The Power of Visual Tools and Stories: Improving Financial Literacy through Online Interventions! Annamaria Lusardi, Anya Samak, Arie Kapteyn, Lewis Glinert, Angela Hung, Aileen Heinberg! Behavioral Finance Forum, May 31, 2013
Contribution! Develop 4 self-contained modules to teach risk diversification to consumers! One of Financial Literacy Center s Five Steps for Planning Success! Short, delivered online! Written Narrative! Video! Visual Brochure! Interactive Visual Tool
Module Development Process Build Focus Group Testing Refine Refine Lab Experiment Build VISUAL TOOL Disseminate Evaluate: Real people
The Power of Stories! Established means of creating cognitive involvement and emotional immersion! Have been used in adult education and health literacy! Use in financial literacy more limited, but a natural extension! Hypothesis: Video format more engaging than written narrative
Kate and Sam s Story! Maybe its not even a good idea to invest in a bunch of companies that produce the same products! yeah, so basically, you want the ups and downs to be as unrelated as possible
Value of Visualization! Visualization is the use of computer-supported representation of data to amplify cognition! Increases cognitive resources! Reduces search effort and time cost Encourages exploration of decision space! Increases confidence! Limited use in financial literacy, but natural extension
Self-contained educational module Introduce interpreta(on of the tool Tutorial: Discuss concepts, demonstrate visually Interact: Allow user to explore tool/ make own choices. User gets feedback on quality/riskiness of choices
Goals of Visual Tool (FinVis)! Explain risk profiles of different types of assets! risk/return tradeoff! Teach the impact of different rates of return, different standard deviations and correlations of assets! Explain why it s important to diversify across stocks and across asset classes! Improve confidence in financial portfolio decisions
FinVis Tutorial Diversification
FinVis: Interactive Component
FinVis: Outcome Screen
Evaluation! Evaluate using the American Life Panel (ALP) 892 Respondents Visual Tool Brochure Video Narrative Control Group 5-Question Survey: Financial Knowledge, Confidence, Self-Efficacy
Treatment Effects Control Group Similar information, different approach Same information, different approach Visual Tool Brochure Video Narrative Varied information
Results: Improvement in Difference from Control (Percent Correct) 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 Financial Literacy Video Narrative Brochure Visual Tool In Treatment Treated
3 Main Results! 1. Video significantly improves proportion of correct responses to financial literacy questions! 2. For treated groups, video and visual tool significantly improve proportion of correct responses! 3. Video is better than narrative, and narrative is not different from control! Same information! Makes sense intuitively, since video is more engaging than narrative
Confidence and Self-Efficacy! Confidence: How confident are you that you have a grasp of how risk changes when choosing a different mix of investments? (Very confident not at all confident)! Self-Efficacy: If I need to make an investment decision, I can select a mix of investments that are in line with how much risk I want to take on. (Exactly true.not at all true)
Confidence 0.7 Control is between not very confident and somewhat confident Visual tool and video report very confident Difference in Confidence Levels 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Video Narrative Brochure Visual Tool *5 point Likert Scale
Self-Efficacy I feel confident that 0.35 Control between hardly true and moderately true All treatments between moderately true and exactly true 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 Video Narrative Brochure Visual Tool *4 point scale
Confidence and Self-Efficacy Results! Visual tool and video improve confidence in knowledge (those who viewed the brochure also improve)! All treatments significantly improve self-efficacy! Confidence/self-efficacy correlated with correct responses! But 9%-20% report very confident while making at least one error on the financial literacy questionnaire! This is concentrated among the Visual Tool and Video groups
Discussion! Short, online modules provide a way to reach consumers! Modules that allow for engagement (either vicarious experience video, or mastery experience - tool) are most effective! Technological barriers to reaching population, may change in future! Importantly: online tools are easily scalable (low variable costs)! More work is needed to learn what types of people prefer to use these tools! Dissemination: Currently being used in Personal Finance courses at UW-Madison
Thank you! If you have any questions, e-mail me at: asamak@wisc.edu
Additional Tables - Treatments
Additional Tables - Demographics
Survey Self-Efficacy! If I need to make an investment decision, I can select a mix of investments that are in line with how much risk I want to take on.! Not at all true! Hardly true! Moderately true! Exactly true
Survey Financial Literacy! In general, investments that are riskier tend to provide higher returns over time than investments with less risk.! True! False! Don t know! Which of the following is an accurate statement about investment returns?! Usually, investing $5,000 in shares of a single company is safer than investing $5,000 in a fund which invests in shares of many companies in different industries! Usually, investing $5,000 in shares of a single company is less safe than investing $5,000 in a fund which invests in shares of many companies in different industries! Usually, investing $5,000 in shares of a single company is equally as safe as investing $5,000 in a fund which invests in shares of many companies in different industries.! Don t know
Survey: Financial Literacy! Suppose you are a member of a stock investment club. This year, the club has about $200,000 to invest in stocks and the members prefer not to take a lot of risk. Which of the following strategies would you recommend to your fellow members?! Put all of the money in one stock! Put all of the money in two stocks! Put all of the money in a stock indexed fund that tracks the behavior of 500 large firms in the United States! Don t know
Confidence in Knowledge! How confident are you that you have a grasp of how risk changes when choosing a different mix of investments?! Extremely confident! Very confident! Somewhat confident! Not very confident! Not at all confident