System dynamics training proposal to promote model-oriented software development in rural productive systems that require associativity

The current study develops a training proposal that aims to facilitate the understanding of rural production systems while assessing the role and importance of associativity. The proposal adopts the System Dynamics for semantic modeling in the software development processes integrating content from systemic thinking and design courses. The proposal is applied by following a quasi-experimental design with two groups (control and experimental) of students enrolled in the systems engineering and informatics program at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Colombia. The results show that students’ performance improved their comprehension by 38% in the physics phenomenon model, by 29% in the demand and supply model, and 23% in the bovine production model. It is concluded that the proposal developed helps to design software for rural production systems as well as to understand its complexity and the importance of associativity in them.