Financial Adulting: Forming a Sense of Self

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Tara Immell, Beedie School of Business

Project team: Yvonne Edionseri, research assistant

Timeframe: December 2021 to July 2022

Funding: $5,000

Course addressed: BUS 221 – Personal Finance

Description: For this project, I would like to focus on uncovering the process through which undergraduate business students become more aware of their own financial choices and develop an identity related to making adult decisions with their finances. I teach BUS 221 to hundreds of students every year, so knowing this will help me, as a teacher, to be more aware of my students’ various needs and goals.

Questions addressed:

• In what ways did completing SMART goal-based budgets prepare students for their expected financial situations after university?
• In what ways does giving and receiving peer feedback impact a student’s reflection upon their own sense of financial self?

Knowledge Sharing: I will prepare to share my project findings at venues where I have spoken in the past at SFU, including CEE conferences, Teaching Matters talks, and SFU Well-being in Learning Environments events. All of these are wider venues than within the Beedie School of Business, so I will also find out how to speak at a Beedie-only event.