At its most fundamental level, financial literacy helps you understand how money works. Developing your financial literacy skills can help you make informed decisions about budgeting, saving, and investing. Evaluating the credibility of financial information sources is essential to avoid misleading and incorrect information. Strengthening these skills supports long-term financial well-being and responsible participation in the economy.
This guide provides activities and guidelines to help you practice applying these skills in support of the assignments required for Finance 1050-Personal Finance at Salt Lake Community College. Activities on this guide support the dual goals of building information literacy skills and supporting your completion of the financial plan assignment in this course.
Financial information is everywhere! What information can you actually trust? Learning how to check a sources credibility helps develop the skills to make smart financial decisions. Go to the interactive activities for business literacy page to spend some more time learning about determining the credibility of sources.
Credible sources are those where the individual, group or company is considered an authority on the subject. It's important to remember that there are different kinds of authority.
For example, an individual who has had success running a small business for multiple years can reasonably be considered an authority on running a small business. Their authority in this case is a reflection of their experience.
It's also possible that they have other skills that would strengthen an argument for them being an authoritative, credible source such as holding a particular certification or earning a certain degree. For example, Dr. Amar Sahay is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt. One way to think about this element of authority would be to ask yourself if the certification or degree would be something a hiring manager would list in a job posting.
For example, SLCC Associate Professor Phil Nelsen was the co-founder of Legal Heat, a business that enjoyed enough success to lead to a book, consultancy requests and eventually a purchase by a large national training company. (More information about Professor Nelsen can be seen at his Gail Miller Business School profile.) The information that his business was successful enough to be sold to a national company is an element of Professor Nelsen's authority to write and speak about launching and running a small business.
Authority can also be associated with other indicators that serve as an accepted shorthand for skill or education. Examples here include job titles (CEO, Dean, Judge), holders of a particular credential (certified financial advisor, licensed practical nurse) or degree (PhD, MD.)
In both cases, their expertise might extend to other areas. The context is another element of determining both authority and credibility.
There are many different tools, checklists, and strategies to help you evaluate your sources. Be careful of relying completely on the results of a checklist. The goal is for you to think critically about the information you find, not to have you check boxes on a list.
Here are two different tools to try using.
Ask yourself these questions about each source you are considering.
Ellen Carey at Santa Barbara City College developed P.R.O.V.E.N. Source Evaluation. Consider these factors for each source.
P.R.O.V.E.N. Source Evaluation by Ellen Carey is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Learn how to identify your information need
Practice searching individual library databases
Analyze information sources for credibility
Choose the sources that meet your information needs
