ERIC Number: EJ1051703
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Jan
Pages: 7
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2168-8273
EISSN: N/A
Assessing an Introduction to Systems Thinking
Monroe, Martha C.; Plate, Richard R.; Colley, Lara
Natural Sciences Education, v44 n1 p11-17 Jan 2015
This research study investigated the learning outcomes of a brief systems thinking intervention at the undergraduate level. A pre/post experimental design (n = 50) was used to address two primary questions: (1) Can a brief introduction to systems thinking improve students' understanding of systems thinking? and (2) Which teaching method (of two) works best under such time constraints? Participants were divided into three groups: control, lecture only, and model demonstration. Test results suggest that both lecture-only and model-manipulation groups increased their understanding of systems thinking slightly over the control group, but showed no significant difference between each other. Results from focus groups conducted 3 months after the intervention suggest that model-manipulation participants may have been more successful than lecture-only participants at incorporating systems thinking into their own mental models to understand an ecological system.
Descriptors: Systems Approach, Thinking Skills, Intervention, Undergraduate Students, Introductory Courses, Pretests Posttests, Teaching Methods, Instructional Effectiveness, Demonstrations (Educational), Focus Groups, Followup Studies, Natural Resources, Scores, Achievement Gains
American Society of Agronomy. 5585 Guilford Road, Madison, WI 53711. Tel: 608-273-8080; Fax: 608-273-2021; Web site: https://www.agronomy.org/publications/nse
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A