Transforming finance education using investment/trading simulation platforms Team Members : Malcolm Kirkup, Arman Eshraghi, Neil Thomas Abstract Background: The Business School is seeking to develop creative and engaging ways to deliver stimulating teaching and learning methods in finance. An alumnus and member of the School’s International Advisory Board has recently offered her company’s services to engage students with a unique online trading platform as a potential learning tool. A small pilot project is underway to explore the capability of the platform through an extra-curricular competition. Aims:This application to the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme requests funding to support a larger project to draw-out experiences from the competition and to explore the potential for fully integrating the platform within a number of UG, MSc and MBA finance-related courses in 2016/17. Methodology: More specifically the project will explore the value of trading simulations as a vehicle for developing students’ knowledge and understanding of financial markets and their skills in identifying, collecting and analysing information related to financial investments; examine student use and perceptions of the platform for learning and skills development, and how they engage with diary and reflective journal entries; examine the potential of the data generated by the platform to understand how investors behave and to understand how we can design feedback mechanisms to encourage better performance and better reflection; and, finally, design ways of incorporating the platform within finance-related courses and to recommend how knowledge, understanding and skills can be developed and assessed through the attributes of the simulation and the system mechanics. This article was published on 2024-02-26
