Due to current trends in society and economy, financial literacy is often considered as an important twenty-first century skill. However, regardless of the postulated relevance, studies suggest that financial illiteracy seems to be a widespread phenomenon in the population of many nations. Some studies also show that some groups perform particularly poorly (e.g. women, persons with migration background and/or low level of education). These differences are often attributed to different individual characteristics such as abilities, dispositions or socialisation patterns. However, available research also suggests that even after controlling for them, a quite large portion of the performance differences between the various groups of test-takers remains unexplained. One explanation for performance gaps in financial literacy might be that differences in test scores could also be evoked by the test instruments itself and may thus, at least in part, be interpreted as testing bias. In this paper, we present a newly developed Situational Judgement Test, which is focused on financial competence. For this test, we examine whether differences between groups are attributable to individual differences or due to a test bias. To analyse a possible test bias, we tested one facet of financial literacy (with three factors: control of one’s financial situation, budgeting and handling of money) related to everyday money management for measuring invariance for different groups. If measuring invariance could be assumed, we analysed group differences by calculating t-tests. Results show that two factors of the test show measurement invariance for all groups considered (gender, migration and educational background, opportunities to learn). Group comparisons are thus possible and potential differences are not due to a test bias. For one factor, we can only assume measurement invariance for the group with/without migration background and with/without opportunities to learn in financial topics. When we look at group differences, we find that in contrast to the findings of many previous studies, the analysis of the mean differences does not show any systematic deficits in financial literacy for specific groups.

由于社会和经济的当前趋势，金融素养经常被认为是二十一世纪的一项重要技能。但是，无论假定的相关性如何，研究都表明，金融文盲似乎是许多国家人口中普遍存在的现象。一些研究还表明，某些群体的表现特别差（例如，妇女，具有移民背景和/或文化程度较低的人）。这些差异通常归因于不同的个体特征，例如能力，性格或社交模式。但是，现有研究还表明，即使控制了他们，各组应试者之间的很大一部分性能差异仍然无法解释。关于金融知识水平差距的一种解释可能是测试工具本身也可能引起测试分数的差异，因此至少可以部分解释为测试偏见。在本文中，我们提出了一个新开发的情境判断测试，重点是财务能力。对于此测试，我们检查组之间的差异是归因于个人差异还是由于测试偏见。为了分析可能的测试偏见，我们测试了与日常理财有关的金融素养的一个方面（具有三个因素：对个人财务状况的控制，预算和资金处理），以衡量不同群体的不变性。如果可以假设测量不变性，我们通过计算t检验分析组差异。结果表明，测试的两个因素显示了所考虑的所有组的测量不变性（性别，移民和教育背景，学习机会）。因此可以进行组比较，并且电位差不是由于测试偏差引起的。对于一个因素，我们只能假设有/没有迁移背景并且有/没有学习金融主题机会的组的度量不变性。当我们查看群体差异时，我们发现与许多以前的研究结果相反，对均值差异的分析并未显示出特定群体在财务知识上的任何系统性缺陷。对于一个因素，我们只能假设有/没有迁移背景并且有/没有学习金融主题机会的组的度量不变性。当我们查看群体差异时，我们发现与许多以前的研究结果相反，对均值差异的分析并未显示出特定群体在财务知识上的任何系统性缺陷。对于一个因素，我们只能假设有/没有迁移背景并且有/没有学习金融主题机会的组的度量不变性。当我们查看群体差异时，我们发现与许多以前的研究结果相反，对均值差异的分析并未显示出特定群体在财务知识上的任何系统性缺陷。