Rethinking computational practices in financial mathematics to boost collaboration: a comparative analysis to explore the redesign of lab activities and its impact on the knowledge co-construction process

In recent decades, Mathematics Education has been deeply transformed to leverage on emerging technologies and to integrate computational thinking in the learning process. In this scenario, computational thinking activities can be further enhanced through collaborative learning approaches. This research study investigates the connections between collaborative knowledge construction and inclusive computational practices in the area of Financial Mathematics. The context of the research is the Advanced Computational Finance module in University College Dublin, Ireland, in Spring 2022, and in particular its lab activities, which were re-designed starting from previous years offerings to further facilitate the activation of collaborative computational practices. It was attended by 22 students, who worked in groups on the proposed lab activities. Students were assigned to heterogeneous groups based on grade point average. We analysed 176 responses to a weekly survey that the students completed after each weekly lab. We performed a qualitative analysis of the answers using an adapted version of the Interaction Analysis Model and compared the results with the sample related to the previous year, where the practices activated were different. We then explored how redesigned lab activities influenced collaborative knowledge construction. Statistical tests allowed us to validate the model used for the qualitative analysis and to identify the computational practices which mainly facilitated knowledge co-construction.