials that represent them. It also makes use of a teaching strategy (or a pedagogy) that engages their cultural values and ways of knowing to create a meaningful learning community. Transformative learning encourages the active involvement of learners in critically reflecting on their assumptions, attitudes, and life experiences as they engage in dialogue and further meaning-making in light of new information and experience.

The financial educators noted here are engaging some strategies of culturally responsive education and transformative learning in ways specific to their teaching and learning context. In this resource, we offer suggestions financial educators might use in practice that are grounded in culturally responsive education and transformative adult learning theory (although all the suggestions need to be adapted for any educator’s specific context). The suggestions are based on our own knowledge and experiences as professors and researchers in adult education, transformative learning, and culturally responsive education, in general, and on the knowledge gained from a research study generously funded by NEFE that explored the techniques and strategies used by financial educators in community-based settings. Before offering specific suggestions for practice, we first include a summary and overview of the study and its findings. Those who are interested in more details of the study should see the complete final report (available from NEFE). The remainder of this document offers guidance regarding what financial educators might do in practice, in the hopes of being culturally responsive to the learners and to facilitate transformative learning.

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Financial education is clearly a need for all adults, and many studies have been conducted about financial education. Few studies, however, have focused on the educational strategies employed by financial educators working with adult learners in community-based programs. Therefore, a research study grounded in adult learning/transformative learning theory and culturally responsive educational theory was conducted that examined how financial literacy educators go about trying to educate adults from underserved population groups in community-based settings. Given that research literature indicates that teaching beliefs shape educators’ practice, the study examined educators’ beliefs about teaching, how they go about choosing or developing curriculum, the particular teaching strategies or pedagogy they use, and the evaluation methods they employ. For the survey, 271 financial educators, approximately 10 percent ethnic minorities, and approximately 70 percent female, completed an online survey exploring these issues. In addition, 15 qualitative interviews were conducted from among those survey participants who indicated the greatest attention to cultural issues and transformative learning approaches; these interviews sought to gather further information in regard to culturally responsive educational strategies.

The findings highlight the fact that individuals’ beliefs and attitudes—and how they teach, learn, and behave about money—are affected by the sociocultural context. With that in mind, the discussion of the findings are organized in light of: the educators’ beliefs about teaching, their attention to curricular issues, their pedagogical practices, and their evaluation strategies.

Educator Beliefs About Teaching A summary of these educators’ beliefs about teaching indicate that they believe: (1) financial education is predominantly about providing understanding of financial issues; (2) learners’ attitudes and behaviors are shaped by sociocultural factors and family legacy; and (3) learners’ beliefs and behaviors about money are affected by emotions, which relate to the larger context of their lives. Of the survey respondents, 95.5 percent—including all the people of color—indicated that they believe it is important to approach teaching by taking into account differences among learners. More than 95 percent believe the primary purpose of financial education is to provide information and help people make informed financial choices. Slightly more than 50 percent indicated that its purpose was also “to help individuals contribute to society” and “to help learners confront financial inequities in their lives and in the community” (interestingly, there was a statistically significant difference in which people of color rated this more highly than white respondents).

While these educators believed that financial literacy education is primarily about helping adult learners understand financial issues in the hopes that they change their financial behaviors, they recognized the significance of sociocultural factors and the family legacy around money, and the emotions around those issues that need to be taken into account in working with learners. The interviewees indicated a strong belief that helping learners deal with their family legacies and emotions around money is crucial to create change in behavior. As one interviewee put it, “Because the dollars are not the legacy. The attitudes are the legacy!”

II. A Summary of the Study and Its Findings

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Educator Use of Financial Education CurriculumA summary of the curricular findings indicate that educators: (1) tailor curricular materials to meet the needs of their learners; and (2) focus primarily on household budgeting, credit and debt reduction, and savings topics in their classrooms. From a statistical perspective, 40.6 percent of these community-based educators made use of a curriculum that is either prepublished for financial education (such as MoneySmart) or developed by their organization. The remaining 59.4 percent indicate that curriculum is developed completely by the instructor or in combination with published curricula. Most thought the curricular materials were more or less reflective of the life circumstances of the learner.

Pedagogy in the Financial Education ClassroomA summary of the findings in regard to the teaching strategies or the pedagogy they use indicate that: (1) educators teach by presenting information through multiple means; (2) they use interactive approaches to teaching; (3) they teach by sharing stories; and (4) their approach to culturally responsive pedagogy involves translating information in a manner appropriate to the culture of the audience.

More specifically, the survey respondents were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of various teaching strategies on a Likert scale of 1 to 5, with one being “least effective” and 5 being “most effective.” Strategies included lecture, small or whole group discussion, drawing on learner experiences, sharing one’s own financial experiences, featuring stories from diverse groups, discussion of community financial issues, and use of cultural art forms. Overall, the items seen as most effective were drawing on learner experiences (Mean=4.22), small or large group discussion (M=4.19), educators sharing their own financial stories (M=3.82), and the use of stories featuring members of diverse groups (M=3.77).

In reference to these findings, it is safe to say these teaching approaches are a product of several factors, including the sociocultural context, the educator’s teaching belief system, and the instrumental or skill-based nature of the financial literacy curriculum. The findings further reveal that teaching financial literacy, like any teaching, has its own challenges, and it is not about simply delivering a curriculum to learners. Instead, the findings demonstrate that these financial educators are finding ways to connect with the learners on a personal level, where the material is relevant and meaningful. Using stories is an important method, for as one educator explained, “Stories stick and people will remember the story.”

Also, some educators incorporate creative ways of engaging learners in a community, so they take greater ownership of their learning as a group. As one educator explained: “I get them to share something that they’re comfortable with, to make the classroom theirs. When they own the process, they open up and want to share stories about what is happening with them.” The learners are then more likely to work together to encourage financial behavior change. In summary, many educators who participated in this survey and those interviewed seem to break out of the curriculum structure in creative ways and involve learners in a number of activities (such as interactive, story sharing, and caring activities) that make the learning experience more engaging.

Evaluating Success in Financial Literacy EducationThe overall findings in regard to evaluation indicate that: (1) program evaluation occurs to some extent through written evaluations and pre- and post-testing; (2) educators evaluate their teaching effectiveness based on verbal or written feedback from the learners; and (3) behavior change in the learners is difficult to track and evaluate, but is valued as evidence of the effectiveness of the programs. The statistics indicate that formal evaluation strategies are somewhat limited: 31.8 percent give pre- and post-tests; 43.4 percent use written or online evaluations immediately after the class is over. Only 9.4 percent do follow-up evaluation more than three months after the program, and 8.2 percent do no evaluation. The real focus of this resource is to offer some suggestions for financial education practice in community based settings that is culturally responsive and might facilitate transformative learning. Further,

III. What Does It Mean In Practice?

we The real focus of this resource is to offer suggestions for financial education in community-based settings that is culturally responsive and might facilitate transformative learning. We hope that these suggestions set the stage for learners to make changes in their financial behavior. But what does it mean to be culturally responsive and what is transformative learning? Here we provide a brief overview of what we mean by these terms, both in theory and practice. Next, we offer a working model of a culturally responsive, transformative approach to financial education, and then offer several practical suggestions for financial educators working with adult learners.

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A. Defining the Terms:Culturally Responsive and Transformative Learning for Financial LiteracyCulturally responsive education attempts to take into consideration the cultural background of the learners and the community-based setting in which one is teaching, so that the curriculum and teaching strategies, or pedagogy, used reflects the life circumstances of the learners and is relevant to their lives. From a curricular standpoint, it is based on the assumption that members of different cultural groups are more likely to be engaged in learning if they can see themselves represented in the stories, examples, and materials used. Pedagogically, it suggests that educators should make use of a wide variety of teaching strategies that draw on the experiences of those in the room in light of the cultural realities of their lives (Gay, 2010; Guy, 1999). For example, in relation to financial realities, culturally responsive educators would recognize the fact that payday lenders are disproportionately present in communities of color and in poorer communities, a point highlighted by Vera, the financial educator introduced earlier. Educator and cultural critic Bell Hooks (2003) suggests that culturally responsive educators invite discussion of these and other communal issues to encourage learners to critically engage about the cultural realities so relevant to their lives. This is part of what she refers to as “engaged pedagogy.” This is not to suggest, however, that the culturally responsive financial educator needs to be an expert on every culture or every issue of interest to a community, as Gloria (another financial educator introduced earlier) notes. Rather, the learners need to be critically engaged in the cultural, personal, and financial realities of their personal and communal lives. It is through such engagement that behavior change is more likely to happen.

Transformative learning similarly emphasizes that adult learners need to be active participants in the learning process. Educationally, transformative learning is based on the idea that learners are challenged to continually assess their value system and worldview to examine what “they have uncritically assimilated from others” (Mezirow, 2000, p. 8), and that they will be changed by doing so. Assisting learners to critically examine their attitudes about money helps them become active and critical agents in their financial lives. The learners have rich life experiences that play a significant role in how they make meaning of financial literacy. Several educators interviewed talked about helping learners look at and analyze where their beliefs and behaviors about money came from—what some referred to as “their money scripts.” As Gloria explained, there isn’t a lot of hope that adults will change their behavior if they do not analyze the source of the behavior, “because the dollars are not the legacy,” she says. “The attitudes are the legacy!” Assisting learners to critically examine their attitudes about money helps them become active and critical agents in their financial lives.

To be sure, increased knowledge about financial information does not necessarily mean that individuals will change their financial behavior. After all, knowing about calories and fat content in food doesn’t equal weight loss! People need to alter their eating patterns and exercise habits in order to actually lose weight. Similarly, knowing about financial matters doesn’t necessarily equate to changes in behavior. Models of behavior change demonstrate that it occurs in stages (e.g., Prochaska, Norcross, & DiClemente, 1995), including the precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation stages, which precede actual behavior change. Often educators are working with adult learners at these earlier stages. Nevertheless, most financial educators probably teach adult learners, not only so they will have more information, but also so they can engage in behaviors that facilitate greater financial well-being. The working model and suggestions for practice offered in the remainder of this document are meant to help educators guide learners at various stages of behavior change. We suggest that each educator alter the model and these suggestions and apply what is most relevant to their teaching context.

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B. A Model for Culturally Responsive Transformative Financial EducationNo recipe exists for how to be a culturally responsive, transformative financial educator, as all good teaching is context dependent. Many educators in this study, however, are using teaching approaches that actively engage learners in the educational process and also attend to the realities of their cultural lives. Many used a variety of educational strategies, including questioning, interactive discussion, hands-on activities, small-group dialogue, and the provision of takeaway items in the form of handouts, or “refrigerator cards,” that serve to anchor learning. Further, some community-based educators, such as Vera and Gloria, include direct discussion of the financial implications of cultural and community issues. Others, like Jerry, make use of art forms, such as having learners draw pictures or write in creative journals, that connect with the overall realities of their lives. Several educators also incorporate activities that help learners examine their deeply held assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors about money. It is the variety of these pedagogical approaches that offers an ideal medium for helping learners engage in transformative learning, and potentially, become active and critical agents in their financial lives and in the lives of their communities. Also, the approaches offer a means of fostering personal growth and change in concert with financial understanding.

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Based on the insights of many educators in this study who were attentive to the cultural lives of learners, and based on our prior research and writing about culturally responsive education (Tisdell, 1995, 2003) and transformative learning (Taylor, 2007, 2009), we have developed a working model of a culturally responsive, transformative financial education pedagogy for community-based programs. The model draws on literature dealing with culture, gender, race, and economic class in culturally responsive education (Gay, 2010; Sheared, Johnson-Bailey, Colin, Peterson, & Brookfield, 2010). It also draws on the principles of transformative learning, which emphasize: individual experience (including the cultural dimension), critical reflection, dialogue, engaging in other ways of knowing, and awareness of context (Taylor, 2009). The model has been adapted from a similar model for higher education settings (Tisdell, 2003), where there are many class meetings. Here, we have adapted the model for community-based financial education settings by drawing on insights from the educators interviewed for the study as well as literature by financial planners and counselors (Klontz, Kahler, & Klontz, 2008) that relates to education. The model includes the following components, and we suggest that educators attend to these elements as much as possible:

a) The authenticity of both the educator and the learners in regard to aspects of their life experience that relate to their financial stories and cultural values.

b) The creation of an environment that allows for the exploration of multiple ways of knowing and learning, such as through:• The cognitive (through curricular materials and discussion of financial ideas)• The affective and relational (through connection with other people, attention to their money scripts,

and exploring how attitudes about money relate to other deeply held values)• The symbolic and cultural imagination (through the occasional use of art forms, such as creative

writing, poetry, art, music, or drama to express ideas and attitudes about money)• The somatic (through exercises such as having people move around the room to demonstrate

movement or the development of understanding, and/or practicing behavior change through role plays or other means)

c) Elements in the curriculum through readings, stories, or financial education exercises that reflect the cultures and life circumstances of the members of the class, and its relevance to the community-based context.

d) Exploration of communal dimensions of financial literacy education.

e) Elements of collaborative work that envisions and presents manifestations of multiple dimensions of learning and strategies for change.

f) Celebration of learning and provision for closure to the class.

g) Recognition of the limitations of any single approach to financial education.

h) Transformation and financial behavior change is an ongoing process that takes time.

While it might not be possible for a financial educator to attend to all these elements, doing so increases the possibility of creating a culturally responsive educational environment that can foster critical reflection and transformative learning. Throughout the remainder of this document, we will discuss some components of the model in greater depth.

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C. Specific Suggestions for PracticeThe findings of the study itself and the working model described previously offer some implications for practice. Here, several are discussed.

Practice Suggestion 1: Understand and address the complexities of culture.Attending to issues related to the sociocultural context of financial education in community-based settings can at first seem very complicated; indeed, as Hays (2001) notes, there are many complexities to culture itself. Oftentimes, people assume that culture simply refers to race or ethnic culture, but race/ethnicity is really only one dimension of culture to bear in mind when considering how to develop culturally responsive, transformative learning strategies in financial education. Hays offers a model that she calls the ADDRESSING framework to analyze how multiple dimensions of culture inform people’s lives. “The ADDRESSING framework offers a system for organizing and addressing these cultural influences and groups in the form of an acronym” (Hays, 2001, p. 5). She defines each letter of the acronym as follows:

A: Age and generational influencesDD: Developmental and acquired Disabilities R: Religion and spiritual orientationE: Ethnicity S: Socioeconomic statusS: Sexual orientation i: indigenous heritageN: National originG: Gender

Hays’ purpose is to help counselors attend to cultural complexity. But financial educators, also, can think about the dimensions of cultural influences in relation to both their own lives and the financial realities of their learners’ lives in the community-based contexts in which they teach. They can use the ADDRESSING framework when thinking about developing stories or activities about financial situations that their learners might relate to. This can help educators focus on the many cultural influences that affect adult learners’ lives, and can also guard against appearing to assume that all members of a cultural group might think the same way or have similar financial issues. Further, as Vitt (2009) notes in her discussion of cultural influences in financial education settings, there are also cultures and subcultures that overlap and intersect. The ADDRESSING framework can help educators think about the complexity of those intersections and the many cultural influences that affect learners’ lives, including their finances.

Financial educators also need to consider other aspects of culture and subculture that are not addressed by the ADDRESSING framework. A financial educator we interviewed named Louise, for example, focused more on the financial issues of those who were from the subculture of the military when considering culture. She described a particular program she teaches for those returning from or getting ready to go out on deployment. For example, she helps those heading for deployment by explaining military “active duty alerts”, which freeze their credit files. This alleviates their concern about protecting their credit histories, which are critical to their security clearances, while away for long periods of time.

The point is that there are many subcultural contexts, like the military or the homeless, that might have unique financial realities to consider that are not necessarily reflected in the ADDRESSING framework. Many complexities of culture and subculture need to be explored, learned about, and considered in dealing with particular communities, so that financial educators can appropriately tailor their teaching to fit the needs of their learners.

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Practice Suggestion 2: Engage in a critically reflective practice.

The findings of our study of financial educators indicate that they hold certain teaching beliefs—for example, about the purpose of financial education, about understanding the sociocultural context, or that people have strong emotions attached to money. These teaching beliefs offer a window into understanding how financial educators make meaning of their teaching experience. Extensive research in the field of teacher education indicates that what teachers believe (about the role of the teacher and learner, nature of knowledge, curriculum, forms of instruction, the meaning of learning, the cultural backgrounds of learners, and the community-based context in which they are teaching, etc.) has a tremendous impact on their behavior in the classroom (Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996; Pratt, 1998; Gay, 2010).

An awareness of beliefs that shape teaching comes from developing a critically reflective practice. A culturally responsive critically reflective practice, a hallmark of fostering transformative learning, develops “when we identify and scrutinize the assumptions that undergird how we work” (Brookfield, 1995, p. xii), including the often-unconscious assumptions we make about race, culture, or gender (Sheared et al., 2010). Critically reflective educators are:

1. More able to articulate a rationale for their actions in the classroom2. More aware of what is happening in the classroom3. More aware of their learners’ learning4. More aware of their teaching and the impact it is having on learning5. More responsive and open to learning new approaches to teaching financial literacy6. More likely to teach in a culturally responsive manner

How might educators develop a critically reflective financial literacy education practice? To be sure, it is a skill that is always under development—an ongoing process that requires time, effort, and a commitment to becoming a better educator. Brookfield (1995) recommends that educators focus on the following four dimensions in developing their critically reflective practice:

• The educator’s own autobiography, as a learner and as a teacher• Learner insights• Colleague insights• The theoretical and practical literature on teaching

He and his colleagues in their more recent work (Sheared et al., 2010) also highlight the importance of considering some of these issues in light of culture, gender, race, and economic class. A discussion of each dimension, along with activities for financial educators, follows.

Develop a Teaching AutobiographyA teaching autobiography involves spending time reflecting on one’s experiences as both a learner and a teacher. This reflection can serve as an important source of insight. So much of our approach to teaching is rooted in how we experienced education as learners. Unlike future doctors and lawyers, who come to their professional training relatively unaware and unskilled about their inevitable responsibilities, future educators already have a well-developed sense of a teacher’s responsibilities and roles in the classroom—from years of sitting in classrooms. Most of our teaching preferences are the result of both positive and negative experiences as learners in those classrooms.

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Of equal significance are our biographies as educators. Regardless of whether we have been teaching for one year or for 15, we have a history in the classroom. Much can be learned by taking time to reflect on formative classroom experiences, identifying patterns of our practice, and exploring what aspects of teaching bring us the greatest joy and angst.

As Palmer (1998) discusses, recognizing the significant insight that can be gained from a teaching/learning autobiography can result in the development of greater courage to take more risks and try teaching techniques that might facilitate greater learning. There are resources available that can assist in this process and can be applied to work more specifically as a financial educator. We recommend the following:

1. Begin a reflective journal in any medium (written, oral, and/or graphic) that encourages you to think about your educational experiences as a learner as well as an educator. Perhaps using the ADDRESSING framework or other relevant issues related to culture, make sure to think about the extent to which issues of culture are explicitly or implicitly expressed.

2. Record the educational experiences as a learner and as a financial literacy educator that you most often talk about with colleagues and friends. These memorable experiences can offer a great deal of insight into your beliefs and assumptions about learning and teaching.

3. Take teaching inventories that offer insight into your practice by identifying your teaching perspectives. A terrific place to start is the Teaching Perspective Inventory at http://www.teachingperspectives.com. This popular inventory for educators who work with adults is designed to help analyze thoughts about teaching in relationship to other educators.

4. Take learning styles inventories. Reflecting on yourself as a learner can also offer much insight into your teaching and your perspectives on learning. Here is a website to start this process: www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory.

5. Take cultural awareness inventories. Developing cultural awareness is a process that takes time. Numerous cultural awareness inventories are available in the literature and online, including this one: www.culturalcompetenceassociates.com/cultural-awareness-inventory.

Consider Learners’ PerspectivesLearners’ perspectives offer ways to see the teaching of financial literacy from the points of view of the learners. Learner feedback provides information and real-time data about what is and is not working in the classroom. The more responsive you are to the learner feedback, the greater the likelihood that feedback will be shared genuinely in the future. Gathering feedback includes a variety of approaches. We recommend the following:

1. Conduct a pre-assessment before a financial literacy workshop begins. Find out background information on the learners, what brings them to the financial literacy workshop or class, their learning and teaching preferences, and what in particular they are interested in learning about financial literacy. Gathering this information in advance has several advantages. It demonstrates to the learners that the educator has an interest in who they are as individuals, is open to different ways of teaching that might better suit their needs, and is making a concerted effort to offer a financial literacy class that is relevant to their needs.

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2. Have students respond regularly to a Critical Incident Questionnaire (Brookfield, 1995), given to students just prior to the end of each class. It consists of five questions, but can clearly be adapted to meet the needs of learners.• At what moment did you feel most engaged with what was happening?• At what moment did you feel most distanced from what was happening?• What action, taken by anyone (teacher and/or student) in class this week, did you find most helpful?• What action taken by anyone (teacher and/or student) in class this week, did you find most confusing?• What about this class surprised you the most? (p. 115).

The questionnaire can be collected and synthesized prior to the beginning of the next class and then shared with the learners. Like any kind of feedback, the financial educator needs to decide what is relevant to the class. However, this most important part of doing the CIQ regularly is that it ensures a responsive teaching practice, alerts the educator to problems in a timely fashion, encourages learners to be reflective, and encourages an appreciation of a diversity of perspectives about an educational experience.

3. Conduct a post-assessment of a financial literacy class or workshop. A post-evaluation is the most typical approach to gathering learner feedback about teaching practices. Although informative, the information is received after the class is over, and there is no opportunity to address any oversight that might be identified by learners.

Dialogue with ColleaguesAnother source of learning about financial literacy education practice comes from talking with colleagues who are engaged in similar work. As you make note of classroom experiences in your teaching journal, make a point to regularly talk with fellow educators about how they might have handled similar experiences. Additionally, it isn’t necessary to limit yourself to talking only with the colleagues with whom you work.

Network at Conferences and online. Make a point to annually attend financial literacy conferences or other related events, so you have an opportunity to meet and network with other financial literacy educators and expose yourself to different teaching approaches (Brookfield, 1995). The educators you connect with will become an invaluable resource for gaining future insights and handling challenges you may face in your classroom. In order to better attend to issues related to culturally responsive education, make sure to network with colleagues of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and those who are different from you. Another way to network is to engage in online discussions of financial literacy on blogs such as:

• www.annalusardi.blogspot.com• www.financialliteracymonth.com/blog/default• www.finlit.blogspot.com

Teaching observations. If possible, ask to sit in on a colleague’s class, someone who learners describe as a terrific educator. Much can be learned from observing how other educators work with learners and manage a classroom. As you gain confidence, ask a colleague or two to observe your teaching and provide feedback.

Teacher Study Groups. Form or join an educators’ study group. These are typically informal meetings involving a group of educators who come together on a regular basis to discuss the challenges they face in their classrooms. Study groups also serve as a place to celebrate successes and seek solace in difficult times. Most importantly, these groups are places to discuss different perspectives on teaching financial literacy and ways that you can better improve your practice.

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Read TheoryA final area to explore that can help you better understand your practice of teaching financial literacy is reading and discussing theoretical literature about teaching and learning (Brookfield, 1995). Reading educational theory has many benefits, including:

1. Theory can help us “name” what we are doing in the classroom. For example, if we prefer to allow learners some input in the classroom agenda, this is indicative of a learner-centered approach to teaching. By naming an approach, we can explore other literature about it and learn additional insights that could be used in teaching, in general, and in teaching financial literacy specifically.

2. Theory can explain why some teaching approaches are not working in our practice. For example, adults under financial duress returning to a classroom after many years are likely to be experiencing a great deal of anxiety. In exploring this issue in the theoretical literature, educators find that this behavior is fairly typical among adult learners, and there are things educators can do to provide a safe and respectful learning environment, lessen the anxiety, and help learners be more open to learning. Further, if you are teaching in a culturally diverse setting, reading theory about cultural issues in teaching can provide further guidance in practice.

3. Theory can potentially cause you to question what seems obvious and might encourage us to participate in critical self-reflection about our teaching. Theory can cause us to think about our practice differently, especially if we approach theory with an open mind. Many educators have never really thought about cultural issues in learning, so theory can offer a new window in this regard. Also, many educators believe that covering the content should take precedence in a financial literacy class. However, theory shows that if time is taken to get to know learners on a more personal basis, they are more receptive to learning.

4. Theory reminds us of the larger picture of teaching and education. Teaching is not simply a series of techniques, strategies, and activities. Teaching is a social activity involving a teacher; learners; a setting within a building, community, and the world; a curriculum; as well as the larger institutional mission. These social factors all play a role in shaping what happens in classroom. Merely trying new techniques or teaching strategies is likely to have little impact without understanding how they fit in relationship to the larger objectives of the financial literacy program, your teaching approach, and the needs of the learners.

The reference list at the end of this resource provides many books and articles that deal with educational theory, culturally responsive education, and transformative learning theory for further learning.

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Practice Suggestion 3:

Help learners get in touch with their own beliefs about money. Just as educators have many beliefs about teaching that affect their teaching, learners have conscious and unconscious beliefs and attitudes about money. As highlighted earlier, several educators we interviewed emphasized the importance of helping learners get in touch with their beliefs and attitudes about money; these beliefs are very often rooted in their families as well as in their cultural values. The point is that people are unlikely to be able to change their financial behavior if they aren’t in touch with the attitudes and money scripts that affect those behaviors. Indeed, this is not a new idea, and many in the financial world have discussed the significance of helping people get in touch with their money script as a step toward changing their behavior. Klontz, Kahler, and Klontz (2008), in their book for financial planners and counselors, Facilitating Financial Health, offer some specific exercises to do so.

The Connection of Money Attitudes to Values and EmotionsAs Vitt (2009) observes, it is important to recognize that people’s values about money are often connected to other cherished values that may come from their family, culture of origin, religious institutions, secular and spiritual teachers, the media, and popular culture. This is why, as some of our interviewees suggested, there are emotions and attachment to values wrapped up with people’s attitudes about money that need to be considered in the educational process itself. While many educators tend to avoid emotions in favor of delivering content when teaching, as Dirkx (2008) notes, emotions are actually an important part of the learning process and are not antithetical to cognitive processes.

The teaching beliefs shared by the financial educators in our study indicate that recognition of the emotions associated with money can have an effect on their learners’ financial attitudes and behaviors and, therefore, can have significant implications for financial education. It implies learning about financial literacy is not an exclusively rational process (analyze-think-change). Instead, it is more likely a see-feel-change process, which is consistent with a transformative and culturally responsive approach to teaching (Taylor, 2009). People tend to remember what they have the most emotion attached to; thus, financial educators might consider ways they can recognize the (sometimes strong) emotions attached to financial issues and unite them with ways of processing new information. Recognizing these connections and providing a way for learners to identify and acknowledge them is a form of culturally responsive financial education and may pave the way for transformative learning.

A way to engage beliefs and emotions surrounding money when teaching financial literacy is through the use of “other ways of knowing” which emphasize a practice of fostering transformative learning and culturally responsive education. Other ways of knowing emphasize a whole person educational approach in which the learner is seen as: “an affective, intuitive, thinking, physical, spiritual self” (yorks & Kasl, 2006, p. 46). Examples in teaching include the arts, theater (Butterwick & Lawrence, 2009), fiction (Jarvis,1999), and cultural autobiographies (Brown, 2006). A more holistic teaching approach such as this provides the opportunity to tap into the emotive nature of finances in constructive ways.

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Ways of Examining Beliefs and Values about MoneyAs Klontz et al. (2008) note, one must be able to “understand the unconscious beliefs…to change those that are detrimental to one’s financial health” (p. xiv). Therefore, educators can find it beneficial to address both “the ‘interior’ aspect of money” and “the ‘exterior’ aspect of finances,” such as “accounting, investments, money management, and financial planning” (p. xiv). Financial educators in the study find a variety of methods to help learners take the time to pay attention to their beliefs, reflect upon them, and then possibly to reevaluate their belief systems and habits surrounding their financial management, all of which can promote culturally responsive transformative learning. Following are some of the methods they find useful in their practice as financial educators.

Use Hypothetical Situations. Ask learners to think about what they would do or not do in a variety of situations, along with an explanation of why they would take that action. Follow the question with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each choice. This kind of reflective learning encourages learners to think about their actions ahead of time, think about them as they take place, and reflect upon their actions later (Jarvis, 2000). Educators can use questions such as the following, adding contextual features that might assist the learners in personalizing the reflections and prompt them to plan and reflect upon future actions:

• What would you do?• What should you do? • What shouldn’t you do?• Why would you make that choice?• What would be the best choice?

This type of activity is in line with the “pro-con technique” used by Klontz et al. (2008). Like the hypothetical situations, the pro-con technique requires learners to consider all sides of financial choices and encourages reflective learning.

Tell Stories. Use your own stories and encourage learners to tell stories of their experiences with money when possible. These financial stories are often personal and deeply relevant to the learner’s everyday financial lives. Stories are a way of promoting the authenticity of both the teacher and the learner (as highlighted in the model discussed earlier) and they can also facilitate deeper engagement. Stories are a byproduct of the basic medium of transformative learning, that of engaging individual experience. This process of sharing and learning from one another can help learners feel comfortable with their own mistakes with money by recognizing that others have made the same kinds of mistakes. (It’s important to respect learners’ needs for privacy and make sure they don’t feel forced to share information they believe to be too personal.) Many learners, however, are eager to talk about their own experiences. In the financial education classroom, often “one story spontaneously sparks another, unexpectedly leading…into previously unexplored territory” (Tyler, 2010, p. 4). This process values learners and their experiences and allows them to learn from one another. Telling stories and narrating personal experiences encourages learners to reflect upon their own behavior and creates dialogue in the classroom, which “can deepen the experience of engaged tellers and listeners, and produce outcomes that matter” (Tyler, 2010, p. 3). These outcomes can be of the type that financial educators would like to see in their learners, including behavior change or an increase in reflection on financial management.

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Tyler suggests multiple ways of incorporating storytelling into a classroom:

1. Storytelling can happen on its own, but having educators model storytelling behavior “from the heart” (p. 10) for the learners can help this reflective process to begin.

2. Prompts can assist in getting stories started in the classroom setting, including questions such as, “What is the best/worst/riskiest/safest financial decision you ever made?” or “When was the last time you spent more than $100 on one item? What was it?”

3. Klontz et al. (2008) suggest that using phrases like “tell me more,” when a learner talks about a small piece of a story that might lead to more insight. This can be especially useful to probe learners’ beliefs about money, when they use words or phrases surrounding money management such as “take care of,” “help,” or “stay on top of” (p. 46).

In these ways, the financial educator can utilize stories to assess the learners’ knowledge and experience, gain understanding of their beliefs around money, utilize other learner experiences to inspire further discussion, and help create an atmosphere of collaborative and reflective learning.

Use Art for Expression. Use drawings, symbols, objects, or other creative endeavors, such as taking photos or writing poetry, to help learners express their beliefs and feelings about money, their financial situations, their hopes for the future related to money, or any aspect of learning about financial management that is sometimes difficult to verbalize. Butterwick and Lawrence (2009) believe that “the arts are a way to communicate our stories in ways that connect with others” (p. 35), a view that is consistent with this idea of using art, in its infinite variety of expression, to enhance and encourage learning. Creating art can be a way to access our stories more freely, allowing us to find insights into our own beliefs that would otherwise remain hidden. As discussed at the beginning of this document, Jerry uses crayon-and-paper drawings showing his learners’ feelings about money as a starting point for a series of classes. Then, he asks his learners to share and explain their pictures in the class. This reflective process helps the learners reflect upon their beliefs and feelings about money, something we do not usually think about, even though we use money nearly every day. Additionally, this process helps learners interact with one another and see that they are not alone in their feelings about money. It also gives the educator a window into the beliefs of the learners. Jerry ends his series of classes with another drawing on the same topic, inevitably seeing more positive feelings and images about money at the end of the program, a valuable source of feedback for him.

Klontz et al. (2008) also suggest having learners use pictures as a “visual analogy,” to help learners “gain clarity” about their “most salient concerns” (p. 47). Additionally, as stated previously, this artistic expression can assist the educator in gathering information about the needs of the learner. Financial educators might find that asking learners to show how they think and feel about money, as opposed to talking about it, can reveal more depth and opportunity for learning than more traditional methods

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Practice Suggestion 4: Adapt or develop curriculum to reflect learners’ life circumstances. Educators can find it beneficial to either choose or develop curricula, class topics, and materials that reflect the life circumstances of the learners. As stated in previous sections of this resource, there are many available published curricula being used daily in financial education classrooms. These published resources give financial educators a starting place for developing or adapting their curriculum. Some educators use published curricula without adaptation, some adapt them to fit the needs of their learners, and some create their own materials entirely. Making the curriculum and class materials reflective of the learner’s life circumstances, and accessible to them by reflecting their lives, has the potential to assist them in making financial changes. When the curriculum speaks directly to their lives, the learners are able to readily apply what they are learning to their lives (for example, in tracking spending, making and maintaining a household budget, or long-term goal setting). In addition, some educators indicated in their survey responses that they do address community financial issues—that cannot be fully addressed in a published curriculum—as part of their financial education classes. This is why most published curricula need to be adapted to some degree as a way of being culturally responsive to the community.

Reflect the Learners’ Lives in the ClassroomKnowledge of the learners’ background and experiences can greatly enhance the teaching and learning that takes place in the financial literacy classroom. There are sociocultural factors, larger societal factors, influences from family and friends, employment factors, and a multitude of other factors that impact the lives and choices learners make regarding money and money management. With this knowledge in hand, educators can make the financial literacy education more relevant to the lives of the learners, and therefore, improve the chances that their learners make changes to improve their financial management.

One way to make the classes more relevant for learners is to ensure that the curriculum reflects their life circumstances. As noted in the findings and discussion of the study, published curricula often cover financial topics thoroughly and clearly, but is general in nature, not reflecting the specific needs of a group of learners. For example, an exercise in a chapter of a popular published curriculum workbook asks learners to work with the possibilities of investing $10,000. While this exercise may appeal to some individuals of middle and higher income, many learners in financial literacy education programs are of lower income and are unlikely to fathom having $10,000 around for investment purposes. Thus, this curriculum, while useful in many ways, would not reflect accurately the life circumstances of many learners in a class of lower-income individuals. Suggestions for adapting and using curricula that reflect the learners’ lives follow.

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Reflect Learners’ Experiences. As noted in previous sections, using stories about the experiences of other learners can be a valuable resource for learning. Encourage learners to share their experiences, both positive and negative, in ways that enhance the content of the curriculum. Individual experience is the starting point for group dialogue that encourages critical reflection on a learner’s assumptions and beliefs about money. This is particularly useful in bringing out sociocultural influences on beliefs and behavior, as well as in valuing their experiences and knowledge in ways that are not often common in curricula. This kind of “authentic storytelling requires considerable planning on the front-end, trust and candor on the part of the tellers and listeners, and thoughtful facilitation of the reflective dialogue and relationships it is capable of generating” (Tyler, 2009, p. 139). Perhaps there are skills and tips from specific communities that only learners who live there can share. Perhaps they have family experiences, which are reflective of their backgrounds, that resonate with other learners in ways that a generic curriculum could not do. “One beauty of this authentic storytelling that has its genesis in the teller’s interpretation of his experience lies exactly in its potential for fostering learning, shifting meaning perspectives, and establishing shared understanding or even values” (Tyler, 2009, p. 139). Again, eliciting information in this way assists both the learners and educators in gathering necessary knowledge.

Personal storytelling, however, may be too threatening to learners at some times. Sophie, an educator we interviewed who sometimes works with homeless women, noted that this is often the case in her work in homeless shelters. To help learners connect with the material, she uses a relatable invented character rather than having them share personal stories. She explains it this way:

We called her Suzy and we just invented all these things, like Suzy has this much income, Suzy pays this much for rent, Suzy pays this much for public transportation, Suzy pays for a cellphone. What kind of resources might Suzy have? And then we got into other things like Suzy just got approved for disability and now her income is this. She will have this much and this much. Now her ex-boyfriend heard she has income and he decides to show up again in her life. What do you think Suzy is going to do? How do you think she might handle this? Suzy feels she is going to make mistakes now that she has money. So we just…it was fabulous…It really worked and I am planning to write a curriculum that would be aimed towards homeless women.

In this or similar instances where learners are too vulnerable or uncomfortable to share aspects of their own story, it might be more appropriate to make use of a story, case study, or character that learners would relate to.

Finally, it is very important that learners see themselves represented culturally in the curriculum and pedagogy. As many contributors to a recent handbook on race and culture in adult education (Sheared et al., 2010) note, often learners of color are not represented in the curriculum, and their cultural realities and life experiences are neglected in educational processes and activities. Further, many contributors highlight the ways education can be transformative when their life experiences and cultural and communal lives are represented and valued. Thus, it behooves financial educators to think about these issues in reflecting learners experiences.

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Reflect Learners’ Knowledge. Use pre-assessment tools to measure the knowledge and skills that learners possess prior to (or at the outset of) a new class, as discussed in earlier sections. This allows the educator to see what financial skills and knowledge the learners already possess as well as what the learners still need for better personal financial management. For example, if learners are already saving money, then it might be possible to skip the savings part of the curriculum, and move onto another topic that is more beneficial. If learners demonstrate a lack of knowledge about credit scores, then adapting the curriculum to fit these needs can help enhance the utility of the classes. Pre-assessment knowledge can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the needs of the program or educator:

1. Use a written pre-assessment or intake form that lists the key pieces of information. The form might look similar to a budget and include housing, expenses, savings, debt, collections, and investments. The form could also be filled with open-ended questions about the learners’ financial situations, which encourages learners to respond with more information than short-answer questions (Klontz et al., 2008). This information would allow the educator to focus on the evident needs of the learners. For example, if the majority of learners in the group have high debt or little to no savings, the educator might choose to focus on those topics during the class.

2. The pre-assessment could also take shape as a pretest, which would assess the knowledge of the learners and give the educator information about what information the learners already possess. Then, educators could conveniently use a post-test, perhaps the same test, to reassess this knowledge following the class and inform the educator about areas that need improvement.

3. Another method of pre-assessment, which has proven successful for financial counselors and could be useful for educators with low numbers of learners, is an interview process. In this situation, the learners would meet individually with the educator to discuss their individual needs and desires about which topics they are interested in learning. The educator would also, then, have in-depth knowledge about the learners’ “circumstances, values, beliefs and needs” (Klontz et al. 2008, p. 25), and be able to fit their classes or workshops to those needs.

Reflect Learners’ Languages. Use translators and localized materials as needed whenever possible. For educators who have a large population of immigrant learners, this issue can make for a challenging teaching and learning situation in the financial education classroom. Learners who do not speak English can struggle to understand the content without additional help in their own languages. The educators in the study have found that learners can benefit from bringing family members or friends who can translate the content if translators are not available from the financial education program.

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Practice Suggestion 5:

Continually develop strategies for evaluation.

Financial literacy programs need a better means of evaluation (and some assessment techniques have been addressed previously in this resource). The findings of our study of financial educators reveal that most educators predominantly use informal methods to evaluate their success in the classroom, such as verbal and written feedback from the learners, success of the learners on tests, and interaction among learners themselves. In addition, many educators indicated networking with colleagues as a source of improvement. In the qualitative portion of the study, some educators spoke of using pre- and post-testing of financial knowledge of learners (while helpful, this does not offer much insight on teaching and its relationship to learning).

When planning for evaluation, it is important to consider its role before the educational endeavor begins. Evaluation is not something to think about when the program is complete (Caffarella, 2002; Cervero, 1984). Planning for evaluation at the beginning of a financial education class ensures that the proper data will be collected in response to areas of the program to be evaluated. Also, it increases the likelihood of being able to draw conclusions about particular teaching strategies and the impact they have on learning. Questions for educators, program planners, and administrators to consider when exploring the evaluation of their financial literacy program include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. What is the purpose of evaluating this particular program?2. Who needs the information?3. What practical issues (such as cost and accessibility) and ethical issues need to be considered?4. What resources are available to carry out the evaluation?

Evaluation of an educational program can be separated into two areas: implementation and outcome. Each area provides a framework for evaluation with possible activities for financial educators to consider as they begin to plan the evaluation of their teaching and of the financial literacy program.

implementationImplementation of an evaluation of a financial literacy program should ideally focus on four areas: pre-assessment, design, participation, and satisfaction of the program objectives and of the program participants. Data from an evaluation can involve a variety of sources, including testing, requesting written and oral feedback from learners, observing classroom behavior, and keeping track of attendance. It might not be necessary to implement every stage of the program discussed here since the needs of each program are different with respect to the resources, time, and support dedicated to evaluation procedures. A discussion of each area of evaluation follows.

Pre-assessment. As previously discussed, evaluation that focuses on pre-assessment is concerned with what learners know about financial literacy at the onset of the financial literacy program. Pre-assessment involves establishing a baseline of the participants’ financial knowledge. It is important to note that a pre-assessment should remind financial educators of the importance of getting to know their participants, establishing trusting relationships, and helping create a supportive and safe learning environment, all part of a culturally responsive, transformative learning pedagogy.

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Design. Evaluation of the program design brings attention to how the financial program is being delivered, and its various activities, curriculum, and teaching strategies. Often, feedback about the design is collected at the end of the program. However, the disadvantage of waiting until the end, however, is that there is no opportunity to address a concern while the program is unfolding. As mentioned earlier, Brookfield (1995) offers the use of a brief critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) that learners can fill out at the end of each class session to fill this gap. In addition to making use of the CIQ, financial educators can continually observe what is happening in the classroom, recording learners’ reactions to different teaching activities in their teaching as well as recording their overall impression of how the class is going.

Participation. A third area of the implementation phase is concerned with participation, which involves keeping track of how many people attend, the degree of attrition, and their level of engagement as the program unfolds. Collecting this data can involve keeping attendance records on a regular basis, watching closely how participants are responding to what is being taught, the degree they work with you and other learners, and their level of interest in the program content. Taking time to elicit feedback from participants informally throughout a class discussion or, more formally, by passing out a brief evaluation can reveal information that can be acted upon immediately.

Satisfaction. Evaluating learner satisfaction in a financial literacy program is the predominant form of evaluation most educators use. It is often administered at the end of the program with the intent of gathering feedback regarding how much the participants found the class enjoyable and helpful in relationship to their needs. Although somewhat informative, post-satisfaction evaluations often do not reveal much about teaching effectiveness, unless the evaluation includes questions about specific teaching strategies (for example, lectures, small group activities, and class discussion). Also, as previously mentioned, the educator can only respond to feedback concerning satisfaction in the next class (and that feedback may not reflect the interests of a new group of learners). The challenge for financial educators is to find ways to explore program satisfaction throughout the program by using, for example, the CIQ (Brookfield, 1995), observing learner engagement, and talking informally with participants when the opportunity allows for it.

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outcomesIn the outcome phase of evaluating teaching and the impact of the program itself, there are three areas to consider: (a) the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the learners; (b) the application of financial knowledge; and (c) the long- and short-term impact of the classes.

Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. This area of evaluation focuses on learner change in the level of knowledge and the acquisition of skills and attitudes about personal financial management. The most typical form of outcome assessment, used by some of the educators in our study, was a formal test of financial literacy knowledge and skills. The test, on topics such as budgeting or setting up a checking account, was often administered during the last session of a financial literacy class. Attitudes also can be easily measured. For example, it is possible to explore how confident learners are feeling towards managing their money, how committed they are to choosing between needs and wants, and how motivated they are to improve their financial situation. It is important to keep in mind that the evaluation should be consistent with the overall objectives of the financial literacy class, and it must be recognized that knowing the financial information and skills presented in the class does not guarantee they will be applied by the learners.

Application of the Content. This phase of evaluation determines the degree to which the learners are applying what they learned in their everyday lives. It involves assessing what skills they are applying and how well they are applying them, as well as the learners’ attitudes towards managing their money since they completed the financial literacy program. The application phase is a time to explore what learners found to be the most and least helpful about the financial literacy class since it ended. This phase is very important, but difficult to implement because it requires follow-up with learners after completion of the program. For example, follow-up might occur one month, three months, or possibly even one year later. Most educators and financial literacy programs do not have the resources to conduct follow-up evaluations with their former learners, although educators in the study expressed a desire to do so.

impact. The final evaluation is of the impact of the financial literacy program on the lives of the participants—for example, exploring how and if the learners’ financial lives have improved, if they have less debt, or if credit scores have improved. Like the application phase of evaluation, it is very challenging to collect this information, particularly with limited resources. One caveat regarding this type of evaluation is understanding that improvements in financial management might be attributable to other factors in the learners’ lives.

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Practice Suggestion 6: Remember that financial behavior change is a multistage process.

It is important for financial educators to remember that changing any behavior, including financial behavior, takes time. As mentioned earlier, it is typically a multistage process. In the wider financial counseling literature that discusses change, some is grounded in the transtheoretical behavioral change model and draws on the work of Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente (1995), who discuss the stages of behavior change. These stages include the precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation stages that precede behavior change itself, and then the stages of actual action and maintenance of the new behavior. While the demarcation lines between stages are difficult to pinpoint, here we offer a brief overview of the stages and what they might suggest for educating learners in the financial education classroom to move them along the stages of behavior change.

Educating at the Precontemplation StageThe precontemplation stage is when learners do not intend to change their behavior any time soon—perhaps because they have not acknowledged any difficulty. Although many learners have chosen to attend financial education classes and are therefore past this stage, some learners are required to attend due to their participation in another program (for example, homeownership or savings programs). Learners like these can potentially respond to motivating factors such as the security that can be obtained through better financial management. Demonstration of positive outcomes might move them from the precontemplation to contemplation stage of behavior change.

Educating to the Contemplation StageAt the contemplation stage, learners are beginning to consider changing their personal financial management habits in the near future. An example of this is an individual who wants to purchase a home, but can’t get a loan because her or his credit score is too low. Individuals at this stage are often unsure about change and what it might involve, but they are beginning to recognize the need for change. Again, as in the first stage, presenting learners with possible positive outcomes of their behavior change can be a motivating factor to move them along in the change process. These learners might also benefit from listing their long- and short-term goals, thereby visualizing or considering how they want their lives to develop.

Educating to the Preparation StageThe next stage is the preparation stage, during which learners decide they need to change and begin to address their financial management issues. They “move from gathering information about the problem to gathering information about appropriate actions they might take to solve it” (Klontz, Kahler, & Klontz, 2008, p. 39). For example, the individual trying to purchase a home would, in the preparation stage, begin to explore ways to improve his or her credit score. Educators likely have many learners in the preparation stage in their classroom. An effective means of helping them is assessing their financial struggles, finding out what information they require, and offering resources to address their financial concerns. It is imperative to provide positive support and encouragement, as well as an opportunity to talk with other learners who are experiencing similar financial challenges. Educators in community-based settings might also explore community financial issues, and how, as a group, they might begin to further address them. In addition, encouraging the learners to work in small groups can be effective, so they can support each other, come up with specific ways to change behavior, and encourage accountability among each other in facilitating change. In multi-session settings, the educator and learners together can establish a reward system for those who follow through on a behavior change for the following week. These kinds of activities can help move people from preparation to actual change.

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Educating at the Action StageFollowing the preparation stage is the action stage, during which learners begin to demonstrate real change. Individuals at this stage are taking steps to make improvements in their financial management. For example, learners might have set up a system to pay all of their bills on time and are working to pay off bills that are beyond their due date. During this stage, it is important for educators to recognize and acknowledge the changes the learners are making, compliment their progress, and provide opportunities for learners to share their accomplishments with their peers.

The Maintenance and Termination StagesThe next stage is the maintenance stage, at which learners are making their new financial behaviors a part of their everyday lives. Most educators are not likely to see learners in the maintenance stage, since they would already be paying bills on time and making definitive progress in their financial management. For financial educators, as discussed earlier, if they have the time and resources, following up on learners’ progress is important. It provides an opportunity to gather feedback about the financial literacy program, how learners are progressing, and the overall impact of the program. In addition, sharing stories of past learners’ successes with new learners is a powerful tool in giving others hope in meeting their financial goals.

The last stage is the termination stage, during which individuals demonstrate little interest or desire to regress back to their old, less-productive behaviors. “They have integrated a healthier self-image and made healthier financial habits a part of their lifestyle” (Klontz, Kahler, & Klontz, 2008, p. 40). Individuals at this stage can be ideal guest speakers in financial education classes. If the opportunity allows for it, inviting a successful individual to come back to a class and speak can be a positive experience for both the learners and the former learner. As every financial educator knows, learners love to hear success stories from those who once were in a similar financial situation. It gives learners at earlier stages hope and inspiration, which can help them proceed through the stages themselves. And, it further increases more advanced learners’ self-esteem to share their success story. This way everyone benefits!

In summary, recognizing the stages of behavior change can help educators teach in ways that are most beneficial to the learners. This also helps educators include incentives and motivating pieces of information that, in turn, help the learners find success in their personal financial management. Educators must realize, however, that the process is not necessarily linear; it can include backward movement into previous stages. These movements are part of the process of learning and changing, and should not necessarily be seen as failure on the part of the learner or the educator. Forward movement is still possible, at any stage. And employing the many strategies discussed throughout this resource (in a way that engages learners) is likely to help them get back on track, particularly if it takes into account the relationship of financial issues to their attitudes, values, and cultural and communal lives.

IV. ConclusionWe learned a great deal about the nature of financial literacy education in community-based programs from conducting the study, particularly from the perspective of the educators who do this work, that informed the suggestions for practice discussed in this document. In this resource, we offer suggestions for practice that we hope financial educators will find useful. Some 30 years ago, educational writer Parker Palmer (1981) noted that we don’t think our way into a new kind of living; rather we more typically live our way into a new kind of thinking. We hope that making use of at least some of the strategies discussed in this document will help financial educators live their way into a new kind of thinking about the possibilities of a culturally responsive and transformative approach to financial education. Indeed, we hope that it will foster transformative learning and behavior change along with new financial hope for the adult learners with whom they work.

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