Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of a financial education program on financial behaviors.
- The study used a nonexperimental design to compare outcomes of soldiers who participated in the U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training to soldiers who did not. Using surveys, the authors conducted statistical tests to compare the outcomes between the groups.
- The study found that participation in the financial education program was significantly related to positive retirement savings and money management behaviors, except formal budgeting.
- The study receives a low evidence rating. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training
Features of the Intervention
The U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training was a two-day financial education course taught by San Diego City College employees. The two-day training included the following lessons: financial ethics; leave and earnings statement; developing a spending plan; the essentials of credit; consumer awareness; car buying; meeting your insurance needs; developing a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP); and investing.
Features of the Study
The nonexperimental study was conducted with a group of enlisted soldiers at the Fort Bliss U.S. Army installation in El Paso, Texas. The treatment group participated in the two-day financial education course, while the comparison group did not. There were 199 participants in the treatment group and 293 participants in the comparison group. The participants were predominantly male (86%) and the mean age at baseline was 22.7 years. The majority of the treatment group was White (86%), with smaller proportions of Hispanic-Latino (20%) and Black/African American participants (9%). The largest proportion of the comparison group was White (65%), with smaller proportions of Hispanic-Latino (20%) and Black/African American participants (16%).
The data were drawn from the Soldier Financial Management Survey. The treatment group completed the survey twice (at baseline and follow-up), while the comparison group completed the survey once. Treatment group participants who had data at both baseline and follow-up were included in the analysis. The authors used statistical analyses to compare the financial knowledge outcomes between the treatment and comparison groups.
Findings
Knowledge and skills for money management
- The study found that soldiers who completed the financial education course were significantly more likely than soldiers in the comparison group to pay credit card balances in full (46.4% vs. 44.9%) and significantly less likely to take out car title loans (0% vs. 3.9%).
- The study also found that soldiers who completed the financial education course were significantly more likely than soldiers in the comparison group to understand the difference between a discretionary and non-discretionary spending budget (66.7% vs. 53.5%).
- However, the soldiers who completed the financial education course were significantly less likely than soldiers in the comparison group to use a formal budget (28.7% vs. 41.4%).
Knowledge and skills for financial decision making
- The study found that soldiers who completed the financial education course were significantly more likely than soldiers in the comparison group to save for retirement. This included having a Thrift Savings Plan (35.9% vs. 23.3%), having a 401K retirement account (21.9% vs. 10.4%), and having any type of retirement account (48.7% vs. 34.0%).
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors did not account for preexisting differences between the groups in financial knowledge since the comparison group completed the survey one time when the treatment group completed their follow-up survey. The authors also note that the groups were significantly different in composition by race/ethnicity but did not control for this variable in their analyses. These preexisting differences between the groups—and not the U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training—could explain the observed differences in outcomes.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the U.S. Army Personal Financial Management Training; other factors are likely to have contributed.