Systems Thinking in Higher Education Development: A Model for Complexity and a Case Study of Purdue and Anbar University Partnership

• In Event: Reforms, sustainable development, and social change in higher education (II)

Proposal

International development has increasingly focused on Higher Education (HE), reversing previous tendencies to overlook this area due to perceived low investment returns (Castells,1994; Chankseliani, 2022). Common goals across contexts include addressing the mismatch between the Higher Education Institution (HEIs) graduates’ skills and the changing labor market needs and empowering HEIs to act as engines of economic growth and development by generating knowledge and innovation. Like poverty, social injustice, and climate change, the skills mismatch and low research and innovation capacity are ‘complex’ or ‘wicked’ problems because of the inherently complex nature of higher education systems. HE systems consist of diverse, active, interrelated agents (students, faculty, staff, and administrators) with various roles deeply connected to other systems, including employers, communities, families, government, funders, and civil society.
Systems thinking is a promising approach to tackling such complex problems, as it acknowledges the complexity and interconnectedness of our world and emphasizes the importance of understanding relationships, patterns, and context in problem-solving (Meadows, 2008). It enables a more holistic understanding by considering informal and formal functions of the system, its subsystems and elements (stakeholders with their own perspectives and interests), their dynamic interrelationships via feedback loops, and influence pathways in the system (Faul & Savage, 2023).
Change in a complex system is nonlinear, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. A small action in a complex system can create a huge impact through reinforcing feedback loops, as depicted by the butterfly wings metaphor. Similarly, the effect of an intense action could weaken and fade away by balancing feedback loops. Alternatively, despite stimuli, a system may stay unchanged for a long time and then experience a large-scale change once it reaches a tipping point, shifting irreversibly into a different equilibrium state. In complex systems, bottom-up properties or patterns emerge through interacting elements and the interaction with the environment, making it impossible to predict the outcomes of interventions with certainty (Faul & Savage, 2023; Patton, 2010; Woodhill & Millican, 2023).
Systems thinking is a paradigm or mindset that provides a framework for understanding such ambiguous problems, working with local partners, and designing, implementing, and evaluating our interventions. There is a growing literature on the application of systems thinking in education, including seminal work by Peter Senge (Senge, 2012) and the Triple Helix model of innovation (Etzkowitz & Zhou, 2017), but there is scarce literature on the application of this framework in international education, especially for transforming higher education in low- and middle-countries (LMICs). In addition, major international donors, such as USAID, have incorporated some elements of the systems thinking approach in their policies and guides including Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA), the 5Rs Framework in the Program Cycle, and Strengthening Local Systems policy. Despite these policies and guides, systems thinking has yet to become a mainstream practice in international development.
In this paper, we will describe and delineate the application of systems thinking to Higher Education and Higher Education Institutions. Then, we will discuss several key implications of systems thinking for international donors and implementers supporting higher education transformation in LMICs to move towards developing a robust evidence-based model for transforming higher education. Some of the implications are (1) experimenting with contextually fit solutions, co-designed by local actors (internal and external, especially private sector) and international experts; (2) strengthening feedback loops and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning systems, including HEIs’ assessment and continuous improvement capacity, to track the interventions’ impact and emerging behaviors, provide timely feedback, and generate locally relevant evidence; (3) enhancing HEIs’ institutional and financial autonomy to ensure the necessary flexibility for experimentation, partnerships, and adaptability; (4) aligning incentive structures with the overall system vision and outcomes; (5) promoting a culture of learning risk-taking, evidence-based decision making; and (6) and creating accountability for results and adaptation.
Using these principles as a conceptual framework, we will examine the recent Purdue College of Engineering engagement with Anbar University (AU) College of Engineering in Iraq from 2019-2022. As a partner with World Learning on a 2-year, $1,000,000 US Embassy-funded program, Purdue supported AU College of Engineering faculty in aligning curriculum development with market needs and local relevance, applying student-centered, culturally relevant, blended, and collaborative pedagogies, and supporting faculty development for these objectives. Purdue also provided initial support to prepare the College to apply for accreditation from ABET, the leading American accrediting post-secondary programs in applied and natural science, computing, and engineering technology. We will investigate this project as a case study to understand how the project’s design was consistent with systems thinking principles and the challenges of key actors in applying them.
This project is an interesting case of tensions between the tendency to adopt global best practices (student-centered pedagogies and US-based accreditation mechanisms) on the one hand and experimenting with locally-led, contextually-fit solutions on the other hand.
The methods of data collection in this qualitative case study will include document reviews, including project plans and reports, meeting minutes, and in-depth interviews with key informants from Anbar and Purdue Engineering Colleges and other stakeholders. We will then use a thematic qualitative data analysis method to make sense of and interpret the data. We will engage at least one faculty from Anbar University as a co-author and co-presenter in this study.
We believe that the systems thinking approach’s focus on engaging local actors in the sense-making and experimenting with solutions process, understanding power dynamics and aligning incentive structures, and strengthening networks shows a great deal of potential to address the existing social injustice and power imbalances inherent in some international development practices.

Authors

• Mohammad Javad Ahmadi, Purdue Applied Research Institute

• Jennifer DeBoer, Purdue University

• Diana Harbison, Purdue Applied Research Institute

• Moses Olayemi, University of Oklahoma