Evaluating the Effectiveness of Chatbots in Financial Education for Postgraduate Decision-Making

An experiment was conducted at the University of Granada (Spain) to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods for delivering financial education for postgraduate decision-making. The participants were final-year undergraduate students at the University of Granada Business School. They were divided into three groups: one received financial education through a chatbot, another received education through traditional videos, and a control group did not receive any educational intervention.

The financial education provided in both formats, through the chatbot and video, consisted of two main modules, with a total duration of approximately 15 minutes. The first module focused on teaching the students how to calculate the economic feasibility of investing in a master's degree using the Net Present Value criterion. The second module focused on showing students how to finance their master's degree investment through a postgraduate student loan. It explained a reasonable amount based on the expected income, interest rates, and repayment terms.

The first group, which interacted with the chatbot, received information in an interactive and personalized manner, allowing them to ask questions and receive immediate responses in a conversational format. The second group, which used traditional videos, received the same information but in a more passive format, without the ability to interact directly. The control group did not receive any specific training, serving as a baseline for comparison.

After the intervention, the financial knowledge of all of the participants was assessed through an objective test. The results showed that both the chatbot and video groups scored higher on the financial knowledge test compared to the control group, indicating a positive impact from the financial education. However, the students who received education through the chatbot performed significantly better than those who used the videos. This suggests that the personalized interaction and real-time query resolution provided by the chatbot offered an additional educational advantage over the video format.