The IX. INCSOS International Congress of Social Sciences

This research represents one of the few studies focusing on the relationship between public budget awareness and Generation Z higher education students in the relevant literature. Our aim was to assess and enhance the budget awareness levels of higher education students, who not only constitute a significant portion of the voting population in most countries but are also future decision-makers. Its hypothesis was that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test measures, supporting the effectiveness of the intervention. To achieve this aim, we conducted the "Basic Budget Awareness" seminars at four Turkish state universities between December 2023 and May 2024. Prior to the seminars, we administered a pre-test consisting of 13 items to measure the participants' initial budget awareness levels. Following the seminars, we conducted a post-test 10–15 days later, and a total of 407 participants who attended these activities responded. This approach allowed us to compare the effect of the seminars on the budget awareness levels of higher education students. We applied a Paired T- Test using the SPSS software program to analyse the data, as the pre-and post-test data were normally distributed. The results revealed that the pre-test's reliability value (Cronbach's Alpha) was calculated as 0.91, which increased to 0.95 for the post-test. Furthermore, a significant difference was observed between the pre-and post-test scores, indicating that the "Basic Budget Awareness" seminars positively affected higher education students' public financial awareness levels. Consequently, we suggest that similar informative seminars or educational activities could significantly enhance the knowledge capacities of young citizens—who are potential taxpayers—and increase their interest in public financial policies.