Identifying the variation of experiences when dealing with problems in complex systems

Engineering professional societies, engineering education thought leaders, and academics in engineering education have established the need to promote systems thinking in engineering students so they can deal effectively with the future complexity of engineering practice. Universities and schools have taught systems thinking, but currently there are limitations in measuring the effectiveness of these instructional interventions. Current research on assessment states that it is necessary to align modern theories of learning, the task and the interpretation of the outcomes from the task. Theories about the development of systems thinking are still scarce and are not based in modern theories of learning. This work intends to contribute to closing this gap by identifying the variation of experiences people have when dealing with problems in complex systems. The research approach used to answer this question is phenomenography (Marton´s approach). Participants will be asked to perform a task, and each common way of dealing with the task will be identified as a category. These categories will be hierarchically arranged, yielding a developmental path. A developmental path explaining the development of systems thinking will facilitate the development of tools to assess the level of systems thinking which impacts academy and industry.