AFCPE Symposium Awards: Outstanding Symposium Student Paper Award
This award recognizes exceptional research by students in the field of financial counseling, planning, and education. Congratulations to 2025 recipient Yeqi Zhu for “Buy Now, Pay Later: A Roadblock for Financial Well-being”.
Celebrating Our Outstanding Symposium Student Paper Award Winners
2025: Yeqi Zhu
University of Georgia
2024: Van Dinh, Research Assistant
Texas Tech University
“Cryptocurrency Investment Mechanism: Exploring the Role of Financial Education, Investment Knowledge, and Risk Tolerance” examines the impact of financial education on cryptocurrency investment decisions, focusing on the mediating roles of investment knowledge and risk tolerance. Results indicated that while objective financial knowledge often discouraged cryptocurrency investment due to perceived risks; subjective investment knowledge, enhanced by financial education, increased confidence and willingness to invest in cryptocurrency. Risk tolerance was found to partially mediate the relationship between investment knowledge and investment decisions, especially with investors having high subjective investment knowledge. These findings suggested that effective financial education should not only increase investment knowledge but also balance risk awareness with potential rewards.
2023: Hanna Yu
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
The public’s perception of COVID-19 has significantly improved; however, there remains a high level of uncertainty in the financial market, including bank crises, increasing interest rates, and high inflation in 2023. “Examining Financial Anxiety Through Cognitive Appraisals and Coping During a Global Pandemic” investigated possible associations between financial anxiety and cognitive processes, economic adjustment strategies (such as decreasing spending), and receiving a stimulus check during a global pandemic to understand financial anxiety in times of uncertainty.
2022: Dr. Mary Gatti
Oklahoma State University
“Defining and Measuring College Student Financial Literacy”provides consensus on what topics are considered a part of financial literacy specifically for traditional aged undergraduate college students. This lack of definition has also made it hard to measure financial literacy of college students. This study addresses both of these concerns. Utilizing the Delphi method, experts generated a list of financial planning topics that should be included in financial literacy for all undergraduate students. Those results were then used to create an instrument that measures holistic financial literacy. The instrument was refined utilizing multiple psychometric methods. Through the refinement process, a final instrument was created with 4 subscales measuring: financial knowledge, financial planning attitude, financial management attitude, and financial behavior.
2021: Katherine Vasquez, MS
University of Minnesota
The purpose of this project is to assess how sources of financial literacy education influence FGCS financial literacy. FGCS students in this study were required to complete a financial literacy education workshop series as part of the university-based early success program. Other types of exposure to financial literacy education- such as family, friends, high school financial literacy courses, and college courses or degree programs, were explored as well. This project also investigated if the current pandemic and employment instability has impacted interest or appreciation for financial literacy education in first-generation college students.
2020: Beatrix Lavigueur
University of Rhode Island
The purpose of this literature review is to document consumer finance scales published in the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning. A total of 15 scales were analyzed in 13 papers collected from the AFCPE website. The features of each scale were examined and categorized based on target population, number of factors and items, reliability measures and validity measures. The scales were compared based on their similarities and differences. Implications for researchers and practitioners are provided.
2019: Yiting Li
University of Minnesota
The efforts of this research, “A Decade Review of Publications in Family Financial Socialization, Young Couples, & Financial Behaviors: 2007-2017” will benefit financial professionals working with Asian populations, informing and better-equipping them to advance the services, education, and counseling that they provide.
2018: Andrew Scott, Juan Gallardo, and
Christopher Moore
Kansas State University
Their study tested the effectiveness of peer-based financial counseling in changing subjective and objective financial knowledge. The authors examined mean differences in financial knowledge scores from a financial counseling intake survey to a two-month follow-up survey. Results suggest that financial counseling had positive effects on financial knowledge. Most notable, this study focused on the impact of financial counseling across various sub-groups. Before financial counseling there was great disparity in financial knowledge among sub-groups, and after financial counseling this disparity mostly disappeared. Financial counseling seems to create balance in financial knowledge among sub-groups, as significant differences in both subjective and objective knowledge among sub-groups largely vanish after counseling.
2017: Irene McIvor Mason
University of Rhode Island
“Subjective Well-being and Financial Independence of Young Adults” uses data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics to examine the relationship between financial independence and life satisfaction among young adults. The research finds that achieving financial autonomy is a meaningful driver of subjective well-being, while financial strain — such as student loan debt or credit card debt — tends to undermine it. Young adults who remain financially dependent on their parents also report lower life satisfaction. Beyond finances, the study highlights the role of individual factors, noting that personality traits like conscientiousness and one’s own sense of financial capability play a significant part in shaping overall well-being.
2016: Judith Aboagye
University of Georgia
Judith Aboagye’s study titled “An analysis of the indicators of financial satisfaction: Does behavioral and debt factors matter?” examines the indicators of financial satisfaction and shows that behavioral factors offer the strongest explanation of the total variance in financial satisfaction level. Apart from overspending which had a strong negative association with financial satisfaction, having a higher risk tolerance, no difficulty with monthly bill payments, and savings in an emergency fund and retirement plan were all positively associated with financial satisfaction. Mortgage debt was the only debt factor shown to have a significant association with financial satisfaction and the positive association is an important indication of the value and overall satisfaction attached to home ownership.
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