Test & improve financial literacy

How’s your financial IQ? According to the executive summary of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation‘s 2009 report “Financial Capability in the United States,” respondents to a national survey demonstrated a low level of financial literacy. Here are couple of places to test yours:

• Take the Council for Economic Education’s 20-item economic literacy test.
• Take the 5-item portion of the FINRA survey related to financial literacy, on pages 28-29 (items M6-M10) of the survey questionnaire.

You can search HALCat (Andersen Library’s online catalog) for materials about personal finance, investments, or financial literacy. Some titles are intended to guide and educate you, such as The road to wealth: A comprehensive guide to your money (2nd-floor Browsing Books, HG179 .O758 2008). Others are about better educating our children, such as Financial literacy education: What do students need to know to plan for the future?: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Education Reform of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives (online or in print in the 2nd-floor Federal Documents collection, Y 4.ED 8/1:108-39) and Planning curriculum in personal financial literacy (2nd-floor Wisconsin Documents collection, ED 6/2:C 87/P 47/2009). The latter title is intended to help Wisconsin teachers implement the state’s standards for students’ personal financial literacy.

Search article databases for information also, and find articles such as “Integrating Personal Finance Concepts into the Financial Accounting Course” (Business Education Forum, Oct. 2009, vol. 64:no. 1, pp. 17-22 — available in the 1st-floor Periodicals Collection) and the Sept. 4, 2009 issue of CQ Researcher on “Financial Literacy” (which includes a discussion of whether courses that cover personal finance should be mandatory in schools).

There also are a number of web sites for improving your financial knowledge. Here are just a few:

• The FINRA foundation web site has some educational materials,
• Morningstar Investment Research Center database has a “Help & Education” tab,
• FDIC offers “Money Smart” computer-based instruction about banking and credit, and
• The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants offers “360 Degrees of Financial Literacy” segments.

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!