The importance of interactive and practically oriented games in the process of financial literacy teaching at educational institutions

Abstract

This article considers the possibilities of game technologies using for financial literacy teaching in the institutions of general secondary education. The attention is emphasized on the methodology of financial literacy teaching, which is focused on an innovative way of training and optimal implementation of tasks of interactive and practically oriented educational process. It is analyzed a number of scientific pedagogical and educational activities on financial literacy, which were conducted at the Western Ukrainian National University together with teachers of general secondary, vocational and higher education institutions about the trends and prospects of using game technologies in the educational process. The attention emphasizes on the importance of game modeling introducing in the educational institutions, which contributes to the reorientation of acquired knowledge and skills of financial literacy from the external sphere to internal, followed by their effective release during practical application. In this article there is a brief description of the author's board interactive financial games "My first million", "My budget", "Small entrepreneurs", "Payment in the store", "Bank card", "ATM", "Telephone fraud" and their testing at the courses of financial literacy for anti-terrorist operation participants’ children. A questionnaire survey among schoolchildren was conducted after a successful completion of the courses, to assess the level of knowledge of financial literacy basics. It was observed that 63.79% of schoolchildren have the high and sufficient level of knowledge of financial literacy. The insufficient level of knowledge on the issues of skillful management of personal funds, acquisition of savings skills with the least losses and greatest benefits, protection against financial fraud was found in 24.13% of respondents, which requires the further consistent work of teachers with schoolchildren in the formation of financial competencies. This study proved the importance of using of teaching game component as a significant addition to the traditional methods of financial literacy teaching in educational institutions and courses for the formation of financial competencies in schoolchildren.