Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of newly designed educational materials, adapted from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) Money Smart curriculum, on immigrants’ financial knowledge. This profile focuses on the comparison between the group receiving the targeted financial education curriculum and the group receiving the general financial education curriculum. The authors investigated similar research questions for other contrasts, the profiles can be found here:
- The study was a randomized controlled trial conducted with members of RAND’s American Life Panel (ALP). Eligible adults were randomly assigned to a treatment group where they read general financial education materials (treatment group 1), or to a treatment group where they read financial education materials targeted to immigrants (treatment group 2). Using an online survey, the study authors compared financial literacy knowledge between the groups immediately after seeing the online materials (posttest) and six months later.
- The study found that individuals in treatment group 2 were significantly more likely than treatment group 1 members to answer two immigrant-specific financial knowledge questions correctly at posttest. The study also found that individuals in treatment group 1 were significantly more likely than treatment group 2 members to answer one financial knowledge question correctly at posttest.
- This study receives a high causal evidence rating for immediate posttest outcomes. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the adapted Money Smart curriculum, and not to other factors. This study receives a low evidence rating for six-month outcomes. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects would be attributable to the adapted Money Smart curriculum, other factors are likely to have contributed. However, the study did not find any statistically significant effects at six months post intervention.
Intervention Examined
Adapted FDIC Money Smart Curriculum
Features of the Intervention
The study authors modified the Money Smart curriculum created by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), creating two versions that could be administered online. The first version covered general financial topics such as reasons to keep money in a bank, the different types of financial institutions, savings tips, types of investment options (e.g., stocks, mutual funds), individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and 401(k)s. The second version included the general financial content from version 1 plus information relevant for immigrants. The additional information was presented in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and covered the documents needed to open a bank account, what happens to non-citizens’ retirement accounts if they leave the U.S., and if non-citizens have protection under the FDIC. First (participant was born abroad) and second (at least one of the participant’s parents was born abroad) generation immigrants in RAND’s American Life Panel (ALP) were eligible to participate in the program.
Features of the Study
All ALP panel respondents were invited to take a baseline survey between June and August 2011. The baseline survey served as a pretest and included ten questions to assess participants’ financial knowledge. First- and second-generation immigrants (ages 18 and older) who completed the baseline survey were invited to complete a second survey and participate in the experiment between September 2011 and February 2012. The authors randomized the 370 eligible participants who completed the second survey to one of two treatment groups (treatment 1 or treatment 2) or a control group. There were 135 people in treatment group 1, 118 in treatment group 2, and 117 in the control group.
Treatment group 1 was shown general financial information (version 1), treatment group 2 was shown the same general financial information plus additional information relevant for immigrants (version 2), and the control group was not shown any financial information. The treatment group participants read the financial education materials (version 1 or version 2) and completed the posttest survey, while the control group only completed the posttest survey. Between April and August 2012, study participants were invited to complete the follow-up survey. The follow-up survey included the same ten questions to assess financial knowledge as the pretest and posttest surveys. Of the 370 randomly assigned people, 330 completed the follow-up survey six months later (123 in treatment group 1, 100 in treatment group 2, and 107 in the control group). The authors used statistical tests to compare the outcomes of the treatment and control groups.
Findings
Knowledge and skills for financial decision making
- At posttest, the study found that treatment group 2 participants were significantly more likely than treatment group 1 participants to answer two financial knowledge questions correctly (knowing that an immigrant can have an IRA in the U.S and knowing that an immigrant who withdraws money from a standard IRA will need to pay taxes based on their current country of residence).
- The study also found that treatment group 1 participants were significantly more likely than treatment group 2 participants to answer one financial knowledge question correctly (knowing the Rule of 72 for interest rate calculations).
- However, there were no significant differences in financial knowledge between the groups at the six-month follow-up.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Although the study design was a randomized controlled trial, the study had high attrition at six months post-intervention and was treated as a nonexperimental design for the review of the six-month outcomes. However, the authors did not account for differences in financial knowledge at baseline as required by the protocol.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high for the immediate posttest outcomes because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the adapted Money Smart program, and not to other factors. For the outcomes at six months, the quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because it was based on a randomized controlled trial with high attrition and the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects would be attributable to the adapted Money Smart curriculum, other factors are likely to have contributed. However, the study did not find any statistically significant effects at six months post intervention.