Improving system dynamics teaching using online surveys and exercises

Abstract

As the world becomes increasingly connected, traditional problem solving and decision-making skills becomes less effective. Complex systems found in nature and society exhibit long time delays between cause and effect, feedback, and non-linearity making it difficult to reason effectively about system behavior. Recent studies have shown even highly educated graduate students lack basic systems thinking skills indicating a need for improved system dynamics education. This paper describes the development of a two new tools for improving system dynamics education: a stock-flow simulator that allows users to experiment with simple stock-flow systems, and a web application framework for building system dynamics surveys. This framework is used to build a survey capable of evaluating systems thinking skills and compare the effectiveness of online teaching methods.