Learning context when studying financial planning in high schools: Nesting of student, teacher, and classroom characteristics

Grounded in social construction theory, the current study investigates the learning context when study ingfinancial planning in high school by analyzing the nesting of student, teacher and classroom characteristics. Key findings were that three student characteristics (initial financial knowledge, gender, senior grade level), one teacher variable (use of all curriculum assessments), and two classroom variables (proportion of junior students and students who spent more money per week) were significant predictors of students' financial knowledge gain. Significant predictors of students' behavior gain were one student characteristic (senior grade level), two student access to money variables (employment status, spending per week), and three classroom variables (mean initial financial behavior, proportion of students working part-time, proportion of rural students). Findings indicated that subject matter content alone was not sufficient to create behavior change; learning context must be considered.