Group Admins
Description
Bloomberg terminal is a real-time financial information platform, which provides comprehensive information, analytics, news and a range of financial data including equities, foreign exchange, money markets, fixed income, commodities and funds. Its content and analytics package includes pricing data, financial research, financial estimates, and visual analysis through charting and tables.
Description
Traditionally professionals in the financial industry, such as commercial and investment banks, brokerage companies and investment firms are the primary users of financial data platforms such as Bloomberg. Regarded as a useful pedagogical tool, many universities have set up financial suites and labs that equipped with Bloomberg terminals to integrate them into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. The use of such databases in teaching has claimed to have numerous advantages and positive implications in finance education. For example, it will offer students a first-hand experience of industry standard tools and enhances teaching and research. It will bring the real world of finance into the classroom providing students with access to the same information used by decision makers in finance sector. It will also help to enhance students’ knowledge and develop their skills for the financial markets, as well as to allow student to apply finance theories to decision making through real world scenarios. However, there is a dearth of research in this area to provide evidence and examples to support such claimed benefits in the Higher Education setting. Some argue such advantages are pure assumptions and call for education scholars to investigate the intrinsic value and impact of using finance platform in finance education and its role in enhancing students’ learning experience (Apostolou et al., 2016).
Experiential learning is a well-established pedagogical approach that transits from traditional passive knowledge instruction to a more active application and integration of knowledge and skills. Experiential learning cycle introduced by Kolb (1984) consists of four learning elements including concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation stage. By integrating the Bloomberg database, students are given the opportunity to accessing live and real-life financial data to observe, learn and reflect on their experiences as emphasised in Kolb’s model (Marriott et al, 2015).
This presentation outlines a recent qualitative research that explores the effectiveness of applying experiential learning using Bloomberg platform in finance education at a post-92 institution, from the perspectives of students (both at undergraduate and postgraduate level) and academics. The presentation will report the key findings and lessons learned, particularly in the areas of improved student experience, the use of its data in wider disciplines such as economics, supply chain and marketing. The financial data could also be used as an additional data source (both primary and secondary) for postgraduate and PhD studies as well as academic research. This presentation would be particularly useful for academic colleagues and departmental heads who are exploring the idea of introducing Bloomberg in their curriculum development.
References
Apostolou B., Dorminey J.W., Hassell J.M., Rebele J.E. (2016), “Accounting education literature review (2015)”, Journal of Accounting Education, Vol. 35, pp. 20-55.
Kolb, D.A., (1984), Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development, Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Marriott, P., Tan, S., M., Marriott, N., (2015), “Experiential learning – A case study of the use of computerised stock market trading simulation in finance education”, Accounting Education, 24(6), pp. 480-497
