Page 134 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

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Chapter 6
Here we cite the interview protocol we used.
• Introduction, stating the purpose of the interviews
• Showing the students the documentation and models they turned in
• Discussing their modeling process through the following questions:
1. What phenomenon did you model?
2. What did you know about this phenomenon beforehand? Have you
performed any research and what were your findings?
3. What did you hope to find out using this model?
4. How did you test your model?
4.1. What did you do to debug and verify your model (i.e., your NetLogo program)?
4.2. Validation
4.2.1. How did you perform microvalidation to validate the
behavior of individual agents?
4.2.2. How did you perform macrovalidation to validate the
behavior of the entire system?
4.3. Was this a linear or a cyclic process? What did you encounter?
Have you been changing code to achieve “better” behavior of
the model?
4.4. On what basis did you conclude that your model was valid?
(note to interviewer: pay attention to: criteria formulated in
advance, consultation with an expert and common sense.)
4.5. To what degree are you convinced?
4.6. To what degree are you satisfied with the validity?
5. Were you able to perform experiments with this model?
6. Did you obtain useful results?
7. Are you satisfied?
8. What is you wish list for a next version of your model?
9. Please reflect on the whole modeling process you engaged in.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and the transcripts were used for data analysis.