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Effects of domain experience in the stock–flow failure
Author(s) -
Brunstein Angela,
Gonzalez Cleotilde,
Kanter Steven
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
system dynamics review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.491
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1099-1727
pISSN - 0883-7066
DOI - 10.1002/sdr.448
Subject(s) - domain (mathematical analysis) , stock (firearms) , computer science , psychology , engineering , mathematics , mathematical analysis , mechanical engineering
Misperceptions of stock and flow relationships are pervasive and an important problem to solve in system dynamics. Prior studies have shown that individuals perform poorly on accumulation problems, even when considering relatively simple systems, an effect termed the Stock–Flow (SF) failure . This study examines the effects of domain experience in overcoming the SF failure. We compared performance of medical students and undergraduates with no medical education on accumulation problems in medical and general domains. Medical students performed better than undergraduates only in some of the problems (including the general domain problems), and they performed equally poorly as undergraduates in problems that required medical domain experience. There was no correlation between performance in the stock and flow problems and either duration of medical education or age. Thus we conclude that domain experience is not a strong indicator for overcoming the SF failure. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.