Improving Debt Literacy by 2/3 Through Four Simple Infographics Requires Numeracy and Not Focusing on Negatives of Debt

Frontiers in Psychology

Robert Porzak¹  Andrzej Cwynar²  Wiktor Cwynar² 

[1] Experimental Psychology Lab, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Economics and Innovation, Lublin, Poland;Institute of Public Administration and Business, University of Economics and Innovation, Lublin, Poland;

关键词: debt education;    visual attention;    numeracy;    graph literacy;    linguistic literacy;    focus on debt positives and negatives;    debt literacy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621312

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Borrowing behavior may be more resistant to formal educational treatments than other financial behaviors. In order to study the process and results of infographics-based debt education, we used eye tracking technology (SMI RED 500 Hz) to monitor the oculomotor behavior of 108 participants (68 females) aged 18 to 60 who were shown 4 infographics. The study used an experimental design with repeated measures and an internal comparison group. We also used scales of debt literacy and a set of information literacy scales: numerical, graph, and linguistic. The results confirm that short-term infographics-based debt education can improve debt literacy significantly. The difference in processing the educational contents that were not known to participants before the educational session suggests that participants with better information literacy make more considerable debt literacy progress. Specifically, we found that numerical literacy is a significant mediator of debt education results, depending on the initial level of debt literacy; this relation is moderated by the focus of visual attention on negatives of debt. We found no significant relationship between debt literacy education results and those of graph and linguistic literacy.

【 授权许可】

CC BY