Financial literacy scale: Development and investigation of psychometric properties

This study aims to develop a financial literacy scale that can be used to assess the level of financial literacy among university students and the relevant age group. This study employs quantitative research methods and is a scale development study. The study group consists of 580 students enrolled at a state university during the 2023-2024 academic year. Participants were selected through convenience sampling and participated in the research voluntarily. In the scale development process, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and discrimination analyses were conducted as validity analyses. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated for the whole scale and sub-dimensions for reliability analysis. After the analyses, the final scale was validated with two dimensions and 18 items. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency for the whole scale was 0.90. At the same time, the sub-dimension of "Financial Planning" achieved a coefficient of 0.90, and the sub-dimension of "Investment and Market Knowledge" attained a coefficient of 0.89. Also, strict invariance was provided according to gender in measurement invariance. As a consequence of the study, a valid and reliable scale has been developed to measure financial literacy levels of university students.