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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Behavioral Finance by Duke University

4.4
stars
4,105 ratings

About the Course

We make thousands of decisions every day. Do I cross the road now, or wait for the oncoming truck to pass? Should I eat fries or a salad for lunch? How much should I tip the cab driver? We usually make these decisions with almost no thought, using what psychologists call “heuristics” – rules of thumb that enable us to navigate our lives. Without these mental shortcuts, we would be paralyzed by the multitude of daily choices. But in certain circumstances, these shortcuts lead to predictable errors – predictable, that is, if we know what to watch out for. Did you know, for example, that we are naturally biased towards selling investments that are doing well for us, but holding on to those that are doing poorly? Or that we often select sub-optimal insurance payment plans, and routinely purchase insurance that we don’t even need? And why do so many of us fail to enroll in our employer’s corporate retirement plans, even when the employer offers to match our contributions? Behavioral finance is the study of these and dozens of other financial decision-making errors that can be avoided, if we are familiar with the biases that cause them. In this course, we examine these predictable errors, and discover where we are most susceptible to them. This course is intended to guide participants towards better financial choices. Learn how to improve your spending, saving, and investing decisions for the future....

Top reviews

SK

Feb 25, 2020

Good course! There is just one thing I would improve here - an explanation of the mistakes after the tests are done. This improvement should increase the student`s understanding of specific topics.

M

May 2, 2018

This course was a very good sum up of Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and slow. Definitely recommend to everyone who would like to know more about our flaws or would like to refresh your knowledge.

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76 - 100 of 1,030 Reviews for Behavioral Finance

By Chun-Ching H

Aug 26, 2024

An extremely confusing course. The course content does not focus on the Behavioral Finance itself, and it, instead, spend most of the time on case’s background descriptions without clear definitions of BF terms. The portion of BF terms and theories definitions are way less than the case background. For me as a learner, I only received a vague idea of BF terms but being asked to identify this terms precisely in the quizzes. The course is basically all relied on slide deck reading. The lecture videos are all 1-5 minus long, and seems the vedios are there just to make this look like a course.

By Mike

May 14, 2020

The layout and presentation of this course is clunky and not intuitive. It assumes a grasp on a priori knowledge--which, for a beginners course, does not seem wise. Perhaps the juxtaposition of this course against Dr. Shiller's Financial Markets course (which I just now completed) makes this one come off as worse than it is. The reading material is written in an annoying "hold your breath to find out why this makes sense" style. Regardless, I'm un-enrolling after slogging through the first week and will look for another course on behavioural finance.

By Akarsh M

May 20, 2020

The course was very interesting. But one thing to note is that there is a lot of reading to do and a lot less explanation is given by the lecturers. On top of that, the examples in the quizzes were quite vague and exhaustive. And armed with limited knowledge, I found it very difficult to go through them. Also, I got no review/correction as to why did the option I selected was wrong. This way I could have corrected myself

By Paul W

Aug 5, 2016

The course is very light on substance. There are significantly better courses and books available on the same subject matter. I definitely would not recommend this course.

By Edwin S

Aug 22, 2020

Worst course I have done on Coursera. You are expected to learn almost everything from a few pdfs and lectures do not cover much. Definitely not recommended.

By Fokrur R H

Apr 24, 2020

The worst course ever. There is no matching between course video content and question. Not much explanation about the biases.

By Chelsea R

Dec 1, 2019

I was looking more for a beginners level course for money management, and this was more geared towards finance.

By 18BCF020-Bindhiya M B A

Sep 30, 2020

Certificate is not there ...And after completing of course I didn't get my certificate

By Md R I

May 20, 2020

too much reading ....explanation is poor.... less understanding

By Archil J

May 25, 2020

very poor. expected much more and better explainations.

By Ameet C

Aug 16, 2019

extremely impractical, confusing notes and tests

By Sunny A

Apr 19, 2019

Complex concepts were not explained well.

By K59 V P A

Jan 10, 2023

The contents are well-structured and easy to understand, with many actual case studies and examples. However, the quizzes could be clearer and should include detailed explanations. The course approaches economics and finance from the human behavioral perspective which is contrary to some traditional economic theories stating that people are always rational. Highly recommend it to anyone interested in cognitive psychology and who wants to apply it not only in financial decision-making to be a wiser investor but also in daily life where many actions are affected by various unrecognized cognitive biases. It is necessary to have a fundamental knowledge of economics and finance before studying to grasp the contents better.

By Kannan S

May 22, 2017

I was exposed to the topics for the first time. Hence, this is a beginner's feedback.

I would have liked the course to be structured in the following manner - Week 1 - theoretical input; Week 2 - Introduction to all biases; Week 3 - Practical examples of specific biases exhibited in real life situations

Some of the biases in Quizzes are not part of the curriculum - does it mean they are false responses or the course did not cover them?

By Serah D

Jun 3, 2023

it was so helpful for me to understand this field you know i haven't known heard about behavioral finance and this course gave me a lot , knowledge, strategy, some common subjects in finance and behavioral topics . This helps me to rethink about the future path that i wanted to chose and present . I wanna add this subject to my future reading .if it possible i wanna to learn and study more about behavioral science.

By SHEILA D D S

Mar 27, 2022

Lovely Professor Emma gently explains why we should be more data centric with financial decisions . For now on I feel still more capable of identifying some behavioral mistakes in population in general, and why is so dificult to fast realize when some decisions have to be done nevertheless the pain involved in whatsoever bias may be present in the situation.

It is trully a life changing course.

By Diego B

Oct 9, 2018

This is a great beginners course. It's challenging enough to keep you interested but not so much so as to make you feel out of depth and despaired. The 3 week program ramps up nicely and helps you ease into the material. There are more math than I was expecting but it's a finance course after all so it's not so surprising and one can still follow the course even if not comfortable with numbers.

By Stanley S

Apr 18, 2020

A very well organized and time-flexible course that is suitable for people who have little knowledge about economics/finance but are eager to learn about the basics of behavioral economics. The course is relatively easy and the coursework is quite light, and the professor have made complicated economic concepts easy to understand (she explained them very clearly). Definitely worth a try!!!

By Christopher D R

Nov 1, 2020

Extremely helpful especially in my case as an FX Trader where I have to make several trade decisions which I now know that mostly are biased in one way or another with the behavioral biases I have learned. Knowing these now, I may be able to enact certain steps to help me in my trades to avoid these biases. Also useful as an investing individual or any individual making decisions.

By Danny S

Feb 13, 2020

I consider this course to of been a thought-provoking and rewarding lesson on the psychological pitfalls of investment decision-making. The course provided insight into how and why a market may fluctuate due to how we perceive and react to events. The exercises and examples were key in framing exactly how we make the mistakes and irrational choices in decisions about our money.

By Kwame J

Apr 13, 2022

I really enjoyed this course's focus on financial decision making as an expertise in making better financial choices, as a leadership skill.

It resonates with me because I am currently looking forward to practicing some financial theories as my architectural model and I think this course is timely to meet the demands of my quest.

Happy to successfully complete this course!

By Niranjan K

Jul 28, 2020

Excellent course. It actually makes you think through the concepts. It is not for those who need spoon feeding. This course has not only developed my knowledge but the perspective of conducting such course during this pandemic situation. The videos & course material is very engaging and thought provoking. I think that is the crux of Behavioral Finance.

By Galymbek M

Jul 22, 2019

turned out to be very demanding course. This course shed some light at the basics of behavioral finance. After the course, it is interesting indeed to continue education/self-education on the behavioral finance/economics issues. in addition, this course came just in time to help better evaluate current projects at work (financial institution)

By Zoe T

Mar 20, 2017

I just stumble upon this course and like the lecturer says it's a relatively new school of thoughts. It combines psychology and finance or to say find psychology application in finance subjects.

I did come around my university to find finance books written about this subjects but so disappointed I found none physical books, all are ebooks.

By Anton C

Apr 8, 2020

I got what I expected when I read the syllabus. This course will give you a general sense of the topic on hand. Discussions are mostly surface level but it is enough for you to understand different behaviours involved. Go take it if you want to start learning about behavioural finance and use this as a springboard to an in-depth journey