| Education Toward Economic Competence: Concept Construction and Scale Building for Enabling Strategic Improvement in Economic Education |
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Jun Tae Kim |
| 경제역량 개념 정립 및 척도 구성을 통한 교양 경제교육 효율화 방안 |
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김준태 |
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| Abstract |
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This paper aims to provide new insights on the concept of economic competence as the teaching of personal economic and financial knowledge with a direct intention of increasing an individual’s economic and financial literacy. Education is increasingly being scrutinized by criteria relating to specified performance in the broad world of work and social behaviour, and an important criterion for the measurement of efficiency is that of productivity. Economic competence of people and increasing economic and financial literacy levels to improve financial well-being is of global concern and is regularly identified as a core life skill for everyone. Economic education aims to empower individuals with competence to evaluate and to decide on economic situations as well as on economic policy. Education toward economic competence can no longer be left in the realm of guesswork and treated merely through incidental instruction. Skilfully presented, it can serve as means toward greater everyday competence, better personal and family life, and more effective citizenship. According to the knowledge about formal education as a crucial factor of developing economic competence, we will then integrate the curricular frame as one variable in this concept construction model. A wide agreement in the scientific community of economic didactics exists about the objectives of economic education in school. As a part of general education, it ought to enable learners, confronted with economic situations, to decide and act in an adequate and thoughtful way. They should be able to form these situations, and they should be interested in doing so in order to secure and improve society as one worth to live in. Society is a human product in the sense that society is continually reproduced by taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of institutions and social organizations. Institutions and social organizations exist because the people performing specific roles within them act on the shared assumption that they exist.
In this paper, economic competence has been defined as “the application of knowledge, understandings, skills and values in consumer and financial contexts and the related decisions that impact on self, others, the community and the environment.” Economic competence entails more than just knowledge and skills - it is deeply personal and financial decision-making involves attitudes, values and emotions. It has become imperative for individuals to develop a more nuanced understanding of the world of finance to secure their economic and financial future. However, research from around the world on economic competence raises serious concerns about the ability of individuals to secure their economic and financial well-being. We also assume a connection between curricular conditions and the degree of economic competence. If this will be proven, we are able to generate suggestions for educational policy in respect of school-curricula. The pivotal aspect of this research interest is the connection between the degree of economic competence, focused on a systemic understanding, and value judgements.
This paper is suggestive that the influence of the environment is not only unidirectional but also the economic competence of the individuals is able to influence on the future state of the environment which these individuals live in. So it is obvious that it is necessary to focus also on the problem of economic and financial literacy because it is the important indicator of the country’ s future development. Only the country which people dispose of higher level of economic competence has the potential to improve its economic position world-wide. Plain common sense tells us it is high time to take education toward economic competence - both personal-practical and general - out of the realm of guesswork and merely incidental instruction. Economic education is not an esoteric speciality, good for only the few. |
| Key Words:
Economic competence, Economic competence scale, Economic education, Economic decision making, General education |
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