Game, guide or website for financial education improvement: Evidence from an experiment in Colombian schools

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of a financial education program consisting of three different learning tools, for children (6–18) in Bogota, Colombia, in 2018. This randomized experiment offers the opportunity to examine the impact of those three learning tools (Game, Guide, Website) on students’ financial knowledge and literacy on a sample of 1337 students from four Colombian schools, and four academic grades. We did not find a significant general treatment effect; however, we did find an improvement in treated public school students. Regarding the efficacy of the tools, we found several heterogeneous effects among the types of schools and grades. The type of school (public/private) is relevant in terms of knowledge improvement and still represents a pre-existing condition that leads to differences in children’s performance, but implementing a program can help mitigate these differences. We found that differentiated instruction in the learning process can be effective even if significant pre-existing differences still prevail. This study contributes to creating a framework for the current situation of Colombian children’s financial literacy and serves as insight for future programs.