UNCOVERING STUDENTS SYSTEMS THINKING REASONING PATTERNS: A CASE FORECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

Date

2025-11-26

Author

Güneş Demir, Güniz

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This study aimed to examine middle school students' systems thinking skills and causal reasoning patterns about the ecological system from a systems thinking perspective. A total of 510 students attending to 6th, 7th, and 8th grades participated in the study. A quantitative research design was adopted, and data were collected using the systems thinking test developed by Mambrey et al. (2022) and analyzed within the framework of the systems thinking model developed by Mehren et al. (2018). The test consisted of multiple-choice items and assessed students’ system organization skills, system behavior skills, system-adequate intention to act skills, and system modeling skills. Participants’ responses were evaluated using descriptive statistics and classified into monocausal, linear, and complex reasoning patterns.The findings indicated that middle school students (a) use different systems thinking models when explaining complex relationships in ecosystems, (b) possessed monocausal and linear reasoning while dealing with ecological systems (i.e., Meadow Food Web) and (c) developed a way of thinking that linked system elements independently or only through direct connections. Besides, they had limited performance in the concepts requiring complex reasoning, such as system modeling. In general, the results revealed that students struggle to conceptualize ecosystem as a holistic system with dynamic, interactive components. Hence, current study highlights the importance of integration of systems thinking into science curricula with an emphasis of complex processes such as indirect effects, multi-step causal chains, and dynamic interactions.

Subject Keywords

Causal Reasoning, Complex Systems, Ecosystems, Food Web, Systems Thinking

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118268

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis