System competence – Are elementary students able to deal with a biological system?

The objective of this study was to elucidate elementary school students’ (9-11 years of age) system competence. Starting from systems theory, a framework for system competence assessment was developed to analyse the relevant abilities. This framework describes the skills for system modelling and the ability to deal with system properties. In a pre/post-test-design 363 elementary school students were tested. Questionnaires and concept maps were applied to answer the research questions whether they are capable of creating a model of a given biological system and of recognizing specific system properties. The results indicate that elementary school students already show system competence in the tested domain “system stork”. Their system organisation abilities were higher than their abilities to deal with system properties, such as predicting the consequences of changes or assessing complex effects in a system.