NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Knology and the National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE®) are launching a fellowship program for scholars in social sciences, education, financial education, public policy, and economic theory. The Financial Education Database Training Fellowship will make use of a database, a mapping tool, and other resources developed as part of a novel research initiative looking at historical spending on financial education in the United States. The Fellows will use these resources to develop and explore research questions centered around financial education.
Individuals who are selected as Fellows will participate in a workshop series that will focus on developing research questions and designing analysis plans that use the database, mapping tool, and other publicly available datasets. Each Fellow will be expected to produce a paper for peer review, a technical report, or a presentation that can be used in conferences, workshops, and other public settings. Fellows will initially work collaboratively as part of a learning community with others in the program. Later, they will have the option to work individually, with other Fellows, or with external colleagues for the remainder of the program.
This workshop series builds on the results of a Knology research project that was funded by NEFE in 2019. The goal of the initial project was to create a database of historical spending on financial education across all 50 states from the early 1990s until the present and compare and correlate the data to individual’s financial health outcomes. It aimed to provide actionable data that academic researchers, policy makers, and financial education organizations could use to assess and increase the impact of their financial education policies and offerings. Details of the project are provided in a white paper titled A New History of Investment in Financial Education across the United States published in 2021.
“Thanks to the work of our team at Knology and our partners at NEFE, we now have the tools necessary to answer important questions about how statewide investments in financial education are impacting people across the country,” John Fraser, Ph.D., Knology’s CEO, said in a statement. “We look forward to engaging with a wide range of experts through this fellowship.”
Knology officially launched the open source database in 2021. The resource, built by Knology, features information on states’ mandates or legislation for financial education for middle and high school students that were gleaned from various sources including previous studies, legal records, and the United States Federal Reserve’s annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. To help more people use the data, Knology also launched an open access data visualization tool that presents maps of the U.S. overlaid with various annual measures related to financial education and well-being. Lastly, the researchers published a resource to help guide other researchers who are seeking to use the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking dataset in their projects.
“The National Endowment of Financial Education is thrilled to partner with Knology to create this fellowship,” Jill Jones, Ph.D., NEFE’s Managing Director, Research, said in a statement. “We hope this fellowship inspires emerging scholars to explore novel topics with this promising new dataset. Focusing on emerging scholars and advancing research on financial education is essential to NEFE, and we look forward to engaging with the fellows in the months to come.”
To learn more about the fellowship and eligibility, please click on this link. The Fellowship is expected to run from April 2022 - September 2022. The application for the Financial Education Fellowship is available here.
About NEFE
The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) is the independent, centralizing voice providing leadership, research and collaboration to advance financial well-being. As one of the first organizations to embark on the mission of wholly dedicating its efforts on improving the effectiveness of financial education, NEFE continues its legacy of strengthening action-oriented research agendas, mobilizing intermediaries, and creating better solutions for researchers, educators, practitioners and policymakers. For more information, visit www.nefe.org.
About Knology
Knology is a social science research organization that works with nonprofits, businesses, and governments to untangle complex social issues. We consult with organizations on applications of research, program design, and strategy. We believe a partnership approach is the key to translating research into solutions. Six topic areas shape all Knology's work - Biosphere, Culture, Wellness, Media, Behaviors, and Systems. These research areas link our work to critical phenomena that affect all people and the structures that determine how they function. Within each research area, Knology works on initiatives that cut across individual projects and partnerships. This interconnected approach gives us the ability to study issues with nuance and rigor, as well as support our partners in implementing evidence-based interventions.
Learn more about how Knology researchers built the database here and here.
For more information or to set up an interview, please contact media@knology.org
