Microsoft Word Ed Horwitz Post Dissertation Fina docx

 Research Questions 
To better understand the relationship between financial literacy and retirement 
preparedness best practice behaviors, the following research questions were explored: 
1.  What is the association between financial literacy and calculating retirement 
savings needs? 
2.  What is the association between financial literacy and individual retirement 
product ownership behavior? 
3.  What is the association between financial literacy and stock or securities 
ownership behavior? 
 Methodology 
 
Data for this research was taken from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study 
(NCFS). The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) commissioned this study to 
investigate the financial capability among adults in the U.S. The NCFS data was made up of 
three separate surveys containing varying sample sizes and population generalizability: a 1,500 
respondent national sample, a state-by-state survey with 500 respondents per state, and a 1,000 
respondent military sample. The interests of this research suggested the use of the state-by-state 

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survey data in order to obtain a large enough number of respondents and still make use of a 
national sample. The state-by-state survey data was classified into nine categories of questions: 
demographics, current financials, financial professionals, banking products, retirement products, 
home ownership, credit card debt, consumer loan debt, and insurance products. This research 
was specifically interested in the retirement products and financial professionals sections along 
with the assessment of financial literacy.