Psychological mechanisms linking a financial-literacy curriculum to scenario-based financial decision quality: a cluster randomized trial of financial self-efficacy and future-orientation in Chinese vocational students.

BACKGROUND: Financial-literacy education can change behavior, but the psychological mechanisms through which it works and how long its effects last remain underspecified, especially for underrepresented learners. METHODS: In a cluster randomized trial, four first-year classes (N = 320) at a Chinese vocational college were allocated at the class level to a four-week, eight-session financial-literacy curriculum or an active control. Financial knowledge, financial self-efficacy, future-orientation (CFC), risk and debt attitudes, and a scenario-based behavioral decision-quality index were measured at baseline, immediately afterward, and 6 months later. RESULTS: Under cluster-respecting inference-the appropriate basis for causal claims with class-level randomization-no outcome attained conventional significance: all enumerated wild-cluster-bootstrap p values sit at the structural floor of 0.125 imposed by four clusters, and exact randomization inference is likewise bounded (p = 0.333). As a cluster randomized trial, the study therefore cannot reject the null at the unit of randomization. Individual-level difference-in-differences estimates (knowledge d = 0.37; self-efficacy d = 0.51; decision quality d = 0.48) are reported as effect-size estimates requiring confirmation in adequately clustered trials. In exploratory, individual-level mediation analysis, financial self-efficacy and future-orientation (CFC) appeared as parallel partial mediators, jointly accounting for 41% of the effect on decision quality; sensitivity analysis shows these indirect effects would be nullified by modest mediator-outcome confounding. Knowledge estimates faded by 6 months, whereas self-efficacy showed a directional but non-significant trend toward persistence. CONCLUSION: The findings provide effect-size estimates and mechanism hypotheses-capacity beliefs and future-orientation as parallel pathways-for adequately clustered confirmatory trials of financial-literacy education in this underserved population.