Assessing Comprehension of Petri Nets Across Diverse Backgrounds: An Experimental Insight

Petri nets are a well-known technique for process modeling with an easy-to-understand graphical notation. But are Petri nets as easy to comprehend as assumed? How well can people from diverse backgrounds understand and use them? The study presented in this paper aims to provide limited insight into these questions, with the primary limitation being the number of participants (n=20). A particular type of Petri nets, the Elementary system nets, was presented to the study participants and then they have been given a task to complete a Petri net with arcs. There were 10 participants from the IT field and 10 outside of the IT field. 12 participants completed the task successfully, 7 from the IT group and 5 from the non-IT group. While the study has been conducted in the context of Petri Nets utilization for scenarios in virtual educational environments, the results are not limited to that context.