THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-FORMAL EDUCATION PROGRAM TO ENHANCE KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING AND SKILLS OF PERSONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FOR MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS
Abstract:
The purposes of this research were to 1) study the stage, problem, and learning needs in personal financial management for middle-aged adults; 2) develop a non-formal education program that will enhance knowledge, understanding and skills of personal financial management for middle-aged adults; 3) study the results and effects of the non-formal education program that will enhance knowledge, understanding and skills of personal financial management for middle-aged adults; and 4) analyze the success factors and obstacles that will affect the use of developed program. This study used quasi-experimental research with one group pretest-posttest design. The interviews were conducted with 6 instructors and experts of personal finance management topics. Self-administered questionnaires were also used with 374 middle-aged NFE students in Bangkok. The data were collected to study the state, problems, and learning needs of middle-aged NFE students and used them to develop a non-formal education program that will enhance knowledge, understanding and skills of personal financial management for middle-aged adults. The non-formal educational program was developed by integrating Gagne’s instruction model and advancing differentiation model by Cash (2011). The developed program was experimented with 25 middle-aged NFE students at Klongtuey NFE School. The experimental results were analyzed from the pretest-posttest scores of program participants and the analysis of various factors related to the NFE program implementation, including supporting factors, obstacles, and problems. The findings of this study were as follows: 1. The majority of the samples had low income with less than 15,000 baht per month. They had no saving and had never recorded their expenditures. Therefore, almost all of them could not analyze their financial problems and they lacked knowledge, understanding and skills in using financial planning tools. In term of learning needs, the topic that the samples wanted to learn the most was sufficient cash management. They rated personal financial planning topic at high level. Also, they wanted learning activities that were in line with their needed contents, especially the sufficient cash management topic more than any others. 2. The developed program contained 11 learning units as follows: 1) introduction, 2) personal household accounting, 3) personal financial disciplinary, 4) personal household budgeting, 5) value-for-the money spending, 6) cash flow statement preparation, 7) financial products: loan, saving, insurance investment, and appropriate financial product selection, 8) personal financial target, 9) personal financial health examination, 10) personal financial planning, and 11) integrative financial planning. The developed program was operated under the ”Jeejud-Chudyongyai-Roajai-Saikunkha” process that comprised 49 hours of in-class activities and 51 hours outside-classroom activities for a total of 100 hours. There were also 4 additional brain-break activities. 3. The experimental results showed that the developed program was able to enhance the knowledge, understanding, and skills in personal financial management for middle-aged adults. Subjects’ posttest scores were significantly higher than the pretest scores at .05 level of significance in all four areas of personal financial management. Experimental group attained learning outcomes in all areas of personal financial management. 4. The factors affecting successful implementation of the developed program consisted of: 1) Valuable experiences of student group; 2) Making differential instruction to respond to learner diversity; 3) Learning activities according to the ”Jeejud-Chudyongyai-Roajai-Saikunkha” process; 4) Brain-break activities that enhance long-term memory; and 5) Supportive learning environment. However, the obstacles of program implementation included: 1) Limitation of students’ mathematical ability; 2) Readiness of students on certain beliefs and their unsupportive attitudes towards some brain-break activities; and 3) Time constraint influencing the leaning outcomes of students.