Abstract for: Is Ability of Solving Complex Stock-Flow Problems Associated with Ability of Solving Simpler Ones? An Experiment in Turkey

There are many studies exploring the reasons behind failures in solving generic system dynamics (SD) problems such as stock- flow (SF) failure. Although they reach some limited associations, they do not find any significant cognition related factor explaining the variation in failures except the positive impact of visual saliency of the problem displays. In present study we put forward the question “Does cognitive problem solving capability improve progressively?” So, we prepare a performance sheet including two parts. First part consists of simpler SF problems and second part contains more complex ones. Then we ask these questions to motivated undergraduate industrial engineering students. Sample of participants consists of two groups. First group is SD educated and second group is not SD educated. We see that while some individuals are performing well in solving more complex SD problems, others are performing well in simpler ones, and ability to solve more complex problems is not dependent on performance in solving simpler ones. But we find associations between capabilities of solving two different more complex SF problems each other. We also see that SD education increases the capability of solving more complex SF problems but does not affect the capability of solving simpler SF problems.