Abstract:

Economic literacy can be defined as the ability to use related knowledge and skills to manage financial sources effectively. Economic literacy is about knowing and applying the main economic theories in making rational economic decisions. Higher literacy levels on economy will lead to an increase in society´s and individuals´ economic efficiency and well-being.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact of the General Principles of Economics (GPE) curricular unit on students' economic literacy and to identify subjects in which students show greater difficulty and deserve special attention.

To collect the data, a questionnaire was applied that included socioeconomic variables and the Economic Literacy Test (ELT) developed by the National Council of Economic Education. This test includes twenty questions of multiple choice. There were four choices: a correct answer, two incorrect ones and a fourth choice for the students that did not knew the answer. Basically, the ELT is about basic economic concepts and allows to evaluate the literacy of students and adults in four issues, namely consumer economics; production economics; financial economics, government's economic role and international trade. The ELT was applied to all students enrolled in GPE, who were present in the first class, in September 2017. At the end of semester, the same questionnaire was applied again. GPE is a curricular unit of the Languages for International Relations degree from a public higher education institution, located in the northern of Portugal. Of the 95 students enrolled in GPE, 70 completed the questionnaire at the beginning of semester. Of these, only 45 answered the questionnaire at the end of the semester that corresponds to a response rate of 47.4%. Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 25.0. Descriptive statistics was used to characterize the sample. In order to compare the students’ knowledge level on economics, pre and post-course, the Wilcoxon test was applied at a significance level of 5%.

Students were, mainly, female (60%), with a mean age of 19.4 years old (SD = 1,63), only 20.0% had previous training in economics during secondary education and 8.9% have already attended the GPE in previous years without success. Most students came from rural areas (53.0%) and had active parents (father: 86.7%; mother: 73.3%) that earned a monthly income level up to 1000 euros (59.1%). Most mothers had an educational level between 3rd cycle (33.3%) and secondary education (31.1%) while the fathers´ educational level ranged between 2nd and 3rd cycles, 24.4% and 33.3%, respectively. The knowledge level pre and post-course was, on average, 12.0 (SD = 2.55) and 12.9 (SD = 3.24) out of 20, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in students' level of knowledge pre and post-course (p = 0.091).

Students proved to have a fair level of knowledge pre and post-course, however, at the end of the course most students showed improvements in literacy level on economy.

Acknowledgment :
This work is supported by: the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project No. 006971 (UID/SOC/04011)]; and national funds, through the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/SOC/04011/2019.

Keywords:

Economic Literacy Test, knowledge level, Students, Higher Education, General Principles of Economics.