No abstract

This paper examines the elements essential to effective teacher professional development (TPD) in financial literacy education by means of a systematic literature review. We provide a theoretical underpinning for the literature review by proposing a revised presentation of an existing general TPD model. Our results provide insight into the student learning goals in financial literacy education, the desirable teaching behaviour, the required teacher quality and the contextual factors that play a role. However, our findings also suggest a lack of studies that systematically investigate whether and how TPD initiatives enhance the effect of financial education on students' financial literacy. Furthermore, existing literature fails to provide insight in how the six key features of TPD should be implemented to optimize its effectiveness.

This study examines whether online teacher professional development (OTPD), in the form of an interactive webinar series that encourages collaborative learning, improves student achievement. We conducted a randomised controlled trial with 1102 students, 45 teachers and 30 secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. As a basis for the study, we developed a digital learning path aimed at improving student scores on financial literacy–a multidimensional key competence recently integrated into the curriculum. We demonstrate that the learning path improves student learning outcomes and that enhanced teacher involvement in this programme does not increase learning outcomes unless the teachers participate in the OTPD initiative. Teacher engagement in the webinar series generated student learning outcomes 0.39 standard deviations higher than those of students whose teachers did not receive this intervention, thus, confirming the effectiveness of the OTPD initiative. This effect was found immediately after programme implementation, and it persisted until at least 6 weeks later. As an underlying mechanism, we observe that engagement in the webinar series enhances teachers' self‐efficacy. Classroom observations suggest that engagement increases the frequency of providing students with content‐related help.

No abstract

The present paper examines the impact of ability matching and differentiated instruction on the learning outcomes of eighth and ninth grade students in a financial education programme. In particular, the effect of within-class ability matching is investigated by forming pairs of students either randomly or based on their abilities. In addition, the paper studies whether differentiated instruction, in the form of additional instructions for lower ability students, enhances the impact of the financial education programme. The paper provides evidence on the effects of both practices using two randomised control trials involving 65 schools and 2,407 students. Overall, the results suggest that the programme raises the financial proficiency of students by 0.18 standard deviations. Although the learning outcomes of the average student are not affected by the differentiation practices, non-native students significantly benefit from differentiated instruction.