COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS FOR DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCES IN ACTUARIAL SCIENCE

The actuarial profession requires a specific combination of professional, analytical and technological competences that is in constantly evolving. Changes in insurance -as well as financial- markets demand new analytical tools and associated technological resources to implement them. These facts constitute a challenge for actuarial educators who need to update not only the contents of the courses, but also the mechanisms for developing the required competences, in the framework of the European Higher Education Area.

To face this challenge, at the Universidad de Málaga, we are using collaborative projects as an effective instrument for our students of the MSc in Actuarial Science to achieve the adequate level of competence required by the profession. These projects are integrated into a blended coordinated strategy that allows:
(i) to apply the same project to more than one course, and
(ii) to include the assessment into the official grade of the courses involved.

One of the main objectives of the projects is to get closer to the real work of actuaries, that usually requires several competences at a time. The case studied in this paper combines the courses in Stochastic Processes (a methodological course) and Models and Methods for Calculus for Actuarial Applications I (a course on applied computing for actuaries). Each group of students must complete a proposal for investing in two alternative assets using stochastic simulations by means of programming Visual Basic scripts for Microsoft Excel. Thus, the completion of the projects requires analytical and technological skills as well as organizational and communication competences, since the proposals are presented in a role play simulating a committee in the insurance or financial firm. The assessment of the proposals is based not only on the results of the presentations, but also in the organization of the collaborative work and the management of the compulsory multidisciplinary composition of the students’ groups.

Finally, the results of this experience are evaluated by means of a survey, that reveals the excellent perception of our students of:
(i) the contribution of this work to their learning process and
(ii) the use of this pedagogical strategy in addition to the general -more conventional- one used in the MSc program.