A Qualitative Study on the Personal Finance Experiences of Non-Business College Students in Internet Gaming: Basis for a Proposed Financial Planner
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31098/pba.v4i2.4425Keywords:
Microtransaction, Non-Business Students, Budgeting Practices, Gaming-Related Spending, Financial Behavior, Online GamingAbstract
This exploratory qualitative study investigated the personal finance experiences of non-business college students engaged in internet gaming platforms at a private University in the Philippines. Specifically, it examined their spending behaviors, budgeting practices, and financial decision-making processes within gaming contexts. Using a basic qualitative research design, the study selected twenty non-business college students through purposive sampling. The researchers conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews and analyzed them using thematic analysis. The findings revealed five major themes: (1) gaming as entertainment-driven spending with occasional financial intent; (2) prevalence of unstructured and mental budgeting practices; (3) impulse buying and emotional triggers in gaming expenditures; (4) awareness of financial consequences but inconsistent behavioral control; and (5) limited formal financial education and reliance on informal learning. The study concludes that participants demonstrated fragmented financial management practices, where awareness of financial consequences did not consistently translate into responsible spending behavior. Based on these findings, the study proposed a financial planner booklet to address the identified challenges. The study offers contextual insights into the financial vulnerability of non-business students in digital gaming environments. It provides practical implications for educational institutions, parents, and game developers within the Philippine higher education context.
Downloads
Published
Citation Check
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Fe Rose Anne Maramag, Nina Atashi Huerta, Liana Kharyle Ursolum, Kimberly Kate Gammad
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice: 1. License
People and Behavior Analysis has CC-BY NC or an equivalent license as the optimal license for the publication, distribution, use, and reuse of scholarly work for non-commercial purpose. The non-commercial use of the article will be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution license as currently displayed on Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Creative Commons License
2. Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author(s), has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author(s).
3. User Rights
People and Behavior Analysis objective is to disseminate articles published are as free as possible. Under the Creative Commons license, this journal permits users to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work for non-commercial purposes only. Users will also need to attribute authors and this journal on distributing works in the journal.
4. Rights of Authors
Authors retain the following rights:
Copyright, and proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,
The right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,
The right to reproduce the article for own purposes,
The right to self-archive the article,
the right to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the article's published version (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal (People and Behavior Analysis).
The author has a non-exclusive publishing contract with a publisher and the work is published with a more restrictive license, the author retains all the rights to publish the work elsewhere, including commercially, because she/he is not subject to the conditions of her / his own license, regardless of the type of CC license chosen.
5. Co-Authorship
If the article was jointly prepared by other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
6. Termination
This agreement can be terminated by the author or People and Behavior Analysis upon two months’ notice where the other party has materially breached this agreement and failed to remedy such breach within a month of being given the terminating party’s notice requesting such breach to be remedied. No breach or violation of this agreement will cause this agreement or any license granted in it to terminate automatically or affect the definition of People and Behavior Analysis.
7. Royalties
This agreement entitles the author to no royalties or other fees. To such extent as legally permissible, the author waives his or her right to collect royalties relative to the article in respect of any use of the article by This agreement can be terminated by the People and Behavior Analysis upon two months’ notice where the other party has materially breached this agreement and failed to remedy such breach within a month of being given the terminating party’s notice requesting such breach to be remedied. No breach or violation of this agreement will cause this agreement or any license granted in it to terminate automatically or affect the definition of People and Behavior Analysis or its sublicensee.
8. Miscellaneous
People and Behavior Analysis will publish the article (or have it published) in the journal if the article’s editorial process is successfully completed and People and Behavior Analysis or its sublicensee has become obligated to have the article. People and Behavior Analysis may conform the article to a style of punctuation, spelling, capitalization, referencing and usage that it deems appropriate. The author acknowledges that the article may be published so that it will be publicly accessible and such access will be free of charge for the readers.
