Complex thinking linked to financial behavior but not financial knowledge in Mexican students

Does the ability to reason about complex, interdependent problems make someone better with money? A new study from Mexican universities suggests the answer is more nuanced than a simple yes. Researchers surveyed and interviewed 122 university students enrolled in public and private higher education institutions across Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City, and found that students’ perceived complex thinking competency was positively associated with their financial behaviors and attitudes, but showed no measurable connection to their financial knowledge. The findings, published in Frontiers in Education, indicate that higher-order cognitive competencies may relate differently to distinct dimensions of financial literacy rather than translating uniformly into stronger financial decision-making across the board.

Financial literacy has become an essential competency for young adults navigating increasingly independent economic decisions. It encompasses the knowledge and skills required to understand and manage personal finances, including budgeting, saving, spending, and investing. University students face these decisions acutely, particularly those receiving bursaries or loans who must decide how and when to allocate limited resources. In Mexico, financial education has been identified as particularly important for equipping university students with effective money management skills, yet financial literacy among young people in the country remains limited. This gap motivated the research team, led by Zeneth Patino of the Language Research Development Group along with colleagues at Tecnológico de Monterrey and the Benemérita Escuela Normal de Coahuila, to examine which competencies might be associated with students’ financial knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes.

The competency at the center of the study is complex thinking, sometimes described as reasoning for complexity. It involves applying integrative thinking to analysis, synthesis, problem solving, and continuous learning through cognitive skills associated with scientific, critical, systemic, and innovative thinking. Complex thinking provides a framework for approaching problems characterized by interdependence, uncertainty, multiple alternatives, and changing conditions, which are precisely the features of financial decision-making. Financial choices require individuals to interpret information, assess alternatives, anticipate consequences, and respond to uncertainty within an increasingly complex economic environment. Theoretically, systemic thinking may facilitate understanding the interrelationships among income, expenditures, debt, savings, and long-term planning, while critical thinking may support the evaluation of credit and investment alternatives, scientific thinking may contribute to evidence-based reasoning about risk, and innovative thinking may facilitate adaptive behaviors through creative problem solving and the use of digital financial tools. Whether these theoretically plausible relationships are empirically observable, however, had remained insufficiently understood, as the two research streams had largely evolved independently.

To address this gap, the researchers employed a convergent mixed-methods design in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected during the same period, analyzed independently, and merged at the interpretation stage. Participants were recruited through non-probability convenience sampling, yielding 122 students aged 17 to 24 years, with a mean age of 19.5, from four higher education institutions. The quantitative component used two online questionnaires. The R4CF questionnaire assessed financial literacy through 25 items covering financial knowledge, financial behavior, and financial attitudes, with knowledge items adapted from a financial literacy questionnaire for Mexican youth and behavior and attitude items adapted from the OECD/INFE core financial literacy questionnaire. The eComplexity questionnaire measured perceived complex thinking competency through 25 items evaluating four dimensions: systemic, scientific, critical, and innovative thinking. In the present sample, the eComplexity total scale showed good internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93, consistent with its original validation, though the financial attitudes subscale showed low internal consistency and the financial knowledge items, scored dichotomously, yielded a very low KR-20 value, a result the authors attribute to the items assessing distinct financial concepts rather than a single homogeneous trait.

The financial knowledge items deserve particular technical attention. In the source instrument, these are knowledge questions with a single correct answer. The researchers presented each as a statement that was either financially correct or financially incorrect, answered on a four-point Likert scale with no neutral midpoint. Responses were then recoded as correct or incorrect according to the answer key. For example, one item stated that a deposit of 1,000 Mexican pesos at a 2% annual interest rate yields 1,100 pesos after one year. Because the correct balance is 1,020 pesos, disagreeing with the statement was coded as correct. The ten binary scores were summed to produce a financial knowledge score ranging from 0 to 10, capturing whether respondents identified the correct answer but not the strength of their agreement. Group differences were tested with Student’s t test when normality and homogeneity of variances held, and with the Mann-Whitney U test otherwise, while associations were examined with Spearman’s rank-order correlations because several variables deviated from normality.

The quantitative results revealed a pattern of small, mostly non-significant differences. Students enrolled in private universities obtained a slightly higher descriptive mean score in overall financial literacy than their public university counterparts, but this difference was not statistically significant. Within the individual dimensions, private university students did score significantly higher in financial knowledge, with a mean of 2.58 compared to 2.22 for public university students, and slightly higher in financial behavior, with means of 3.00 versus 2.94, a difference that also reached statistical significance. Financial attitudes showed no significant difference between institution types. Across both institution types, female students obtained slightly higher financial knowledge scores than male students, with means of 6.88 versus 6.83 in private universities and 6.33 versus 6.04 in public universities, though these gender differences were not statistically significant. The authors caution that institution type should not be interpreted as an explanatory variable per se, since the study did not collect or control for potentially relevant variables such as socioeconomic status, parental education, previous financial education, or employment status.

Perceived complex thinking competency followed a similar descriptive pattern. Private university students reported a slightly higher overall mean score of 4.02 on the five-point scale compared to 3.95 for public university students, a difference that was not statistically significant. Private university students also tended to report higher mean scores in systemic thinking, 4.10 versus 3.94, critical thinking, 4.07 versus 4.05, and innovative thinking, 4.00 versus 3.97, while mean scores for scientific thinking were identical across both institution types at 3.83. None of these sub-competency differences reached statistical significance. The critical test of the study’s hypothesis came from the correlation analysis. Financial behavior was positively correlated with all four dimensions of perceived complex thinking: systemic thinking, with a Spearman coefficient of 0.37, scientific thinking at 0.39, critical thinking at 0.25, and innovative thinking at 0.42. Financial attitudes were positively correlated with systemic, critical, and innovative thinking, but not with scientific thinking. Financial knowledge, by contrast, was not significantly correlated with any dimension of perceived complex thinking, with all coefficients at or below 0.09 in absolute value. The hypothesis was therefore partially supported.

The qualitative component, drawn from 12 focus groups conducted with the same 122 students, revealed a rich picture of everyday financial practices that contextualized the survey results. Participants described diverse budgeting strategies, ranging from traditional expense tracking on paper to modern tools such as mobile banking applications and Excel, and some cited the percentage-based 50-30-20 budget allocating income to expenses and savings. One public university student described using a 50-30-20 system to contribute to household expenses, daily spending, and savings, while another adapted it to a 10-20-50 arrangement, noting that what remained had to stretch across two weeks. Students reported income sources including parental allowances, scholarships, business ventures, formal and informal employment, and seasonal vacation work, with expenses classified into fixed categories such as food, transportation, and phone bills, and variable categories including entertainment and emergencies. Saving strategies proved inventive: some participants exchanged spare cash into US dollars specifically because pesos were easier to spend, others minimized eating out or prepared their own meals to save for concerts, and some maintained savings accounts they could not easily access because the cards were controlled by their parents.

The focus groups also exposed misconceptions with potential financial consequences. Some participants mentioned gambling as a risky investment alternative, describing sports betting and casino experiences, and one participant reported investing 200 pesos and withdrawing more than 500 pesos after a month of sports betting. The authors note that engaging in financial activities does not necessarily entail an accurate understanding of investment risk, and that such misconceptions may lead students to perceive gambling as a viable financial strategy, echoing findings from studies in Thailand and Lesotho where university students showed limited understanding of investment risk and compound interest. On the credit side, students did not report using credit or credit cards in their own names, and no debt payments from financial institutions were reported. Financial attitude scores across both institution types fell below the favorable score of 4 on the survey scale, particularly in saving and money management, suggesting these attitudes require improvement.

Taken together, the findings suggest that the relationship between perceived complex thinking and financial literacy is dimension-specific rather than uniform. The authors offer two plausible explanations for the absence of an association with financial knowledge: the eComplexity instrument measures perceived rather than objectively assessed complex thinking, and like the behavior and attitude subscales it relies on self-reported data, whereas the knowledge score is based on correct answers; and financial literacy may also depend on contextual factors such as previous financial education, socioeconomic background, and family financial socialization. The coexistence of knowledge gaps with adaptive everyday practices suggests that financial literacy among university students may not be adequately characterized through a simple deficit perspective. The study’s limitations include the convenience sample of 122 volunteers, which cannot be considered representative of Mexican university students, the self-perception nature of the complex thinking measure, and the low internal consistency of the financial knowledge and attitudes scores, which may have attenuated their correlations. Future research should combine self-perception instruments with performance-based assessments, incorporate contextual variables, and use validated financial knowledge tests. For educators, the message is clear: financial education initiatives should build upon the resourceful strategies students already use while explicitly addressing misconceptions about investment, financial risk, and long-term planning.

Subject of Research: The association between perceived complex thinking competency and financial literacy dimensions among university students in public and private higher education institutions in Mexico

Article Title: Does complex thinking translate into financial literacy? Evidence from university students in Mexico

Article References: Patino, A., Cruz-Sandoval, M., Ramírez-Montoya, M.-S., & Ibarra-Vázquez, G. (2026). Does complex thinking translate into financial literacy? Evidence from university students in Mexico. Frontiers in Education, 11, Article 1980888. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1980888

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1980888

Keywords: financial literacy, complex thinking, higher education, university students, Mexico, mixed methods, financial behavior, financial attitudes, financial knowledge, systemic thinking, critical thinking, financial education