Harnessing Emotional Connections to Improve Financial Decisions : Evaluating the Impact of Financial Education through Mainstream Media
Financial education is important, yet there is a considerable knowledge gap in how best to deliver it. The literature on careful evaluations of financial literacy is small but growing, and has moved away from classroom based interventions to more i...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/04/17810463/harnessing-emotional-connections-improve-financial-decisions-evaluating-impact-financial-education-through-mainstream-media http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22601 |
| Summary: | Financial education is important, yet
there is a considerable knowledge gap in how best to deliver
it. The literature on careful evaluations of financial
literacy is small but growing, and has moved away from
classroom based interventions to more innovative delivery
mechanisms such as videos and DVDs. Yet, the scope and reach
of even the best produced DVDs is limited on the supply
side, and attracting viewership can be significantly
challenging on the demand side. As emotional connections are
established between a show and its audience, the program
provides a potentially powerful platform for communicating
messages and influencing behavior. There is considerable
evidence, especially in the health and education fields, on
the success of media campaigns in improving social behavior.
In this brief the authors evaluate financial education
through a popular television soap opera in South Africa,
scandal. The authors study the effectiveness of these
messages through three quantitative surveys and three
qualitative focus groups, with the former providing insight
on the mechanism of measured impacts. This brief illustrates
the benefits of complementing quantitative analysis with
qualitative work to better understand mechanisms behind
measured impacts. |
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