Financial literacy as core competency of South African military officers : a measurement instrument

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since 1994, education and training in South Africa has experienced various changes,driven mainly by the Green Paper on Skills Development and the White Paper onEducation which set objectives and outcomes and gave guidelines on how educationand training should be approached, planned, and managed.The White Paper on Education necessitated change in SA tertiary institutions suchas Stellenbosch University and its respective faculties. The Faculty of MilitaryScience, which is situated at the South African Military Academy (SAMA) inSaldanha, accepted the challenge of contributing to the full personal development ofstudents, by undertaking to shape people capable of organising and managingthemselves and their human activities, including their financial activities, responsiblyand effectively.The success of higher education institutions in empowering young people to befinancially capable is questioned by various publications and surveys. Preliminaryfindings from surveys in 2004 and 2005 among students at the SAMA suggest thatthey are largely financially illiterate, thus potentially economically volatile.These findings introduce the research problem and serve as a foundation for thedevelopment of a scientific, socially relevant, valid and reliable financial literacymeasurement instrument. A combined qualitative and quantitative researchmethodology is applied to develop a measurement instrument, which is thenassessed for validity and reliability by applying it in a case study.The secondary objective of this research is the social study of the financialknowledge, financial behaviour and financial attitude levels of individuals. To ensurerelevance between the case study and the measurement instrument, financial literacyis initially evaluated as a management competency. Financial literacy is stated as akey competency in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).The financial literacy measurement instrument was constructed after an explorationof the contextual and conceptual nature of financial literacy. A questionnaire wasselected as the ideal method of gathering the required information. Thequestionnaire's validity and reliability were assessed as part of descriptive research in the development phase, as well as in the case study. The face and content validitywere proven through input from respondents and subject experts.Reliability of the measurement instrument was assessed by calculating item difficulty,item discrimination, means, standard deviations and ultimately the internalconsistency of the financial knowledge, behaviour and attitude sections of themeasurement instrument.In the case study first-year students achieved an average of 50.17% for their financialknowledge although they rated their own knowledge levels to be 60.8%. Therespondents struggled most with questions pertaining to investment, insurance, andinflation, and least with retirement and income and expenditure questions.This research underlines the importance of financial literacy as a managementcompetency and its importance at a global, national, organisational and personallevel. It produces a valid and reliable financial literacy measurement instrument thatcan be used by different stakeholders in South Africa to assess financial knowledge,behaviour and attitude, and thus indicate where intervention is required. Having avalid and reliable measurement instrument for measuring financial literacy createsopportunity for future research and development.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University