Subject: Systems Language

Posted by Maria del Pilar Restrepo on 2/3/2010
In Reply To:Systems Languagg Posted by Tim Joy on 2/3/2010

Message:

Hi everyone.

My name is Maria Saldarriaga, I am an SD PhD student at the University of Bergen. I've been following the conversations in this list but since this topic is so related to my own work and interests I decided to participate for the first time.

Among several others, one of my main interest in system dynamics has been about the concepts we use and on whether students "posses" such concepts or have different understandings of them. I am in Colombia conducting some fieldwork right now, and it will take some time until I get some data that can give some light on these issues. However, after only two pilot sessions with 7th grade students from two different schools, there are some things that could be interesting to mention. The students worked in pairs and used a very simple interface of a tank with water with valves (in and out) which could be opened and closed and the students could see the water coming out of the pipes and (de)accumulating in the tank. The interface didn't have any names on it and I didn't say what it was. Instead, I asked the students to describe what "there was in the screen." And this is roughly what happened: they talked about "accumulation", "tanks", "water falling down", "vales up and down" (to differentiate between in and out), and "potency" (to refer to the magnitude of the flow). I was happy to hear words as accumulation, however, I couldn't affirm that these students posses this concept (and others) in the way we define it in system dynamics. Though students used it repetitively their concept of accumulation looked more as an incomplete and not very systematic version of our concept of accumulation. Other concepts as "flow" didn't even come up during the sessions.

There a lots of things around this that I would like to understand. I am starting by determining which concepts students spontaneously use to describe what for us is a stock and flow representation. Then I would like to understand what happens with students' concepts once we introduce our own. Do they get mixed? Do SD concepts replace students'? What of students' concepts survive? Does this impede their assimilation of the SD concepts?

Also looking forward to this conversation.