INCREASING FINANCIAL LITERACY AMONG SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL NON ABM STUDENTS

THROUGH INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA

Clark Reuben R. Galope

Accountancy, Business, and Management
La Salle Academy
Iligan City

Noor Asia C. Dimatanday

Accountancy, Business, and Management
La Salle Academy
Iligan City, Philippines

Honey Mae G. Villaver

Math Department
La Salle Academy
Iligan City, Philippines

Teodoro R. Llanes II
Empowerment Technologies
La Salle Academy
Iligan City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

Many people have consequently come to feel that personal finance should become part of the basic
education of all students. Most mandated instruction in personal finance appears to be at the high school
level. The rationale is that students completing high school are on the verge of adulthood and many have
made or are making important financial decisions. This paper seeks to increase the financial literacy of
Non ABM students and how interactive multimedia offers a venue for improving grade 11 non ABM
students’ understanding on business mathematics terms and the subject itself. The researchers analyzed
the data using random sampling method of senior high school non ABM students for school year 2018-
2019 in La Salle Academy - Iligan City. Based on the data collected, the use of interactive multimedia as
a supplement in learning business mathematics can be an effective strategy in stimulating interest for
students as it provides interaction and motivation to help the students learn the topics in a non-traditional
way. It was also shown that engaging in multimedia have restrictions: 1.) there are some topics that are
easy to learn through the use of search engines; and 2.) there are topics that are hard to understand
which should require an actual teacher to elaborate the discussion thoroughly. The results indicate that
students tend to enhance their learning in business math are by the use of three independent variables
such: presentations, videos and simulations. These variables help students improve their literacy and
understanding of business math.
___________________________________________________________________________ _
KEYWORDS: Stocks, Bonds, Loans, Interests, Time Value of Money, Investments, Financial
literacy, Interactive multimedia
 INTRODUCTION
I​t is extremely important to understand
why people need to save and invest. However
saving needs to be done the right way and that
is by investing money in the market via stocks,
bonds, debentures, insurances and mutual
funds. An investment in the stock market gives
money the right direction and much higher
returns compared to the banks savings account.
Investing in the market does expose money to
risk however does help attain financial goals
faster by putting money to work and not laze
around in lockers or bank account. Investments
will help not just for the people but also the
government and the nation to grow.
Education reform has been in a need in
the Philippines for generations. Before K to 12,
the Philippines had been one of the remaining
countries in the world to have a 10 year basic
education cycle, most countries across the globe
operate on a 12 year basic education cycle.
In 2010, the new administration
identified education reform at the very top of its
priorities thus pushed for this reform through the
Enhanced Basic Education Program, or K-12. It
is not just an additional two years but its the
product of decades of study and a larger
process of reforming the education sector as a
whole. The passage of the Enhanced Basic
Education Act, or Republic Act 10533 aims to
ensure the continuity of the reform beyond the
generation.
The K to 12 Program covers
Kindergarten and 12 years of basic education
(six years of primary education, four years of
Junior High School, and two years of Senior
High School [SHS]​) to provide sufficient time for
mastery of concepts and skills, develop lifelong
learners, and prepare graduates for tertiary
education, middle-level skills development,
employment, and entrepreneurship. Senior High
School Program is the new addition in the
program which consists of five strands namely;
Accountancy, Business and Management
(ABM); Science, Technology Engineering and
Mathematics; Humanities and Social Sciences
(HUMSS); and General Academic (GAS) and
Technical-Vocational-Livelihood (TVL), Sports,
and Arts & Design.
The problem that occur during
implementation of the program is that Non-ABM
strands tends to take subjects that is not in-line
with their own strands. As the researchers
observes, the Non-ABM students find it difficult
to understand and absorb these subjects,
specifically Business Math; the subject that
tackles related topics such as stocks, bonds,
annuities, interests and loans.
The problem found has made this
research possible. The researcher wants to find
remedies to help Non-ABM students cope up
with Non-ABM subjects specifically Business
Math through the use of Interactive Multimedia.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
The financial literacy level of the
average Filipino remains alarmingly low—a
problem that begins with poor childhood
education that persists until their adult years,
according to the country’s financial regulator.
In a statement, the Bangko Sentral ng
Pilipinas (BSP) said Filipino adults could
correctly answer only three out of seven
financial literacy-related questions covering
basic numeracy, computing compounding
interest, fundamentals of inflation and
investment diversification.
Citing the results of a study by the World
Bank, the BSP said only 2 percent of Filipino
adults answered all questions about financial
literacy correctly. “The study also showed that
Filipinos lack specific knowledge to make
informed financial decisions,” the central bank
said, stressing that financial education was an
“imperative,” considering the country’s low
financial literacy levels. The same study
indicated that money management habits
formed in childhood stay into adulthood.
Another study as per Standard & Poor’s
(S&P) Ratings Services survey last year, only
25% of Filipinos are financially literate. That
means there are about 75 million Filipinos who
have no idea about inflation, risk diversification,
insurance, compound interest and even the idea
of having a savings account in a bank. The said
25% consists of the wealthy (upper 10% of the
population) while the 15% is distributed to the
educated, working and middle classes who are
frequent users of basic financial services offered
by banks, insurance companies and other
financial institutions. The S&P survey was
conducted in 143 countries with Denmark,
Sweden and Norway sharing the top spot.
Many empirical studies on personal
finance literacy tend to center on high school
students. Danes and Hira (1987) are the first
scholars to undertake academic work on
financial literacy on senior high school students.
Avard et al. (2005) reveals that graduates from
high schools lack the understanding of basic
personal finance issues. This emphasizes that
most students find it difficult to balance a
checkbook and lack the basic principles in
finance (Avard, Manton, English and Walker,
2005). Another academic work conducted by A
National Council on Economic Education study
(2005) indicates that 53 per cent of senior high
students performed woefully on the basic quiz
on economics and personal finance in the
United States.
This stresses that there is inadequate
personal finance among senior high students
and that have had a negative effect on their
financial decisions and behavior. High school
students therefore leave school without the
basic skills to manage their personal financial
affairs, putting them at a high risk for not being
able to plan responsibly for their financial future.
The ability of senior high school students to deal
with financial difficulties is dependent on
financial exposure gained before entering
college (Lyons, Scherpf, and Roberts, 2006).
KEY CONCEPTS USED
Financial Literacy
The term “financial literacy” generally
refers to the ability of consumers to make
financial decisions in their own best interests in
both the short and long-term.
DepEd announced recently that it will
have financial literacy and consumer protection
lessons for the first two batches of senior high
school students in the K to 12 curriculum.
According to the Republic Act 10679 or the
Youth Entrepreneur Act mandates the education
agencies – DepEd, Commission on Higher
Education and the Technical Education Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) to spearhead
programs that will promote entrepreneurship and
financial literacy.
Some teaching strategies to integrate financial
literacy into classroom instructions:
● Demonstrate non-prose reading using a
sample stock investment portfolio
● Analyze structures of sample sentences
about business and investments
● Summarize well-written articles on
saving and spending habits
● Suggest a personal finance section for a
magazine project (performance task for
ABM students)
● Design finance-themed grammar
quizzes
● Simulate corporate events and solve
issues through critical thinking
● Initiate a radio-broadcast of latest news
in the business world (after watching a
video and notetaking)
 ● Allow students to hold a have thousands of investors, but each one has
magazine-launching event and manage
resources efficiently
Investments and Time Value of Money
The term "investment" can refer to any
mechanism used for generating future income.
In the financial sense, this includes the purchase
of bonds, stocks or other properties. It is based
on the concept of ​Time Value of Money that
says, “​A peso today is worth more than a peso
tomorrow.” Intuitively, it’s better to receive 1,000
pesos today than, say, one year from now. A lot
of things can happen in that one year, things
that can affect (often negatively) the value of our
money. Perhaps the most obvious and
predictable thing than can happen is for the
prices of most goods and services to rise,
thereby reducing the purchasing power of our
1,000; which refers to inflation. So, simply
because prices of most things tend to increase
over time, and 1,000 pesos, most probably, will
be able to buy more gasoline or chicken or beer
today than one year from now, ​a peso today is
worth more than a peso tomorrow.​ How much
more if money is invested earlier, it would should
grow in years time. ​Provided money can earn
interest, this core principle of finance holds that
any amount of money is worth more the sooner
it is received. At the most basic level, the time
value of money demonstrates that, all things
being equal, it is better to have money now
rather than later.
Stocks
Investing in the stock market is among
the most common ways investors attempt to
grow their money, but it's also among the riskier
investment options available. The most basic
concept of the stock market is the idea that each
share of stock represents a small portion of
ownership of a corporation. While most
businesses are founded by small groups of
people, when a company "goes public" its
owners decide to sell shares of stock and, in
turn, receive cash from buyers. A company may
the right to profit from the company's success
and each runs the risk of losing money if the
company performs poorly. Stockholders receive
updates from the company and can vote for
board members to influence the business's
activities.
Bonds
Most simply, bonds represent debt
obligations – and therefore are a form of
borrowing. If a company issues a bond, the
money they receive in return is a loan, and must
be repaid over time. Just like the mortgage on a
home or a credit card payment, the repayment
of the loan also entails periodic interest to be
paid to the lenders. The buyers of bonds, then,
are essentially lenders.
Loans and Interests
In finance, a ​loan is the lending of
money by one or more individuals,
organizations, or other entities to other
individuals, organizations etc. The recipient (i.e.
the borrower) incurs a debt, and is usually liable
to pay interest that debt until it is repaid, and
also to repay the principal amount borrowed.
Interest is the cost of using somebody else’s
money. When you borrow money, you pay
interest. ​It is the additional money that must be
repaid — in addition to the original loan balance
or deposit.
Interactive Multimedia
Educational reform on technology
guarantees a significant number of advantages
such as effective teaching, effective
collaboration, trouble-free tracking of students'
progress and a wide array of resources of
information. Interactive Multimedia, according to
Britannica, is any computer-delivered electronic
system that allows the user to control, combine,
and manipulate different types of media, such as
text, sound, video, computer graphics, and
animation.

A study made by Dunkin (2002) infer
that people who utilize interactive multimedia
such as games had more positive outcomes with
everyone especially in school involvements.
These positive outcomes from the use of
Interactive Multimedia is engagement. Most of
the schools today are now using a new medium
of tools and processes to further enhance
interactive learning and provide engagement
which are essential in Interactive Multimedia that
will eventually lead to deeper learning (Oblinger,
2004). One research about electronic learning
from the Institute for Employment Studies (IES)
asserted that one positive effect of digital
learning that includes the use of interactive
multimedia includes retention of lessons
learned within the class. (Pollard, 2001) It is
easy to capture or retain when the learning is
narrow and relevant (Lin et al, 2013). In order to
attain a higher rich learning experience which is
essential in retention and learning are concrete
experience, abstract conceptualization, reflective
observation and active experimentation (Kolb,
1999) which are present when dealing with
Interactive Multimedia.
The following are Interactive Multimedia in
creating a whole new learning experience for
students:
Market Watch ​is a Virtual Stock Exchange
Game and Simulation where you can your
portfolio and reacts to the markets in real time.
Compete against your friends or coworkers to
earn your spot at the top of the leaderboards.
Stock Market Game is a virtual investing where
you connect students to the global economy with
virtual investing and real-world learning. It is a
program created by SIFMA Foundation. It
includes easy-to-follow instructional guides,
suggested lessons, activities, and projects for
after school and homeschool participants. This
game simulation also has a mobile app that
works in conjunction with student team
portfolios, engaging students in meaningful
second-screen experiences. Sync with standard
SMG portfolios' current Account Summary,
Pending Transactions, Transaction Notes, and
market news information. Allow teams to look up
ticker symbols and enter trades.
Lemonade Tycoon is a Shockwave-based
game published by Brøderbund Software that
enables user to play as an owner of a lemonade
business and while selling lemonade, players
must look over many aspects of their business.
Players decide on a recipe, set prices, and sell
lemonade in a variety of locations. The game
includes changing weather and news, which the
player must compensate for. To overcome some
factors, such as long lines and stock, players
can buy upgrades.
Vyond, ​previously called GoAnimate, ​is
alternative presentation software that teachers
can use to improve their presentation by
grabbing attention and engaging better than
most media. Videos have been known to
increase people's understanding of a topic or
discussion. Through this, it can put the power of
a video into the hands of an educator.
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
In order to gather the necessary data,
this study makes use of a descriptive method of
research since it aims to examine if there is an
increase in the financial literacy of non ABM
students if they use interactive multimedia in
understanding on business mathematics terms
and the subject itself.
Participants
The Grade 11 Non ABM students of La
Salle Academy of the current school year were
selected as respondents since they have taken
the General Mathematics course in which
Business Math topics were included. The
random sampling method was used by the
researchers to select a sample size from the
population of 261 Non ABM students. 82
students responded the survey question. Thus,
the researchers randomly selected 30% of the
total population which comprise 80 students to
participate in this study.

Data Gathering

The primary data was gathered through

an online self constructed questionnaire related
to the students insights about the business math
topics. The questions focus on the problems
Figure No. 2. Gender
encountered by the student in learning business
math topics and what instructional materials do
Figure 2 shows that majority of the
they prefer.
respondents are female students which is 66.3
percent of the surveyed population while the
Research Instrument
remaining respondents are male students which
The researcher designs a
consists 33.8 percent of the population.
self-administered questionnaire for the data
gathering process.

​RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The researchers present and analyze the data

gathered and interpret the findings.

Figure No. 3. What are the sources of your

Grade 11
family income?

Based on figure no. 3, the top 3 sources

of family income are from their parents who are
government employees, parents who are private
employees and family business.

Figure No. 1. Which strand/track do you

belong?

Based on the data in figure 1, it shows

that most of the respondents are coming from
STEM strand which is 58.8 percent of the
surveyed population. It is for the fact that STEM
consists the highest number of non-abm
students in La Salle Academy compared to other
strands.
Figure No. 4. What topics do you find difficult
in Business Math
Figure No. 4 shows that the top 3
difficult topics that the students encountered in
Business Math Discussion are topics in
interest/annuities, bonds and stocks.

Figure No. 5. What do you think is/are the
reason/s for studying business topics?
Based on figure no. 5, most of the
students think that the reason behind studying
business topics even if they are not a student
from Accountancy, Business and Management
(ABM) track is to gain financial knowledge or
financial literacy.
Figure No. 6. What problems have you
encountered in studying business related
topics?
Most of the students have difficulty in
grasping and understanding business terms
used in business math.
Figure No. 7. Would you prefer to use
interactive multimedia in learning business
math topics?
Based on figure no.7, 60% out of 80
students prefer to use interactive multimedia in
learning business math topics. However, the
following 13.7% said that it depends on some
certain conditions like the type of topic, the
student learning styles and effectiveness of the
multimedia used.
List of reason from “Depends” option from
previous question.
“Well, there are some topics that are easy to
understand that you can just search about it but
there are topics that are hard to understand that
you need an actual teacher to help you with.”
“Students have different ways of learning
effectively depending on what they are used to
and comfortable with”
“There are things that are much easier to learn
when it doesn’t involve interactive multimedia
and there are things that are easier when it
involves multimedia and its much more efficient.”
“There are times that I prefer learning thru an
'actual' teacher in front of the class, than
watching someone over a screen (if that’s what
multimedia means) but sometimes, for reviewing
purposes, i can watch and learn thru a video.”
“Not all times maintindihan mo lahat”
“Depends on the topic and teachers.”
“To have more ideas”
“It's because the effectiveness of the multimedia
is a must.”
“Every situation has its own corresponding
action needed”
“So that we will really understand”
“It depends because procrastination might rate of interest is there and usually you get this
happen, student's focus might be diverted to from the banks.”
other media” “company, field of business, income”
“life insurance, educational and other
future-related banking”
“Online market, sell high buy low”
“Company shares”
“Financial scenarios”
“investments, tradings, bitcoins”
“Stock Market”
Figure no. 8. What instructional materials do “stock market, annual financial records, buying a
you wish to have to enhance your learning car house etc”4
about the topics? “In having a loan, there is a interest rate, with a
time frame. For example in bank, you have loan
The top 3 instructional materials that the 50000 pesos, you will pay for 2 years.”
students would like to have to enhance their “Loan”
learning in business math are presentations, “Banks”
videos and simulations. “just like the performance task”
“bank manager"

List of specified application from answering

'yes' from the previous question.

“Go for stocks if you want to make your money

grow but make sure you know how to handle the
Figure no. 9. Do you know some applications
risk you take as you step into the world of
related to stocks, bonds, annuities, interest.
gambling.”
etc “life insurance”
“Stocks”
Based on figure no. 9, only 22.5% out of “Company shares, stocks and bonds”
80 students knew some applications related to “trading”
“Stock Market”
stocks, bonds, annuities and interest.
“buying family related things such as house cars
Unfortunately, these students were not able to
etc”
identify specific applications related to the said “In business, you can buy a stocks on
topics. companies. You will just buy, you have already a
share on the company.”
List of application from answering ‘yes’ from “Loan”
the previous question. “Easier life”
“insurance”
“Interest, borrow money but certain period of “account manager”
time you have to pay back but more since the

Figure No. 10. What devices do you wish to
integrate interactive multimedia?
Based on figure no. 10, most of the
students would like to use smartphone to
integrate interactive multimedia.
CONCLUSION
Based from the previous discussions, it
can be concluded that non ABM students have
difficulty in grasping and understanding
business mathematics terms. It also proves that
the students are having a hard time with the
unit/subject because of lack of interest and poor
retention. With these evidences, the use of
interactive multimedia as a supplement in
learning business mathematics can be an
effective strategy in stimulating interest for
students as it provides interaction and
motivation to help the students learn the topics
in a non-traditional way and also improves
students’ retention. It is shown in the results that
majority of the respondents prefer to use
interactive multimedia. Notwithstanding, the
results also show that a few portion of the
respondents did not necessarily choose to
engage in this strategy because of the following
restrictions: 1.) there are some topics that are
easy to learn through the use of search engines;
and 2.) there are topics that are hard to
understand which should require an actual
teacher to elaborate the discussion thoroughly.
From these facts, the researchers still believe
that interactive multimedia is an effective tool to
drive students in learning business mathematics,
however, the researchers infer that it shall not
be used extensively, but moderately.
Thus, the researchers would like to
recommend that teachers should integrate
multimedia in Grade 11 General Mathematics
specifically business math topics to help
increase the financial understanding and
financial literacy of the students. This could be
done in collaboration of both Math and ICT
teachers. Specifically, the researchers would like
to recommend to use the ​stock market game
app for the reason that the application does not
compromise in quality and at the same time
provides convenience by offering user
friendliness which includes easy-to-follow
instruction guides, lessons and activities for the
students. There are also features and design
that would best help the students in learning the
subject. With the help of ICT teacher, interactive
multimedia applications can be utilized during
lectures and other activities.
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