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Abstract
Community psychologists have a long history of interest in understanding social systems
and how to bring about enduring positive change in these systems. However, the methods
that community psychologists use to anticipate and evaluate the changes that result
from system change efforts are less well developed. In the current paper, we introduce
readers to system dynamics modeling, an action research approach to studying complex
systems and the consequences of system change. We illustrate this approach by describing
a system dynamics model of educational reform. We provide readers with an introduction
to system dynamics modeling, as well as describe the strengths and limitations of
the approach for application to community psychology.