Um estudo sobre o conhecimento em finanças de estudantes da Paraíba com base na I Olimpíada Paraibana de Educação Financeira

Abstract

Financial education has become a relevant subject in Brazil and in the world because it is fundamental to the control and health of individuals' finances and it is necessary to educate themselves as soon as possible. In this perspective, the present work sought to analyze the level of financial education of the students of the State of Paraiba based on the I Olympiad of Financial Education. The tests were carried out in 2017 and the survey had a total sample of 1,544 tests, in which several variables were analyzed referring to the participants. The research was divided in three blocks: the first one refers to the personal profile of the student; the second, to the performance of the groups identified and the third to knowledge on issues associated with financial education. From the analysis of the results it was observed that the majority of the participants are younger students and, therefore, they are those most interested in the subject, with an irrelevant variation between the genders. Regarding performance, the students of the private network obtained a better result than those of the public network, among which the ones with the age between 6 and 7 years stand out, the gender remained with an insignificant variation, and the average of levels 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 reached a percentage of 61.5% classified as a good result. However, significant discrepancies have been identified in certain aspects, which implies that students have different levels of financial education, some satisfactory and others not. As for the students' level of knowledge in the topics related to financial education addressed in the Olympiad, this is considered low. Finally, in general, based on the results obtained, despite the positive points highlighted in specific cases, the level of financial education of Paraiba students is considered low.