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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Behavioral Finance by Duke University

4.4
stars
4,141 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

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.

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.

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651 - 675 of 1,037 Reviews for Behavioral Finance

By seongjae k

Oct 20, 2022

This course was very thought-provoking. I highly recommend it to not only people interested in social science but also anyone who wants to make better decisions in daily life.

I hope there were more lectures about reading overall and improvements in sound. Then this course will definitely be 5 stars for sure.

By ZHAO Y

Sep 6, 2018

Needs a lot of extra reading for students with little finance/econ background, but still quite fruitful study experience, especially if you take the quiz also as part of the learning and as a way to supplement with and consolidate the class materials. Appreciate the professors' vivid lecture talks. Thanks!

By yogesh k

Jun 16, 2020

The course was helpful in understanding the different behavioural biases in the field of finance. The slides are presented with good examples. However, the examples need to be more clearer and a simple explanation should also be included for the students who have never read about the investment area.

By Dhrumil D

Feb 21, 2022

The course is absolutely amazing. I like reading, so I was satisfied with the reading material provided to understand the concepts. For people who don't like reading: Not all the material is explained in the videos. Students must go through the reading materials to understand some of the concepts.

By Sowmya

Feb 23, 2020

I would like to thank Duke University for introducing this new course. I would like to express my gratitute and thanks to the tutors for helping me to understand the concepts. Thank you Coursera. I would like to read further on this topic. Please suggest me reading relating to Behavioral Finance.

By Scot M

Apr 9, 2020

Good course. I wish there was more commentary on personal finance and investing in real world situations. It gets most into that in the last section. I would like to have an entire section on the bubble curve and the various human biases experienced throughout market roller coasters like that.

By Harry D

Mar 20, 2021

Overall, very good and much appreciated. I agree with others that have said that they would have preferred more material in the videos rather than simply the printed material. As well, all the material on the bubbles was not available or accessible due to a computer problem of some kind.

By BUSRA G

Feb 3, 2022

Videos were not detailed. A lot of questions were not resolved in the videos and we were expected to know a lot of things beforehand. As someone who is very interested in behavioral economics, and is knowledgeable about the subject, I did have some challenges during the course.

By Bipanchee G

Jun 19, 2020

The course is beneficial. But the concepts are not explained elaborately. As such at certain point it becomes difficult to understand the concepts of the entire programme. This need to be taken care of by the course reachers and the administration.

Bipanchee Goswami. India.

By LUIS G

Apr 6, 2021

The course is really good! I would improve the evaluation process, because is really bad and long and the feedback (from quices) is not the best. The slides are useful but very long to follow and without a good structure, although the videos are short (and really good).

By Jiajun M

Feb 1, 2021

It is a nice course to venture beyond rational boundaries as an economics students. However, this course seems to be incomplete as the slides presented are much larger than the lecture given, and it caused some misunderstanding of terms by "self-studying" the content.

By Andreas o

Jun 22, 2020

Very interesting topic. The content is good, the videos are simply the reading of the PDFs and the Quizzes lack a further explanation. For a glimpse into the topic this course is excellent. Maybe the authors could pick up the feedback provided and enhance the course.

By sidhi g

Jul 7, 2019

A great course to start with to understand basics of Behavioural finance. I have one suggestion , Can you please add the names of researchers who have done the researches you mention in your course. It can help students who want to know more about it. THANK YOU !

By VISHAL J C

Apr 18, 2019

I enjoyed the course and the materials -the lectures were very good. However, i felt that the week 3 test was a bit tough since there were some terminologies which weren't discussed in the course or which had alternative names on the course. Overall, a thumbs up!

By Marcela

Jul 22, 2017

The course was very interesting, but I think that it was not covered all the information that it was asked in the last quiz. Therefore the only suggestions is to provide more information regarding the 3 week's topic.

But in the overall, the course was really good.

By Keerthana S

Mar 20, 2022

A very informative and interesting course! Loved the analysis and the real world examples it used! The structure felt a tad bit like an info dump which made it hard to correlate concepts with associated terminology. Otherwise, very glad that I took this up!

By Manorama K

Nov 5, 2024

Excellent Behavioral Finance course. Engaging content and interactive quizzes effectively conveyed complex concepts. Adding more case studies would enhance the course. Highly recommended, as it significantly improved my understanding of cognitive biases.

By Sushanth K

May 12, 2019

I wish the course was a little more exhaustive. SOme of the concepts explained needed a little more in-depth analysis for better understanding so that the quizzes would be slightly less challenging to attempt.

I really enjoyed the course otherwise!

By Rakibul H

Oct 7, 2019

This is a very good course to gather knowledge about the behavioral biases of investors. I have also learned about various market crashes and the behavioral biases behind fueled the crash. Thanks for the financial aid and for a informative course.

By Ashwani K

Apr 20, 2020

This course will not only help in making wise financial decisions, but also in the decision making of day to day tasks. The material provided could have been more direct, rather than indirect, but it does challenge your thinking so no worries.

By Christoph S

Apr 18, 2020

This course was a great introduction to the topic with some vivid examples. It encourages to dive deeper into the field of behavioral finance.

The tests could be improved with an explanation of the results to foster the trainees understanding.

By Gotamist

May 14, 2018

Perhaps add some investment strategies to the class? Ones that can be used to make money by understanding the market's behavioral biases, rather than simply avoiding mistakes in personal investing by knowing one's own behavioral biases.

By Timothee F

May 10, 2020

I have never tough that taking financial decisions was that influenced by our behaviors. In fact I see my self taking decisions before this course. I said if knew I would... But now I know I will, even do there is a lot more to learn.

By Ong C L

Sep 17, 2021

Excellent materials. Examples are relatable to the financial markets and especially in the current environment of covid. Help students to see things in a different angle. Gain new perspectives and have a historical viewpoint as well.

By Daniel T

Jul 5, 2018

Lot of example from many aspects of daily life.Many be too few analysis of real crisis (except the subprimes) and would have expected more direct examples on actual trading errors to have a better link with finance & capital markets