The importance of financial literacy is gaining acceptance worldwide, but it needs to be delivered in the most effective way possible. Education about money should last a lifetime, so optimising how it is taught is essential.

That is why the MAIAward judges gave Panu Kalmi’s academic paper, which explores games-based approaches to financial education, a Runner-up Award for Best Academic Project or Paper!

Panu Kalmi and Jaana Rahko did a quantitative study on using games and gamification to deliver financial education. Their paper, “The effects of game-based financial education: new survey evidence from lower-secondary school students in Finland”, has been published in the Journal of Economic Education, the leading US-based journal for economic education.

Professor Kalmi explains, “We wanted to find out if schools who use game-based economic education had better learning outcomes than schools that don’t.”

They had three partners in the study. The first, Yrityskylä, is a physical learning environment where students can simulate how the economy functions.

The second, Oma Onni, is a web-based gamified learning environment focusing on personal finance.

The third was a mobile personal finance game called Money Flow Challenge.

“We collected data from around 40 lower secondary schools in different parts of Finland to study the effects of these games on learning. The sample consisted of 640 students. We compared schools that used at least one of the games in teaching to those that did not use any,” Kalmi says.

“In a regression framework controlling for several confounding variables, we found that students in schools that used at least one of these games experienced significantly higher improvements in financial knowledge compared to students in schools which did not use games. However, the results on financial behaviours and attitudes were more mixed.”

The study showed that games and gamification have significant potential for teaching financial topics.

However, they found that the effects on self-reported financial behaviours were weaker.

The best results came from Yrityskylä, which takes place in dedicated physical locations. Kalmi says, “The improved outcomes from Yrityskylä suggest that there are gains from organising learning in offline environments, although there might be alternative explanations for these results.”

Although not included in the article, Professor Kalmi and his colleagues explored other aspects while conducting their research.

“We also interviewed teachers and game developers as part of the study and made several proposals that the game developers could use in enhancing their products. The study had both a research and development dimension.”

By examining the delivery mode of financial education, Professor Kalmi found improved methods of teaching people about money using games. The concept of gamification in education is gaining popularity, and there is still much to be explored.

“We wanted to investigate methods relating to active or experiential learning,” Kalmi says. “There has been increased interest in game-based approaches, and they show great promise in the field of economic education.”

Michael Gilmore, the co-founder of MAIA, said, “Financial Literacy can change lives and should be taught in every school. Research into the best ways to deliver this knowledge is essential to spreading this information and ensuring maximum benefit for all.”

If you want to read the paper, it can be found here. For more information, email us at michael@maiawards.org.