Investigating psychological and demographic factors related to financial literacy of teacher candidates in gilan province

Financial literacy, which means having knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to this area, is of double importance for young people, especially students who are moving from dependence to independence, and their financial mistakes will have continuous consequences in their future. Despite the importance of measuring and evaluating financial behaviors, there is a research gap in the field of investigating this issue in the studied society.

The purpose of this research was to measure the level of financial literacy of student-teachers at the Farhangian University of Gilan and to analyze the relationship between several psychological and demographic variables with it.

The present research was descriptive and surveys study. The statistical population of the research consists of 613 students of Farhangian University of Gilan province, of which 242 were selected by simple random sampling. Two questionnaires by Moinuddin (2011) and Patrich et al. (2016) were used to collect the data.

The findings showed that the average score of student-teachers in financial knowledge is 4.50 (out of 24), financial attitude is 60.29 (out of 75) and financial behavior is 62.45 (out of 100). Also, the examination of the relationship between psychological and demographic variables with the dimensions of financial literacy showed that, except for a few variables, the status of students' financial literacy is similar in most of the variables, and different groups of students have the same financial literacy.

These findings show that the financial literacy of students is at a very low level in terms of knowledge, but the status of students' financial literacy is good in two dimensions, attitude, and behavior. Different groups also have a similar level of financial literacy.