Measuring islamic financial literacy and discovering its relations with entrepreneurship among university students in Turkey

Abstract

Financial Inclusion is one of the important parts of the financial system that has been the subject of many researches, especially the world bank. Inclusion in the financial system is less in developing and less developed countries than in developed countries. Although there are many reasons for this, one of the important reasons is the low level of financial literacy. Islamic Financial Literacy is a concept that requires knowledge about the Islamic financial system and can contribute positively to financial inclusion. Various researches have been conducted on this concept, which differs from financial literacy in certain aspects. This research has several goals. First, in Turkey it aimed to determine students' reading of Islamic financial literacy levels in various university faculties. Secondly, it is aimed to investigate the relationship between Islamic financial literacy level and financial attitude and behavior. Third, the impact of Islamic financial literacy on the entrepreneurial trend has been predicted. Finally, determining whether the level of Islamic financial literacy differs according to various demographic factors, especially the faculty variable, whether it is taking finance, or Islamic finance courses, is among the sub-objectives of the study. The universe of the research consists of students studying in the third and fourth grades of the faculties of business, engineering and theology at Düzce University. Sampling was done in the research and snowball sampling method was preferred. 513 questionnaire data obtained within the scope of the research were analyzed with SPSS 25 package program. As a result of the research, Islamic Financial Knowledge levels and Islamic Financial literacy were gauged. It was determined that the Islamic Financial Knowledge levels and Literacy were quiet low among students. Accordingly, the results of the study indicated that students taking Islamic finance courses had high Islamic finance literacy. In addition, it was concluded that the Islamic Financial Knowledge Level and the Islamic Financial Literacy Level varied significantly according to the faculty, gender and family income level. Lastly, looking attractiveness did not put a difference on Islamic financial knowledge, it provided a statistically significant relationship between those looking attractive to entrepreneurship and those not looking attractive to entrepreneur with respect to Islamic financial literacy level.