1 What Constitutes Systems Thinking? A Proposed Taxonomy

This paper proposes a taxonomy of systems thinking for use in developing and measuring the effect of systems thinking educational efforts. The taxonomy was derived from a review of the system dynamics literature and interviews with systems educators. Although there is no single definition of systems thinking in the system dynamics community, there is some consensus around seven key components of systems thinking. We map these components onto Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives to create the proposed taxonomy of systems thinking, then use this taxonomy to identify indicators of achievement at each level and tests to measure achievement. This is the first step in developing more standard assessment measures for systems thinking interventions