Suchergebnisse

Abstract
We live in a society in which knowing how to manage money is a necessity, since it is required in our everyday life. In this context, financial literacy is a competence which people should develop in order to improve their money-related decisions. In order to analyse the contribution of financial education to this competence, we go beyond the previous literature in respect to correlation by using student fixed-effects and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2018 data for 15-year-old students in 20 countries. Our results show that, in most of the countries under analysis, the financial education that students receive in the subject of mathematics may contribute to the development of their financial literacy competences. Nevertheless, the lack of an effective subject in economics is still an issue in most of the educational systems under analysis. (JEL codes: I20, I21, I28, and C10)

Despite the relevance of noncognitive skills (i.e. soft skills) for individual development and for certain forms of employment, they tend to be overlooked in studies centred on educational performance. This study brings an additional contribution to the growing interest on these skills by exploring their main determinants and by providing an additional understanding of how they are influenced by socio-economic and family background. To this end, a multiobjective programming model has been developed, whose coefficients are instantiated by the results of several econometric estimations, in which distinct (and conflicting) aspects of multiple soft skills are considered. Hence, by coupling econometric with multiobjective optimisation modelling approaches we provide an overarching framework for assessing the trade-offs between the different dimensions of noncognitive skills. Data from the most populated region of Spain are used. Overall, our findings highlight the trade-off between different soft skills, which are particularly conditioned by students' gender. ; This work has been partly supported by FEDER funding (under Research Project PY20-00228); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (under Research Project PID2020-119471RB-I00); the Andalusian Regional Government (SEJ-645); the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under project grant UID/MULTI/00308/2020 and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (under Projects UID/MULTI/00308/2020 and UIDB/05037/2020). Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga/CBUA.

AbstractNumerous authors have reported a positive relationship between preschool enrolment and academic performance in later years, even helping to reduce the academic gap existing between students from different socio‐economic backgrounds. In this context, this paper goes further by analysing the impact that early childhood education (from 3 to 6 years) has on Spanish boys' and girls' reading achievement when they are in fourth grade (10 years). For this purpose, we take advantage of the 2006 Spanish education reform that promoted free second stage preschool education by using data from Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011 and 2016 and an instrumental variable approach, in order to get closer to causality than previous literature for Spain. We find that attending preschool has a positive influence on reading achievement, well above the impact found when using simple ordinary least squares estimates, being higher for girls than for boys.

As children spend more and more time on electronic devices and social networks, there is a growing concern about the infuence that these activities may have on their development and social well-being. In this context, the present research is aimed at analysing the infuence that Internet use may have on 6th grade primary school students' academic performance in Spain. In order to do so, we have employed a methodological approach that combines econometric and interval multiobjective programming techniques, which has let us identify the traits and Internet use patterns that allow students to maximise their academic performance in terms of scores in four competences. Our results show that, while daily use of the Internet to listen to music or search for information about other topics of interest can favor the maximization of educational outcomes, the use of social networks should be limited as much as possible to avoid hindering the educational process. ; This work has been partly supported by FEDER funding (under Research Project PY20-00228-R); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (under Research Project PID2020-119471RB-I00) and the Andalusian Regional Government (SEJ-645). We also acknowledge the scholarship FPU20/01509 of the Ministerio de Universidades and the training received from the Programa de Doctorado en Economía y Empresa of the Universidad de Malaga. The authors also acknowledge the data provided by the Agencia Canaria de Calidad Universitaria y Evaluación Educativa. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA