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evaluation

Primary Money Twist evaluation

Evidence type: Evaluation i

Description of the Programme

Financial education does not currently feature on the primary national curriculum. An Inquiry into Financial Education Delivery in Schools, (undertaken by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Education for Young People in 2016), highlighted the need to start financial education at a younger age. MyBnk’s Primary Money Twist Programme, supported by KickStart Money (KSM), sought to address this by raising children’s awareness of the effects of money habits, and their ability to develop positive habits. The programme was also designed to give children confidence discussing money with their peers and parents. MyBnk’s expert trainers delivered short, fun and varied workshops across three, 75-minute modules in primary schools. The project also provided resource packs for teachers and parents. MyBnk agreed a target with KickStart to deliver sessions to 18,000, 7-11 year olds across the three year programme. The target areas were: London and the surrounding area, South of England, Liverpool, North West England and Scotland.

The study

Conducted by the Tax Incentivised Savings Association (TISA), the external evaluation was designed to answer the following research question:

‘What impact does the programme have on the financial attitudes and indicators of financial behaviour of children aged 7-11?’

The evaluation assessed the extent to which the intervention achieved the following outcomes:

  • Young people build capacity to defer gratification.
  • Young people can understand, discuss and articulate new knowledge of money habits.
  • Young people have an improved understanding of the concept of ‘future’, ‘plans’ and ‘consequences’.

The evaluators collected data from the first delivery year, between September 2017 – March 2018. The mixed methods evaluation included:

  • A Theory of Change workshop to identify outcomes and inform research tool design.
  • Quantitative pre-and post-delivery surveys of pupils aged 7-11 (resulting in n=1,441 matched pre- and post- surveys for analysis).
  • A delayed gratification test with pupils aged 7-11 (n=760).
  • Qualitative case study research (observations and focus groups) in five out of 86 schools involved.
  • Surveys and interviews with teachers at five case study schools.
  • Interviews with nine stakeholders.
  • A control survey of 1,107 pupils in ten schools not involved in the programme.
  • An evaluative film.

Key findings

The intervention had a positive impact across all three outcomes. This was more pronounced in relation to delayed gratification (outcome one) and basic concepts (outcome two) than for future plans (outcome three). For some measures, a high proportion of pupils (ranging from 66% to 89%) showed understanding of concepts prior to training. Pupils with a lower understanding of key concepts at baseline were examined as a separate group, and showed the most significant rates of improvement, confirming the training was not just ‘preaching to the converted’.

Outcomes evaluation:

  • Outcome one - young people build capacity to defer gratification - 7% of all pupils displayed a more balanced approach to spending and saving (i.e. moving away from saving or spending all of their money). Amongst the follow-up group (consulted three months after delivery), 70% were working towards a savings goal. For pupils with a lower understanding at baseline, 68% who showed little capacity to delay gratification initially, were able to at the end of the sessions.
  • Outcome two - young people can understand, discuss and articulate new knowledge of money habits –revealed a 19 percentage point improvement in understanding the statement ‘If you spend all of your money you will have no choice to buy things’. For pupils with a lower understanding at baseline, 43% were able to correctly identify the definition of the term ‘habit’ and there was a 67% improvement in those able to define ‘budget’, following training
  • Outcome three - young people have an improved understanding of the concepts ‘future’, ‘plans’ and ‘consequences’ - more young people strongly agreed with the statement ‘how I think about and treat money now will make a difference to my future’ following training. Amongst pupils with a lower understanding at baseline, 35% who did not use specified strategies to achieve goals pre-delivery did so after training, and 33% who would not make a spending plan before training would do so after.

Process evaluation:

Overall, participants and their teachers gave positive feedback on delivery styles and project processes. In particular, teachers valued the delivery pace and mix of teaching methods (group activities, quizzes, paired work, individual challenges and video content). Teachers commented that their pupils benefited from the specialist financial education training. Pupils identified the mix of delivery methods and the trainers’ fun delivery styles as central to their enjoyment and learning experience.

Good partnerships were built with primary schools that assisted with behaviour management, administration and data collection.

Points to consider

Methodological considerations:

  • The format and phrasing of some survey questions could be improved for future evaluations, as some pupils struggled to understand some terms. Additionally, some questions could be re-drafted to measure impact more precisely.
  • For some of the questions, pupils indicated a high level of understanding pre-delivery. More nuanced evaluations could in future contribute understanding about the impacts on these pupils.

Key info

Client group
Activities and setting
Workshops delivered across three 75 minute modules in primary schools
Programme delivered by
MyBnk
Year of publication
2018
Country/Countries
England
Contact information

Dr. Kath Edgar (Kath.edgar@substance.net)Substance Ground Floor, Canada House Chepstow Street, M1 5FW