Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The objective of this study is to determine the effect regular and routine expenditure tracking and goal setting has on alcohol expenditure behavior. Two immediately observable positive potential outcomes of this project are: 1) decrease in the amount of money spent by UGA students on alcohol and a potential decrease in the amount of alcohol consumed and 2) an increased awareness by college students of their spending patterns which may better enable them to manage income and expenditures. Over 600 students have received the instruction in the classroom and gone through awareness raising intervention. The research project was implemented in Spring 2007, Fall 2007, and Spring 2008. AES Project funding was vital to gaining access to tracking software and data analysis. Each complete case contains student responses over the course of the three month project, expenditure data, initial estimates of spending behavior, behavior change assessments and self-reflection papers at different points in the project. Information on the project has been presented at national conferences and will be used as pilot data in looking at a larger, multi-campus study. Information has been shared with faculty who teach personal finance courses. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: The primary target audiences will be the campus administrators and financial educators on college campuses. The final target audience is students attending colleges and universities. The ultimate goal is to provide mechanism that will aid in their adoption of positive financial behaviors. To this end, campus administrators will be targeted through publications and presentations to disseminate the findings of the project to promote adoption of the project at other institutions. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Findings from the conference presentation and paper 1 provide support for the hypothesis that routine expenditure tracking and goal setting regarding personal finances do reduce alcohol expenditures. The conference presentation used a small data set from the first semester of the project and used quantitative analysis and found that student alcohol expenditures did decrease over the course of the intervention. Paper 1 utilized qualitative methods to analyze reflective journal entries prepared by the students who participated in the research to determine the extent that alcohol expenditure patterns changed as a result of the project. Three separate reflective journal entries were analyzed, each approximately one month apart, to track changes. First a substantial number of students were unaware of their spending behavior relating to alcohol, as well as their spending in general. Approximately 12% of the sample of students identified alcohol expenditures as problematic and 62% of those students who became aware of the problematic spending reduced their spending on alcohol. In addition to documenting awareness of alcohol expenditures, paper 1 also highlights students lack of awareness about their own spending behavior on eating out, shopping for clothing, and several other minor categories. Student perceptions of how much money they spent on eating out was very different from the actual amount spent on eating out. Over 64% of the sample identified this as their primary area of problematic discretionary spending. Of those who identified this as a problem, over half altered their spending patterns as a result of the regular and routine expenditure tracking exercise. Paper 2 highlights the intervention methodology and how it can be incorporated into a variety of different settings on campus to affect change in students spending behavior. The paper discusses the potentially inexpensive implementation of the project and the discipline neutral nature of the project. The audience of the journal is campus administrators who are often instrumental in undergraduate programming relating to quality of life and alcohol abuse prevention.
Publications
- Palmer, L., Bliss, D., Goetz, J. W., & Moorman, D. (2010). Improving financial awareness among college students: Assessment of a financial management project. College Student Journal, in press.
- Palmer, L., Bliss, D. L., Goetz, J. W., & Moorman, D. (2010). Helping undergraduates discover the value of a dollar through self-monitoring. American Journal of Business Education, 3(7), 103-108.
- Palmer, L., Goetz, J., Moorman, D., & Davis, B. P. (2007). Tracking spending and changes in college students' expenditures. Paper presented to the 21st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Financial Services, Orlando, FL.
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