Assessing systems thinking competency: From literacy to application

As technology advances, engineers face increasingly complex and ill-defined problems, requiring them to develop a bigger-picture view and systems thinking. Yet, existing literature continuously indicate that learning systems thinking is challenging for learners of all ages and maturity. One potential reason lies in lack of in-depth understanding of systems thinking development—how to gradually and repeatedly prepare students to become systems thinkers across different developmental stages. This dissertation presents the Adapted Competency Maturity Model Framework that conceptualize systems thinking competency in the knowledge, skill, and attitude domains and across three stages: literacy, engagement, and application. Each of the three studies included in this dissertation investigates student’s systems thinking development at a different stage. Overall, the findings suggest that the module-course combinations helped students achieve intermediate levels of systems literacy and engagement. Mainly, students developed knowledge of systems-related terminology and was able to apply systems thinking to systems they have been working with closely. However, more efforts are needed to increase students’ ability to draw relationships between ideas and objects including concepts, external systems, and stakeholders. Moreover, more students identified complex interrelationships after the module. Regardless of whether students underwent the module, we found different attitudes to ambiguity leading to varying depths of problem-scoping, various roles as problem-solvers, and different degrees of empathy among participants are related to the depths of systems thinking. Future work should focus on exploring other effective intervention of systems thinking and mapping out more underlying mechanisms that can facilitate students’ systems thinking development.