Ensino de educação financeira pelo metaverso Roblox

Abstract

This work presents an alternative way of approaching the subject of Financial Education in primary and secondary schools in Brazil with a Metaverse Games approach. Various sectors of the world economy indicate Financial Literacy and the conscious use of money. However, approaching this topic in a playful, fun, and interactive way is challenging for teachers today. A creative environment was created within the Roblox metaverse to educate and instruct students about financial elements such as financial resources, salary, income and expenses, savings, debts, and investments, which are expensive terms for Brazilians and are challenging to understand in situations of indebtedness. Three questionnaires were used as a tool, the first being a pre-test to gauge the level of knowledge about the terms to be worked on. It was followed by an intermediate test, considering the digital learning object, and a third to measure progress in retaining the information acquired. Our main conclusions indicate that the Roblox metaverse environment was an excellent recreational tool for exposing the essential elements of finance and the challenges of using these resources. The metaverse is a new frontier in educational technologies. New forms and criteria for assessment, governance mechanisms, and learning management should be developed, as well as testing methods at the study level. Although a tendency for students to act impulsively within the metaverse environment was identified at the beginning of the research, the post-test results revealed a significant change in this behavior. It was found that between 64% and 74% of participants began to adopt more reflective and collaborative attitudes, using the ability to restart the virtual environment as a strategy for experimentation and learning. This dynamic allowed students to test hypotheses, correct mistakes, and improve decision-making, which resulted in more consistent collective performance. In this way, the use of the metaverse demonstrated potential not only for cognitive development but also for strengthening socio-emotional competencies such as cooperation, empathy, and critical thinking—essential skills for the holistic formation of students within the context of Financial Education. Therefore, we conclude that there is no doubt that young people need financial literacy to deal with everyday financial issues and that, collectively, they learn and cooperate more to develop these skills. Hence, it is essential to make Financial Education universally accessible in schools in a playful, purposeful, and collaborative way. However, it is important to highlight the need for further research on evaluation criteria, governance mechanisms, and learning management in this type of educational technology, in order to consolidate its effectiveness in the school context.