Personal Financial Literacy in Mathematics Teacher Education

The concept and topic of Personal Financial Literacy (PFL) comes into the field of K-12 education as a relatively new discipline. This study investigates the question, what do pre-service educators know about Personal Financial Literacy? A project was developed to measure what pre-service educators know and how they mathematically calculate financial questions posed in the context of a personal financial literacy project filled with life simulated questions. Findings indicated a disconnect with conceptualizing applied mathematics in the context of finances and how to determine a procedural solution. Pre-service educators’ understanding of PFL ideas were low, especially in the area of earning income and calculating monthly credit. The recommendation is to better prepare our preservice educators with guided practice, reinforcement of PFL standards in their education-based curriculum, and more feedback on pre-service educators’ answers in PFL based learning. Informing our educators in PFL can impact the socioeconomic outlook for careers related to the pre-service K-12 industry.