Characterizing Undergraduate Students’ Systems-Thinking Skills through Agent-Based Modeling Simulation

Aparajita Jaiswal and Tugba Karabiyik ()
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Aparajita Jaiswal: Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research, Purdue University, Young Hall, Room 120 155 S. Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA
Tugba Karabiyik: Purdue Systems Collaboratory, College of Engineering, Purdue University, Grissom Hall, 315 Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: Systems thinking is an essential skill for the future workforce. This study focuses on understanding students’ systems-thinking process via an agent-based model simulation. This study aimed to help students to improve their systems-thinking skills. We used a systems-thinking skills development framework to investigate and characterize students’ agent-based simulation assignment in the undergraduate level systems-methods course at a university in the American Midwest. We identified and characterized patterns of students’ systems-thinking processes based on four criteria: thinking, decision making, action, and interpretation. We classified students into three categories based on their systems-thinking abilities and qualitatively identified the least and most prominent patterns the students exhibited.

Keywords: systems-thinking; agent-based modeling; undergraduate level engineering course; engineering education; project-based learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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