Today, economic environment forces individuals to make many complex financial decisions, therefore individuals need some basic knowledge of economics and the functioning of the economy and financial institutions in order to work successfully in this field. We can conclude that individuals must be financially literate to some extend in order to successfully function in this environment. Financial literacy is understood as a combination of awareness, knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours which are necessary for the successful financial decision-making and achieving financial well-being (Atkinson & Messy, 2012). Unfortunately, research shows that financial literacy is low, which means that individuals with a low level of financial literacy do not understand the financial services they have at their disposal, and often misjudge the situation, which further aggravates their financial situation. And, conversely, individuals with a higher degree of financial literacy manage their money better and thus improve their position (Smyczek & Matysiewicz, 2015).

There are many factors influencing the financial behaviour of an individual – among which are also locus of control and gender. There are evidence, that locus of control and college students’ attitudes toward credit are significantly correlated (Joo, Grable & Bagwell, 2003), where students’ with higher external locus of control having more positive attitudes toward credit. Moreover, some studies show that individuals with an external locus of control also have higher credit card debt balances (Tokunaga, 1993; Davies & Lea, 1995). There is evidence, that people who do not take ownership for their behaviours also exhibit poor financial planning (Busseri, Lefcourt & Kerton, 2998), therefore individuals need to be and feel in control of their financial destiny (have an internal locus of control) in order to take full advantage of their knowledge and financial resources (Perry & Morris, 2005). Also gender is one of the factors linked with financial literacy and financial behaviour, where women show lower financial knowledge and less desirable financial behaviour (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2008).

The PISA 2012 financial literacy assessment provides the information on 15-year old students’ abilities and knowledge in the field of finance and the information on their financial behaviour. Moreover, it also provides information on students’ attributional styles. Based on the research literature our research questions were:

• Are locus of control and gender significant predictors for financial behaviour?
• Is there a difference between boys and girls in locus of control’s power of predicting the financial behaviour?
• Do girls show a less desirable financial behaviour?
• Does internal locus of control predict a more desirable financial behaviour?
• Does external locus of control predict a less desirable financial behaviour?

To conclude, main objective of our study therefor is to examine whether students included in PISA 2012 financial literacy study who achieve higher levels of internal locus of control show more desirable financial behaviour and vice versa and if there is a difference between both genders. We were interested in the results for Slovenia in comparison to international results.

Sampling procedure: Sampling was composed of two stages – selecting a sample of schools within country and selecting a sample of students from the sampled schools. For each country a minimum of 150 schools was sampled out of all eligible schools in the country. In the next stage, from 20 to 35 15-year old students per sampled school were sampled. The sampling procedure assured that the sample of students was representative of the whole country participating in the study. Participants: The participants are 15-year old students which were sampled in PISA 2012 financial literacy sample from Shanghai, Belgium (Flemish part), Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, USA, Russian Federation, France, Slovenia, Spain, Croatia, Israel, Slovakia, Italy and Colombia. There were 29.041 students included in the PISA 2012 financial literacy study. Instruments: Two instruments were used in the PISA 2012 financial literacy study. Financial literacy test, which tests the understanding of: • content (money and transactions, financial planning and management, risk and reward, financial environment), • processes (identification of financial information, analysis of information in the financial environment, assessment of financial problems, application of financial knowledge and understanding) and • context (use of knowledge in environments related to education and work, work and family, individual and society) Student background questionnaire included questions on students’ home environment, students’ demographic data, on available resources, on students’ attributional styles, their financial behaviour etc. Statistical analysis: In the analyses variables attribution for success, attribution for failure, gender, students’ saving behaviour and students’ inclination towards impulsive buying behaviour were used. Students’ socio-economic status was used as control variable. Factor analysis is used in order to form indices of attributional styles (internal locus of control, external locus of control). The predictive value of the attribution styles and gender for financial behaviour is afterwards explored with regression analysis. The national results (Slovene) are later on compared to international data. Data from PISA 2012 cycle were used, because Slovenia did not participate in any other cycles of PISA financial literacy study.

It was hypothesized that locus of control and gender would influence the financial behaviours of students sampled in PISA 2012 financial literacy assessment. We expect that findings would indicate that all of the hypothesized concepts influence financial behaviours to some degree. Namely, students with an external locus of control exhibit worse financial behaviours (they save less and show stronger inclination to impulsive buying behaviour). Moreover, we expect that male students will exhibit better financial behaviour (they save more and are less inclined to impulsive buying behaviour). Moreover, the results for Slovenia do not differ from international data.

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