[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/) # Assessing technology and engineering learning outcomes of pre-service preschool teachers through epistemic networks of DSRP systems thinking ## Details **Authors** Brina Kurent, Stanislav Avsec **Year** 2026 **Publisher** Frontiers in Education **Kind of work** article **Discipline** Education **Secondary disciplines** Engineering **Reading level** technical **Kind of engagement** scholarly **Applied** false [Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1931621) 10.3389/feduc.2026.1931621 ## In authors' words ### Abstract As technology-enhanced learning environments increasingly promote active and situated engagement, assessment must move beyond isolated tests of knowledge and skills to capture learners' performance in authentic contexts. In technology and engineering education, systems thinking is often embedded in product-based learning, yet technical product quality alone may not show how pre-service preschool teachers organise, connect, and justify systems-related ideas. The aim of this study was to examine systems-oriented reasoning as part of complex technology and engineering learning outcomes by combining the Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives (DSRP) framework with Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). Students' written reflections on the "Product as a System" were coded across the four DSRP dimensions and re-encoded as binary indicators of DSRP achievement levels for ENA. Using ENA, we identified differences in the prominence and co-occurrence of DSRP-related reasoning elements between students taught through the technology-enhanced systems-thinking approach (STICT) and those taught through a traditional approach. The findings revealed distinguishable DSRP epistemic network structures between the two groups, with the STICT group displaying a more heterogeneous structure and the traditional group showing a more concentrated network around system organisation, functional relationships, and multiple perspectives. The ENA indicators were more clearly associated with written report quality than with technical product quality. This study contributes to the assessment of systems-oriented reasoning. It suggests that integrating DSRP-based coding and ENA provides complementary evidence about systems-oriented reasoning beyond that captured by product quality alone, thereby contributing to a broader assessment of technology and engineering learning outcomes in authentic higher education assessment tasks. ### What they set out to do (purpose) Tests whether coding student reflections on the four DSRP dimensions and running the codes through Epistemic Network Analysis captures systems-oriented reasoning that technical product quality alone misses. ### Who or what was studied (sample) 44 pre-service preschool teachers at the University of Ljubljana, all female, ages 20 to 21, randomly assigned to a technology-enhanced systems-thinking group (STICT, n = 22) or a traditional group (n = 22). ### How they did it (methods) Students wrote a structured "Product as a System" reflection answering four open-ended prompts, one per DSRP dimension. Each dimension was coded on a four-level scale from 0 to 3, then converted to binary indicators of achievement level for Epistemic Network Analysis, which maps how the reasoning elements co-occur rather than only how often each appears. Inter-rater reliability exceeded kappa 0.70. Three other measures ran alongside: a 13-criterion product quality rubric, a 6-section written technical report rubric, and a 20-item Technological and Engineering Literacy test given before and after. Analysis was by correlation and hierarchical regression. ### What they found (results) DSRP-coded epistemic networks distinguished students taught through a technology-enhanced systems-thinking approach from those taught traditionally, and tracked written reasoning quality better than technical product quality did. ## Commentary ### In short The authors operationalize DSRP as a four-level coding scheme for student reflections and pair it with Epistemic Network Analysis, turning the four patterns into measurable, co-occurring units of reasoning rather than a descriptive vocabulary. It is one of the more methodologically developed external uses of DSRP as an assessment instrument. ### In more detail The interesting move here is methodological. Rather than scoring each DSRP dimension and adding the scores up, the authors treat the four as a network and ask which ones co-occur in a student's reasoning, which is closer to what the theory says about the patterns being interdependent rather than separable. That choice pays off measurably: the network indicators explained variance in report quality that the summed DSRP scores did not. The study also reports a result that cuts against its own intervention. On advanced DSRP network connections the traditionally taught group scored significantly higher than the technology-enhanced group, and the authors report it plainly rather than explaining it away. The DSRP indicators predicted the quality of students' written reasoning but not the quality of the physical products they built, which the authors read as evidence that the two assessments measure different things. ### Response Useful to the site as instrumentation rather than as a test of the theory. DSRP is the coding scheme here, adopted from the published framework, so the study cannot speak to whether the four patterns are the right ones. What it does supply is a working measurement method with reported reliability, and one finding that bears on the theory's own claims: treating the four as a co-occurrence network beat treating them as four separate scores. That is what the Enclosure dynamic would predict, since on that account the patterns are not independently instantiated, and it is a modest independent check arrived at for measurement reasons rather than theoretical ones. Two cautions. The sample is 44 students from one program, all female and within a one-year age band, so nothing here generalizes far. And the group difference runs against the technology-enhanced condition, which is a fact about that intervention rather than about DSRP. **Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P Shows it makes a difference **Added** 2026-10-03 **How to cite this** Brina Kurent, Stanislav Avsec (2026). Assessing technology and engineering learning outcomes of pre-service preschool teachers through epistemic networks of DSRP systems thinking. Frontiers in Education.