A new study suggests that a game designed to teach students how the stock market works boosts their skills in both mathematics and financial literacy.
For the study, researchers from Learning Point Associates of Naperville, Ill., tested students from 600 elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. Half the classrooms were randomly assigned to spend time playing the Stock Market Game, which was developed by the New York City-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in the 1970s.
After 15 weeks, students who played the game were found to outscore their nonplaying peers on a math test comprised of items taken from national assessments in that subject. They also did better on a separate test designed to measure their knowledge of basic financial concepts.
The study was paid for by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation in Washington.
