The name is absent

The German Journal of Psychology ∙ Vol. 16 ∙ No. 1 ∙ 24-43

Report

Dealing with Dynamic Systems:
Research Strategy, Diagnostic Approach
and Experimental Results¹

Joachim Funke

Department of Psychology, Bonn University (FRG)

The method of computer-simulated scenarios has recently been introduced to
study how people solve complex problems. This article describes a special
approach to constructing such microworlds by means of linear structural equation
systems. The subjects’ task is to first identify in a knowledge acquisition phase
the causal structure of a hitherto unknown system. In a later knowledge applica-
tion phase they try to control this system with respect to a given goal state.
Verbalizable knowledge that was acquired on the task is assessed both by means
of causal diagrams as well as by the degree of successful control performance.
Five experiments on special attributes of such systems illustrate the approach.
The experiments investigated effects of active interventions versus observations
only, effects of different degrees of Eigendynamik, the influence of different
degrees of side effects, the role of prior knowledge, the amount of controllability
and number of variables to be controlled. These factors have considerable effects
on identification of the system structure and control of its states, these being two
central indicators of complex problem solving. Three topics are identified as main
goals for future research: (1) separation of different sources of variance (person,
system, situation); (2) research on reliability and validity of performance indica-
tors; (3) development of measures for an operators’ heuristic and strategic know-
ledge.

1 Preparation of this article was supported in part by a grant from the "Deutsche Forschungs-
gemeinschaft (DFG)" to the author (Az. Fu 173/1). I wish to thank Gerd Fahnenbruck,
Uwe Kleinemas, Horst Miiller and Bdrbel Rasche for their support in this research. Also
thanks to Axel Buchner for improving the English text, and to Gerd Liler and an anony-
mous reviewer who all gave valuable hints on an earlier version.

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