Global organisations linked to education and academia argue that university students need to be agents of change and that, to do so, they need to acquire skills linked to systems thinking; that is, for example, they need to be able to connect ideas, contradictory or incompatible positions, approach problems holistically (OECD, 2018; Ben-Zvi-Assaraf & Knippels, 2022), establish cause-effect networks and identify non-linear relationships and feedback loops (Uskola & Pug, 2023; Hipkins, 2021). This has increased interest in the scientific community, especially in Europe, to investigate and understand systems thinking, especially in chemistry (Reyunders et al., 2023) and engineering (Monat et al., 2022; York et al., 2019). In contrast, there needs to be more research on developing systems thinking skills in the social sciences, specifically in training future teachers. Among the latter, some studies have investigated systems thinking in Primary Education (Feriver et al., 2022; Mambrey et al., 2022), in Secondary Education (Rachmatullah & Wiebe et al., 2022), as well as in postgraduate students in Business Studies, Health Sciences, Education and Natural Sciences (Alm et al., 2022).

In short, systems thinking is increasingly essential for all people and professions because it provides a new way of understanding and managing complex problems (Choudhury, 2022). However, its research is disparate across different fields of natural and medical sciences and exact sciences such as biology, sustainability, medicine, and engineering. While it has yet to be a central theme in any of these fields, discussions are recently being stimulated as systems thinking is being investigated in depth.

Systems thinking is interpreted differently and according to the discipline; however, it is certainly understood as the ability to deal with a complex set of dynamically interacting elements. Moreover, it is almost always counter-intuitive thinking (Green et al., 2022). Based on the above, systems thinking can be understood as a set of skills and a way of thinking that enables people to understand dynamic complexity. People strive to understand and reason about complex systems (Streiling et al., 2021) and to understand how they might solve complex problems as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Future teachers play a fundamental role in students' systems thinking learning as they train the generations of today and tomorrow. Therefore, integrating this competence into university curricula in coordination with other disciplines is urgent. The growing complexity of education and the elements involved in learning requires trainers of trainers to develop the ability to think in systems so that they can pass this on to future teachers. In this way, teachers of children and adolescents could, in turn, develop, in their future professional development, this thinking, which they learnt previously. This study seeks to answer the following research question: What skills related to systems thinking do future teachers have? On this basis, the study aimed to identify and analyse the skills linked to systems thinking in undergraduate and postgraduate university students of education.

Considering the research objective, the quantitative approach was used, with a non-experimental and exploratory design. The study involved 287 students from three degrees in the field of education at the University of Alicante (Spain) (Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education, Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education, Bachelor's Degree in Physical Activity and Sport Sciences) and two Master's Degrees (Master's Degree in Secondary Education Teaching and Master's Degree in Educational Research). Of these, 65.2% were women, 34.5% were men, and one person reported being of another gender. About age, 76% were aged between 18 and 22, 10.5% between 23 and 27, 6.3% between 28 and 32, 3.1% between 33 and 37, and 4.2% over 38. About their studies, 66.2% were students with a Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education, 13.2% had a Bachelor's Degree in Physical Activity and sports sciences, 13.2% had the Master's Degree in Secondary Education, 3.8% of the Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education and 3.5% of the Master's Degree in Educational Research. The data collection instrument was the scale proposed and validated by Camelia et al. (2018). This was developed to assess students' learning about systems thinking in engineering students. Therefore, the instrument was adapted to students studying education. The original reliability and validity of the instrument indicated a high internal consistency of the items (Cronbach's alpha of 0.908). After rechecking the internal consistency of the items (Cronbach's alpha 0.87), the final instrument consisted of 19 items. Some of them are: When I encounter a problem, I use multiple points of view to understand and analyse it; I think I am good at projects and personal organisation; I like to be daring and take risks to solve problems; I prefer to ask questions of my peers rather than research on my own; I enjoy using mind maps, pictures, causal diagrams or graphs to understand problems; when leading a group project, I make it a point to see how the whole project works, rather than focusing only on my tasks; and when working on a joint project, I value the contributions of others to complete the task. The item values ranged from a minimum score of 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Always). The questionnaire was created using Google Forms and was answered by the students in an average time of 15 minutes. The collected data were analysed with the statistical package SPSS v. 25 for Windows.

The most salient findings show that 79.4% of the participants considered it essential to analyse the specific needs of students before teaching (4.7), followed by 79.1% who said that they would be interested in knowing what the results of their future professional performance would be (4.5). On the other hand, 61.3% said that when working on a joint project, they value the contributions of others (4.2). In comparison, 58.9% of participants said they try to maintain communication with others (4). Similarly, a group of students (58.2%) stated that it is essential to acquire knowledge in areas of knowledge other than their specialisation (e.g. in psychology, sociology, philosophy or educational administration) (4.1). From the above, it can be inferred that the skills linked to systems thinking, which the students most reported having, are related to their professional profile (e.g., identifying students' needs or having communication skills). Other striking results are that 28.2% of participants said they almost always try to find a quick answer to a problem without investigating further. 20.6% prefer to avoid taking risks to solve a problem, and 32.1% prefer to investigate individually. On the other hand, a group of students say they are not proactive (14.2%), and another considerable group consider themselves to be proactive only sometimes (32.8%). From these data, many students do not have sufficient skills linked to systems thinking or the capacity for future projection. This can be alleviated with relevant training that provides them with a more significant and better understanding of the complexity of the relationships between education, the environment and people (Astaíza-Matínez et al., 2021). A second conclusion is that they have not yet sufficiently developed more instrumental and systemic competencies specifically linked to problem-solving or the transformation of reality. Therefore, these skills must be systematically included in future teachers' curricula.

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