Developing Systems Thinking through Abstraction-Level Navigation: Evidence from Simulation-Based Project Learning in Microelectronic Circuit Design

Developing systems thinking through coordinated reasoning across multiple abstraction levels remains a persistent challenge in microelectronic circuit design education. Students often struggle to connect high-level system specifications with subsystem interactions and low-level transistor implementations, particularly when addressing complex integration and debugging tasks. While simulation tools are commonly used to support circuit analysis, their role in bridging abstraction levels within project-based learning contexts remains underexplored. This study examines how simulation-based project learning, implemented through LTspice, supports students’ ability to navigate abstraction levels and develop systems thinking in a third-year microelectronic circuit design course. Over a 12-week semester, 49 undergraduate electrical engineering students engaged in a sequence of scaffolded design projects culminating in the construction and integration of an analog-to-digital converter. The projects required iterative movement between system-level architecture, functional block design, and transistor-level implementation, supported by continuous simulation-based testing and refinement. A qualitative–performance research design was employed, drawing on students’ project artifacts, design reports, final practical examinations, and instructor observations. The analysis reveals a shift from isolated component-focused reasoning toward system-level debugging and cross-level explanations of circuit behavior across successive project phases. Later design reports frequently articulated how lower-level design decisions influenced overall system performance, particularly during integration and optimization phases. Performance outcomes further suggest improved effectiveness in diagnosing system-level errors and coordinating design trade-offs across abstraction layers. The findings suggest that simulation-based project learning can function as a mediating mechanism that supports coordination between abstraction levels during system integration tasks. This study contributes to engineering education research by framing simulation as a mediator for systems thinking development in microelectronic circuit design and by offering instructional design principles for structuring project-based learning environments that explicitly target abstraction-level transitions.