“Sooner or later, we all act as consumers,” Prof. Siegfried says. “Therefore, we should also have the necessary knowledge.” However, managing your money well does not mean “sitting on top of it” but spending it consciously. Sometimes even debt can be useful. “From an economic point of view, it is sometimes advantageous to rely on external capital, i.e., to take out a loan if the conditions are good – in other words, if interest rates are low.”
Economic education has long had a difficult standing in Germany, Siegfried laments. But that has been changing since the turn of the millennium. “Economic competence is increasingly seen as an integral part of general education.” In vocational schools, economics is a compulsory subject for commercial apprenticeships. In other secondary schools, it is usually part of political education, though some federal states, such as Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, and North Rhine-Westphalia, have even established it as a separate subject. There is heated debate about how much space economics should have in schools. After all, established subjects must give way if new ones are added.
More than learned knowledge
Prof. Siegfried prefers to focus on the quality of economic education. Unlike debates on education policy, she can influence it and improve it through her research. According to her, real economic competence is more than just learned knowledge. It is only achieved “when learners are able to take into account the perspectives and associated interests, motives, and attitudes of others in their economic decisions.” Teaching economics must be as complex as the economy itself. There is no black and white in economic activities; everything has advantages and disadvantages for one side or the other. “Conveying this and enabling informed decisions is the task of economic education and exchange, and qualified discussions are extremely important for this.” But how can discussions about financial instruments, taxes, and pension models be successful? How can students understand the arguments of others as real alternatives and not merely as competing opinions? Which formats truly help deliver good economics lessons? When should we use role-playing, and when explanatory videos, interactive data sets, or online shop simulations?
Siegfried has been exploring these questions since completing her master’s degree at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2013. At that time, economic education – at least in Hesse – was still in its infancy, both among learners and teachers. “As a doctoral student, I developed and taught courses for prospective economics teachers and also evaluated them scientifically. I was able to show that we succeeded in equipping them with the necessary tools, the so-called professional knowledge, for their future careers.” Since then, she has moved from one research project to the next, as she herself says: “After completing my doctorate, I immediately threw myself into the next research project.” After focusing on teachers, she turned her attention to the students: How can digital devices and formats help improve economics education? To answer this question, Siegfried – long before the coronavirus pandemic and the emergency digitization of schools – went into classrooms and tested it. “Four of us started out with a set of tablets and video cameras for documentation and tested what would improve the lessons.”
Digital economics lessons
With success. In 2022, her research not only earned the business education specialist her postdoctoral qualification (habilitation) but also the Goethe University’s “President’s New Horizon Award” for her “important contribution to the development of informed economic citizens.” For her, the results were above all a starting point for further research. “Among other things, digital tools offer very low-threshold learning opportunities,” she explains. “And thus also help those who have learning difficulties.” When digital simulations are used to depict economic relationships and processes, they are often easier to understand than text-based explanations. In addition, digitization also advances research itself. “Thanks to digital tests and experiments, the conditions under which economic activities take place can be designed very realistically, and financial literacy can be assessed effectively.”
Prof. Siegfried seems to pursue her path with determination. A dual degree in International Business Administration at accadis University of Applied Sciences in Bad Homburg and Northumbria University in Newcastle was followed by a master’s degree in Business Education in Frankfurt, where she also completed her doctorate and habilitation. “Numbers and math have always been my thing. But things could have turned out very differently.” She originally wanted to study mathematical economics, but then she was offered the dual degree program. Ultimately a good decision, she believes. “The program was very demanding. But I quickly realized that working in a company would be too restrictive for me. I wanted to be my own boss – something academia offered me.” That’s why, after completing her bachelor’s degree, she specifically looked for a master’s program that would increase her chances of becoming a professor. She found it in Frankfurt – and her studies sparked a passion for science.
After working in Göttingen and Weingarten, Prof. Siegfried has been in Potsdam since early 2025 and has thrown herself into designing the new vocational schoolteacher training program, which started in the 2024/25 winter semester. At the same time, she has launched several new projects. For example, Siegfried and her team are part of a research network developing digital skills tests for financial literacy. These are considered superior because they test not only economic knowledge but also its application in concrete test situations. In addition, they are designed to provide immediate results to support the learning process. “In Potsdam, we are responsible for ensuring that written and oral responses are evaluated automatically so that learners can get immediate feedback,” she explains.
Face-to-face, digital, or hybrid?
In a second project, the researcher focuses on teachers. “It’s not just students who need basic financial education – teachers do, too,” she says. How can we help them develop such a good level of financial literacy that enables them to teach it confidently? “We are developing materials for all teachers and learners, evaluating them on an ongoing basis, and thereby building a pool of tools that we ultimately want to ‘pour’ into a free app.”
Last but not least, Siegfried is now taking the question of the right degree of digitalization from the classroom back to the university. In a third project, she is investigating which types of seminars are best suited for which purposes. “Face-to-face, digital, or hybrid? We are looking at how teaching processes work in the different types of courses,” she explains. “And ideally, we will take the best of all worlds with us into the future.”
This text was published in the university magazine Portal - Zwei 2025 „Demokratie“. (in German)
Here You can find all articles in English at a glance: https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/explore-the-up/up-to-date/university-magazine/portal-two-2025-democracy