Recent graduates include two new Ph.D.s and seven earning their master’s degrees.
Spring graduates with a Master of Science in Personal Financial Planning through the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (GPIDEA) were Michael Ballard, Hector Bones-Rivera, Daniel Da Ponte, Deborah Doucet, Angela McCorkle, Nicole Wimbish and Michael Zurek.
Two earn personal financial planning doctorates
Kurt Schindler and Miyoung Yook, both Certified Financial Planners™, successfully defended their dissertations this summer.
Schindler, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is vice president and director of financial education for Banco Popular de Puerto Rico where he is a strong proponent of financial literacy. His dissertation, Examining Capacity and Preparation of Teachers for Teaching Personal Finances in Puerto Rico, used a primary data collection process from middle and high school teachers on the island.
Personal finance education is becoming part of the school curriculum in the public school system in Puerto Rico. His study examined the sources of objective financial knowledge, subjective financial knowledge, and personal finance teaching efficacy among a group of 316 middle and high school teachers from 70 of the 78 towns in Puerto Rico. The study used Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory as the theoretical framework. A new model, called the Personal Finance Education Efficacy Model, was created to measure the associations between the independent variables (individual financial variables, teaching variables, socioeconomic variables, and demographic variables) and the dependent variable of personal finance teaching efficacy with logistic regression analysis.
The results show a strong association between the level of subjective financial knowledge and personal finance teaching efficacy, as well as a strong association between financial behaviors and personal finance teaching efficacy. One surprising result was the negative association between financial training and the level of personal finance teaching efficacy.
Schindler has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish with a concentration in economics and international trade from the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY) and a master’s degree in financial services from the American College. A former financial planning entrepreneur prior to joining Banco Popular in 2005, he is also an undergraduate instructor in investments at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras.
He is a member of the first doctoral cohort that began studies in 2009. His major professor was Kristy L. Archuleta.
Yook is a financial planner with Prudential in Chicago. Her dissertation, A Holistic Approach to Understanding Retirement Preparedness, evaluated the impact of cultural influence, environmental influence, types of asset ownership and psychological influence on retirement preparedness.
Current retirement planning practices often are based on structural profiles such as financial resources, financial needs and goals. The holistic approach used for this dissertation is based on the awareness of the influence of psychological and personal factors on financial decision making.
The results showed that the variables positively associated with the retirement income replacement rate were self-perception of aging, home ownership, stock ownership, household pension ownership, IRA/Keogh ownership and business ownership.
Pre-retirement income log had a highly negative association with the retirement income replacement ratio. Big Five personality and perceived mastery were not significant. However, when asset ownership (excluding home ownership) was not controlled, conscientiousness and low emotional stability became significant and showed a positive association for conscientiousness and a negative association for low emotional stability. Self-perception of aging was a significant psychological variable in both models.
Yook, who has Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, is a member of the second doctoral cohort that began studies in 2010. Her major professor was PFP Program Director Sonya Britt.