Abstract for: Conquering Stock Flow Failure: effects of a 20-minutes intervention measured immediately afterwards and long-term

Even simple dynamic systems with only two flows and one stock have been shown to lack understanding among highly educated individuals. Since the initial ‘bathtub study’ (Booth Sweeney & Sterman, 2000) many more followed attempting to boost the performance. Success rates were often low, some interventions required a lot of resources and none tested its long-term effects. The present study included insights from 20 years of stock flow research to form a short, easy to use online intervention. For the first study, 241 people were divided into a control group and two experimental groups that were treated either with only a stock flow specific (EG1) or additionally with a stock flow unspecific (EG2) intervention that took on average 20 minutes. Directly afterwards all subjects were tested on six stock flow tasks before receiving feedback. Stock flow tasks were administered again after one to two months and two and a half years. The intervention was a success right after its application, with the control group performing worst and the EG2 best. In both follow-up studies the effect of the interventions was still visible. The solution rates for all groups increased in the follow-up studies, probably due to the feedback everyone received.