Abstract for: Developing and Field-testing a Rubric for Evaluating Students' Causal Loop Diagrams

We have developed and field tested an educational rubric for instructors who are using causal loop diagrams (CLD) in undergraduate science and social science courses. Given a student's CLD and accompanying explanatory narrative, the rubric describes three levels of performance quality on the following dimensions: (1a) Nodes on the CLD, (2a) Links/arrows on the CLD, (2b) Narrative description of causal links, (2c) Connection of links to the real-world system, (3a) Net effect of the loop depicted on CLD, and (3b) Understanding of impact of the loop on the broader system within which it is embedded. The field test involved four geoscientists and 17 undergraduate psychology students, who watched an instructional video about how to make CLDs, read loop-containing narratives from the popular media, sketched a CLD, and wrote an accompanying explanatory narrative. Among the scientist-participants the weakest performance was on rubric element (3b). Among the undergraduate participants, notably poor performance was on rubric element (2c). Note that both these areas of poor performances lay in making the analogical mapping between modelled system and real-world system. In response to field test findings, we clarified and strengthened some elements of the rubric and accompanying instructional video.