in terms of these financial education activities and behaviors, the high
return group would always report more frequent engagement in these
activities than the low return group.
The method outlined below followed the Expert Performance
Approach. In Phase 1, samples were obtained of low and high return
households. In Phase 2, a low return group and a high return group
were created from the samples identified in Phase 1. Next, data were
elicited from the groups about their financial education activities and
behaviors and groups were compared on these data in relation to the
study hypotheses.
DISCUSSION
Two groups of households similar in terms of key factors affecting the
opportunity to build household wealth but differing markedly in wealth
nearing retirement were contrasted in terms of householders’ personal
financial education activities and personal financial behaviors. Results
revealed differences between householders with low wealth (i.e., those
in the low group) and householders with high wealth (i.e., those in the
high group) in terms of engagement in certain activities and behaviors
during their lifetime.
Four specific hypotheses were tested. The first concerned personal
financial education achieved via financial socialization (see Moschis
1987). It was hypothesized that the high group, compared to the low
group, would report more frequent engagement in education activities