On methodological problems with measuring knowledge: Are women truly less financially literate than men?

Paweł Kuśmierczyk, Radosław Kurach () and Marek Kośny
Additional contact information
Paweł Kuśmierczyk: Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economics and Finance
Radosław Kurach: Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economics and Finance
Marek Kośny: Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economics and Finance

DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, 2025, vol. 52, issue 4, No 6, 519-544

Abstract: Abstract When examining the role of knowledge in the decision-making process, researchers often measure it through multiple-choice questionnaires, interpreting the number of correct answers as an indicator of knowledge. In this study, we focus on the recognised methodological biases of this approach, recommending alternative ways of modelling the phenomenon of knowledge and its manifestation. We explore several ways in which the knowledge can be structured and interpreted and apply the models to the data from a group of Polish respondents surveyed on financial literacy. These models put into question some of the stylised facts on human knowledge. Particularly, we demonstrate that an alleged gender gap (lower financial knowledge of women compared to men) might be just an artefact, resulting from the oversimplified interpretation of people’s responses in the questionnaires. Finally, our models are not restricted to any specific area of knowledge and can be applied to existing micro-datasets, removing the need for re-surveying. This presents a unique opportunity to re-examine other established stylised facts.

Keywords: Financial literacy; Knowledge modelling; Multiple-choice questionnaire; Gender gap; Self-confidence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 G53 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40622-025-00451-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:decisn:v:52:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s40622-025-00451-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/40622

DOI: 10.1007/s40622-025-00451-1

Access Statistics for this article

DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is currently edited by Rajesh Babu

More articles in DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta from Springer, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().