New grant to increase financial literacy among older adults

Abhinav Choudhry
Abhinav Choudhry

PhD student Abhinav Choudhry has received a 2024-2026 Institute for Information Literacy at Purdue research award for his project, "Gamified Finance Simulator for Older Adults: A Financial Literacy and Vulnerability Intervention." The $4,000 award is intended for research that enables people to navigate and contribute to today's information environment. Associate Professor Rachel Adler and PhD student Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou will serve as co-principal investigators on the project, which aims to create a gamified simulation of digital banking. 

"A large part of the older adult population is not comfortable using the internet for digital transactions and does not do online banking. As banks reduce the number of branches and increase the number of online services and transactions, research has shown that a sizable portion of this population feels increasingly disenfranchised and is thus less able to participate in society," said Choudhry.

While the project's target audience is an older adult demographic, the simulation could be used to teach digital banking and digital security to anyone. Players will be taught the basics of operating bank and credit card accounts, performing online transactions, and using utility services. The simulation will include prerecorded videos and run like a game, with a game currency, challenges, leaderboards, and in-game rewards. The primary game would be played on computers, but some parts could also be played on mobile phones.

"The game challenges will be very practical, such as setting up beneficiaries in accounts, transferring funds, paying a credit card bill, shopping online, paying a utility bill, etc. This will be done with the help of story narratives and keeping track of the money spent, products purchased, and experience earned. However, it will also teach more advanced skills in both financial literacy and digital literacy," said Choudhry. "The overall hope is that by playing this simulation, older adults will not only be able to perform more financial transactions and financial management online but also become more confident handling digital technology in general."

The simulation will also teach older adults how to guard themselves against common online threats. According to Choudhry, while the older population tends to lose more money to scams than younger populations, they are less likely to report it.

"Older adults' fear of digital threats prevents them from taking advantage of online resources," he said. “We hope to increase their resilience against threats by teaching them how to stay safe online by using secure password managers, identifying suspicious links, and distinguishing between genuine and spurious emails."

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Allgood is 'all in' on information science

MSLIS student Evan Allgood's volunteer work showed him that a career in information science would bring all his interests together in one field: accessibility, literature, history, technology, databases, and community building.

Evan Allgood

iSchool researchers to present at ASSETS 2024

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the 26th International Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) ACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024), which will be held on October 28-30 in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The conference is the premier forum for presenting research on design, evaluation, use, and education related to computing for people with disabilities and older adults.

MSIM students win Chicago round of NASA hackathon

A team including MSIM students Kritika Singh and Jainam Rajput won the Chicago hackathon of the NASA Space Apps Challenge, which was held in over 450 locations worldwide on October 5-6. The students partnered with computer science master's students Shraddhaa Mohan, Jinang Gandhi, and Sai Krishna Rohith and engineering in autonomy and robotics master's student Jugal Upadhyay to form Team Cuberts.

Members of Team Cuberts:  Jugal Bipinkumar Upadhyay, Jainam Rajput, Sai Krishna Rohith Kattamuri, Shraddhaa Mohan, Kritika Singh, and Jinang Gandhi.

Spectrum Scholar Spotlight: Armaan Singh Kalkat

Twelve iSchool master's students were named 2024-2025 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Armaan Singh Kalkat graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in linguistics and BS in psychology (with an emphasis on neuroscience).

Armaan Singh Kalkat

iSchool well represented at ASIS&T 2024

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the 87th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), which will be held on October 25-29 in Calgary, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is "Putting People First: Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Care in Information Research and Practice." The meeting is the premier international conference dedicated to the study of information, people, and technology in contemporary society.

iSchool Building