Mapping validity and validation in modelling for interdisciplinary research
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Mapping validity and validation in modelling for interdisciplinary research Guus ten Broeke1 · Hilde Tobi1 Accepted: 6 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) is an interdisciplinary and dynamic modelling approach for the study of today’s global challenges. It is used for the explanation, description, and prediction of behaviours of system components and the system at large. To understand and assess the quality of research in which CAS models are designed and used, a thorough understanding of the meanings of ‘validity’ from social science research methodology and ‘validation’ from simulation modelling is needed. In this paper, we first describe the modelling process. Then, we analyse the concepts ‘validity’ and ‘validation’ as used in a set of research methodology textbooks and a set of modelling textbooks. We present one single map that integrates validity as characteristic of the model input, the modelling process, model validation, and the validity of the model built. The map is illustrated by means of one example. The terminology proposed in the map allows to describe and distinguish between the validity of primary research used for input in the model, how the quality of the modelling depends on structural and behavioural validation, and, how the assessment of the validity of the model is informed by these types of validation plus research with independent data. Keywords Agent-based model · System dynamics · Interdisciplinarity · Measurement validity · Internal validity · Generalizability
1 Introduction Many of today’s global issues such as climate change, food security and social injustice, call for joint input of researchers from different scientific disciplines. The complexity of these issues has promoted the development of interdisciplinary research and G. ten Broeke and H. Tobi authors contributed equally to this paper. * Guus ten Broeke [email protected] Hilde Tobi [email protected] 1
Biometris, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
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complexity approaches, or as Fattore and Grassi (2015, p. 1551) put it “complexity is interdisciplinarity”. Interdisciplinary research is (Aboelela et al. 2007, p. 341): “any study or group of studies undertaken by scholars from two or more distinct scientific disciplines. The research is based upon a conceptual model that links or integrates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, uses study design and methodology that is not limited to any one field, and requires the use of perspectives and skills of the involved disciplines throughout multiple phases of the research process”. To make explicit what constitute distinct scientific disciplines, we use Kagan’s (2009) distinction of three distinct scientific cultures (2009): natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. In the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) context, the label ‘interdisciplinary’ refers to a team of people from at least the natural and the social scienc
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