Universities serve an important role in the development of financial services professionals. This project is a preliminary analysis of student performance in financial planning courses redesigned from a traditional lecture format to an active learning format. Active learning literature from higher education, accounting, and STEM guided the course redesigns. Participants are undergraduate students in financial planning programs at two southeastern state universities in the U.S. Experiential learning and service learning have been documented in the literature; however, these pedagogies are community-based and external to the classroom. Financial planning literature regarding instructional techniques in the classroom is limited. Additional studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of active learning in financial planning classrooms. The purpose of this study is to measure, evaluate and record the effectiveness of course redesigns for large sections of an introductory personal finance course and core courses in the curriculum of the financial planning major.
Author(s): Kenneth White, Kimberly Watkins, Michael Thomas, Lance Palmer
