I'm surprised this was published now, given that I saw a talk on this at a math conference in either 2008 or 2009. The memorable anecdote was that they filmed children who worked with cash in the market, brought them to the classroom, and given pen and paper in the classroom they would be unable to duplicate the calculations they had already done in the market. The speaker was promoting VR to simulate the market context in the classroom.
I guess what this paper adds is a higher N and the reverse case, that classroom skills don't transfer to the market.
When I was an adjunct a couple years ago, I would use money for the more introductory stuff in Python.
I figured that for better or worse, every single person in that classroom will have to deal with some amount of "money math" in their life, and "money math" is still "real" math, and programs involving money are still "real" programs. If nothing else, I couldn't really get the "when will I ever use this????" kinds of questions.
A lot of people seem to have almost a "phobia" of mathematics; they are perfectly fine doing the relevant calculations in regards to stuff that's directly used, like money, but seem to shut down when mathematical notation is used.
Yeah, similarly, a friend of mine's kid got really into Kerbal Space Program. That friend didn't mind his kid playing that one for long periods of time, because there's a ton of real math and physics being used, but the game is relatively fun.
I guess what this paper adds is a higher N and the reverse case, that classroom skills don't transfer to the market.