Students' Understanding of Complex Dynamic Systems

Students' approach to complex dynamic systems and their mental models utilized to construct knowledge, play a powerful role in what students learn in undergraduate college courses. In this paper, I report the analysis of responses to three questions - probing approaches to complexity - given by sixteen upper-level undergraduate students. Results show that students tend to conceptualize dynamic systems in static disjointed terms, considering the isolated behavior of the constituent components. Students also identify a single causal force, or linear chain of unique causal forces to explain complex natural phenomena. Students' attitudes as well as system of beliefs are unaffected in absence of a fundamental shift of paradigm: from a linear-causal thinking approach to a systems thinking approach-characterized by the recognition of the mutual interactions of system components, the ability to distinguish between micro and macro levels of analysis and the understanding of system's emergent property.