Interactive training model for teachers financial planning and management application

In today's world, each and every person should take rapid and correct decisions considering their financial conditions. For that reason, it is needed to determine knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of people towards financial planning and management applied to reach their financial aims, provide the training they need, develop programs in accordance with their needs and control the results of practices. This study was conducted to determine "the effect of interactive training of financial planning and management on financial knowledge and attitudes of teachers". The research group consisted of 330 teachers who were voluntary to participate in this study and serving in 13 different schools within 2012-2013 academic year. These schools were determined by lot among occupational and technical secondary schools in 13 draft districts of Ankara. Single group pre-test and post-test model was used as preexperimental design. "Financial Knowledge Test" and "Financial Attitude Scale" developed by the researcher were used to collect data. Financial Knowledge Test consisted of 66 and Financial Attitude Scale consisted of 24 items. At the beginning and the end of the practice, the same test and scale were used. The practice was performed with the modular training approach based on individualized teaching of "Financial Planning and Management". The effects of the practice on results of knowledge and attitude were determined. Manova test was used for repetitive measurements to review the effects of experimental process on the difference between pre-test and post-test results as regards to gender, age groups, marital status, children number, marriage period, occupation condition of spouses, service period and total monthly income of teachers. The results of the research determined that experimental process increased both knowledge and attitude scores of female and male teachers, mean scores of teachers obtained from data collection tools differed according to their age groups, marital status and marriage period. As regards to service period of teachers (occupational development stages), it was found that new teachers had lower scores in financial knowledge pre-test than those in further stages. It was found that, groups had similar results in financial attitude pre-test and post-test; the differences in both knowledge and attitude pre-test and post-test were found to be in favor of new teachers. It was found that there was a difference between scores of those whose spouse was working/not working in financial knowledge and attitude score means; however this difference was not found to be statistically significant. The major effect of children number on knowledge and attitude scores was not found to statistically significant. It was found that teachers with low income had the lowest scores from financial knowledge pre-test scores and those with high income increased their knowledge the least in post-test. It was found that the difference between financial knowledge and attitude pre-test and test scores differed significantly according to the income level. According to the results of the research, training programs should be prepared for those to marry in order to ensure the adaptation to family life and for those to start or stop working in order to ensure the adaptation to professional and social life. Such training programs can help people to develop positive attitudes towards critical periods in their life, and enable them to be productive and happy people who can adapt to these periods financially, psycho-socially and physically. Key words: Personal Finance, Financial Planning and Management, Interactive Training.