Complex Dynamical Systems in Education ― Concepts, Methods and Applications

Matthijs Koopmans is Associate Professor and Assessment Coordinator at the School of Education at Mercy College. His professional interests include the application of complex dynamical systems approaches in education, cause and effect relationships and nonlinear time series. He published numerous research articles and book reviews in peer-reviewed journals including Evaluation and Program Planning; Nonlinear, Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences, and Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity in Education. He is one of the editors of Chaos and Complexity in Psychology: The Theory of Nonlinear Dynamics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. He earned his Doctorate in 1988 at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dimitrios Stamovlasis is Assistant Professor of Research Methodology and Applied Statistics in Social Science at the Aristotle University, Department of Philosophy and Education. His research interests are interdisciplinary and they focus: on methodological and epistemological issues of contemporary social sciences that improve theory building; on nonlinear dynamics (complexity, catastrophe theory, entropy, and related fields) and their application to social, behavioral and life sciences; on specific research endeavors in the area of educational research concerning neo-Piagetian theories, learning, science education, problem solving, creativity and group dynamics. He published numerous research articles in peer-reviewed journals, and he served as a guest editor in the Special Issue of Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Science (2014) focused on Nonlinear Dynamics in Education. He earned his PhD at the University of Ioannina (2001) and he also holds a M.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from University of Hawaii, an MBA, and a M. Sc. in Statistics from University of Athens.