When multiple clients are collaboratively learning and training a shared model, incentives problems can arise. The clients may have different learning objectives and application domains, or they may be competitors whose participation in the learning system could reduce their competitive advantage. While collaborative learning is a powerful…

Purpose: Critical realism is an increasingly popular "lens" through which complex events, entities and phenomena can be studied. Yet detailed operationalisations of critical realism are at present relatively scarce. This study's objective here is built on existing debates by developing an open systems model of reality, a basis for…

Intended for researchers and clinical leaders, this article suggests that embedded program evaluation is a good fit with the desired features of practice-oriented research. The systematic nature of evaluation that is built into the operational workflow of a practice setting may increase the diversity of methods available to explore processes and…

Agent-based modeling is a promising tool for familiarizing students with complex systems as well as programming skills. Human-environment systems, for instance, entail complex interdependencies that need to be considered when modeling these systems. This complexity is often neglected in teaching modeling approaches. For a heterogeneous group of…

Researchers have become increasingly interested in the potential use of agent-based modelling for the prediction of social phenomena, motivated by the desire, first, to further cement the method's scientific status and, second, to participate in other scenarios, particularly in the aid of decision-making. This article contributes to the current…

As biological science rapidly generates new knowledge and novel approaches to address increasingly complex and integrative questions, biology educators face the challenge of teaching the next generation of biologists and citizens the skills and knowledge to enable them to keep pace with a dynamic field. Fundamentally, biology is the science of…

Reviewing complex interventions is challenging because they include many elements that can interact dynamically in a nonlinear manner. A systems perspective offers a way of thinking to help understand complex issues, but its application in evidence synthesis is not established. The aim of this project was to understand how and why systems…

What do a short car trip, a pandemic, the wood-wide fungal web, a challenging learning experience, a storm, transport logistics, and the language(s) we speak have in common? All of them are systems, or multiple sets of systems within systems. What happens in any set of circumstances will depend on a mix of initial conditions, complexity dynamics,…

Children develop within a context, and the nature or dynamics of a child's context can change the trajectory of their development. According to Bronfenbrenner (1979), children are affected and are impacted by individuals within various systems or environments. One of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems is the microsystem, in which children…

Traditional ecological models are promising for making sense of international student experiences, but the assumed monolithic nature of the structuring systems is inadequate for explaining development that occurs across multiple systems. We present and expand a model called the Spanning Systems Model that recognizes multiple ecologies. The model…

In this chapter we provide an overview of campus ecology and ecological systems theory as applied to the study of higher education, most often to research on college students. We describe Bronfenbrenner's developmental ecological model and its application of it to the study of college students. We then discuss affordances and limitations of this…

Integral to fostering computational thinking (CT) skills, which are increasingly essential in today's digital era, has been the shift of paper-based pictorial modeling activities to computational modeling. Research has indicated that modeling activities can advance students' understanding of a system's mechanism (i.e., systems thinking), such as…

Purpose: This research aimed to examine the impact of input, process, output, productivity and outcome variables on university research performance and the indicators that represent them in order to improve academic quality and contribute to government policy. Design/methodology/approach: The quantitative approach was used through a survey method…

Contribution: Model-based learning improves systems thinking (ST) based on students' prior knowledge and gender. Relations were found between textual, visual, and mixed question types and student achievements. Background: ST is essential to judicious decision-making and problem-solving. Undergraduate students can be taught to apply better ST, and…

The majority of instructional design models have directed focus on instructional design activities such as analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Criticisms regarding instructional design models have suggested that the use of these models provides instructional designers with a limited view of the design environment. This…