4. decision-making -...

4. Decision-making

Copyright © 2008 EDB, Halpern, Ku, Hau & Ho

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Worksheet 4Decision-making

The following scenarios involve decision-making. Please read them carefully and answer the questions in detail.

A. Think about this: “I want more money” (a common wish among us). How could I get more money? Try to list eight possible solutions.

B. Your friend told you this fi ctional scenario: A couple who have been with each other for ten years have been running into frequent arguments lately and are very unhappy. They have sought professional counselling with little effect. What do you think the couple should do? Should they separate or should they stay the same way?

4.1Exercise 1


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C. Read the following scenarios carefully and answer the questions.

1) You’ve bought a $400 ticket to watch a famous musical. When you arrive at the theatre, you discover that you’ve lost your ticket. You’ve forgotten your seat number and you cannot prove to the theatre staff that you have bought a ticket. In this situation, will you spend another $400 to buy a new ticket? Why?

2) You plan to spend $400 to buy a ticket for a famous musical. When you arrive at the theatre to buy the ticket, you discover that $400 is missing from your wallet. Now assume that you have enough cash: Will you still buy the ticket? Why?


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4.2 The techniques of decision-making

This activity introduces you to the decision-making worksheet. The decision-making worksheet is a convenient tool that can help you with diffi cult decisions, and help you fi nd out the most suitable option for you. It helps you to make wise and effective decisions!


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4.3Exercise 2

You are about to graduate from secondary school after all these years of study. Thinking seriously about your future, you realise that graduation is not the end, but the beginning of another phase of life. Graduating from secondary school marks the beginning of your adulthood and you will soon begin working. It is time to plan your future career. The fi rst diffi cult question you need to deal with is what to study in university. Your area of study will have an impact on your future work as well as your career development plan. If you are clear about your goal, i.e. you know the profession you would like to join, it would be easy for you to fi nd ways to realise it. For instance, if you decided that you would like to be a nurse or an accountant, it would be much easier for you to choose your area of study because a relevant degree is a prerequisite. On the other hand, if you cannot or do not intend to go to university, you may need to consider the type of job you want to choose.

In general, it is common that students about your age do not have a solid career goal. Therefore, this is a question with no easy solution.

Step 1: Defi ning and Clarifying the Question

You must have a clear understanding of the question you need to decide upon. You need to think and reconstruct the problem from different perspectives so as to identify the core of the problem precisely. You should spend a little more time on this step because a wrong question is likely to lead to a wrong decision.

How to think and defi ne your question from another perspective?

If you want to go to university or pursue further studies, the decision you need to make is, “what and where should I study?” The problem is that you do not have a clear goal about what you want to do in the future and hence, you do not know where to begin in choosing your area of study.

In this case, you may think from another perspective and redefi ne your question: Since you do not have a specifi c area of study or career in mind, then why not set your goal as to increase your opportunity of engaging in various different professions?

We can redefi ne the original question more precisely from “what and where should I study?” to “what programme of study should I choose to increase my opportunity of engaging in various different professions?”

Of course, we understand that university education is not the same as professional training. But in this simplifi ed example, we try to demonstrate that the clarifi cation of questions helps solve problems.


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Step 2: Generating Alternatives

You may choose programmes whose median entrance requirements are not higher than your expected public examination score. At the same time these programmes offer a diversity of courses to improve your opportunity of engaging in different professions. Below are a few examples:

Integrated Business Administration Programme Programme objectives: The programme aims to develop students’ all-round business

talents and to prepare them to work in different business sectors after graduation. The programme offers a comprehensive and integrated business education.

Programme details: Students will be introduced to all fi elds of business administration and are subsequently free to choose their own areas of specialisation. Currently, students can choose from over ten such areas, including Business Economics and Information System Administration.

PhilosophyProgramme objectives: The programme aims to help students build a strong foundation

in humanities and to prepare them for further study. It will also give students training in critical thinking skills and communication skills, which are necessary for all professions.

Programme details: The programme is comprehensive and diverse. It integrates Chinese and Western philosophical traditions and also takes into account topics on national and regional issues. Core courses include Logic, Introduction to Philosophy, History of Philosophy, and three other optional courses.


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PsychologyProgramme objectives: The programme teaches the basic concepts of psychology.

After laying a good foundation, students can choose their area of specialisation. Apart from learning the theories, there is interesting scientifi c research that is most suitable for students with good analytical ability.

Programme details: Psychology uses scientifi c methods to study human behaviour and thinking. The programme covers the three major areas of psychology, namely the Fundamentals of Psychology, Experimental Psychology and Applied Psychology. Optional courses include Introduction to Counselling Psychology, Introduction to Clinical Psychology, Personality Psychology and others.

Internet & Multimedia TechnologiesProgramme objectives: The programme aims to provide professional training in the

internet usage and multimedia technology industries. Programme details: The programme equips students with the essential skills in

the application of the internet and multimedia technologies through a practicum and an internship. It helps students lay a good professional foundation and trains them to be self-learners so that they can keep up with the new knowledge in this ever-changing specialty.


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Step 3: Variables to Consider

After choosing a few options, list the variables which may affect your decision. The following are some common variables to consider when choosing a programme of study:

1. Personal interest and ability How interested are you in this programme? Some programmes are very intensive

and some particular parts of the programmes could be boring. Unless you are really interested, you may want to give up once you encounter diffi culties. How is your ability in this area? What was your past performance in related subject examinations?

2. Employment prospect Is it easy to fi nd a job related to your area of study? Is there a demand in the

market for graduates from this area? Does the salary reach the market index? If the salary is less than satisfactory, are you willing to accept it? What are the prospects of this industry?

3. Others’ opinions Your parents and teachers could give you some valuable advice. They are more

experienced and are able to assess your ability. However, sometimes they may oppose your choice for their own reasons. Your peers can also offer you advice. They may know your personality and ability well since they are often around you. Their advice may not be as useful as your seniors’, but it could still be a good reference point for you.

4. Resources / scholarships If fi nance is your major consideration, you should take note of any subsidies or

scholarships that may help with your fi nancial diffi culty, so that you can focus on your study. Are there subsidies or scholarships available for your chosen programme?

5. Personality Personality is an important variable. Some people believe that if you want to enter

the business world, you must be expressive, outgoing and good at socialising because you often need to meet and negotiate with other people or clients. Even if you have the qualifi cation you need, your lack of such qualities could become your obstacles at work.


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Step 4: Weighing the considerations

You may notice that the variables to consider in the worksheet are not of equal importance. Therefore, you need to weigh how important each variable is before you make your decision. In this activity, the following rating scale will be used:

5 Very important 4 Considerably important 3 Neither important nor unimportant 2 Not very important 1 Not important at all

Now fi ll out the following table to weigh the importance of the variables based on your opinion:

Variables to consider Importance Personal interest and ability Employment prospects Others’ opinions Resources or scholarships Personality

For instance, the following table shows the sample ratings by a student:

Variables to consider Importance Personal interest and ability 5 Employment prospects 5 Others’ opinions 2 Resources or scholarships 2 Personality 4


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Note: Positive numbers (+2 or +1) indicate that the alternative is able to fulfi l the variables, whereas negative numbers (-2 or -1) denote the opposite.

Step 5: Weighing the alternatives

When weighing the various alternatives, how well each alternative fulfi ls the variables to consider can be expressed as scores.

A different rating scale will be used to assess each alternative:

+2 very suitable +1 quite suitable 0 neither suitable nor unsuitable -1 not quite suitable -2 not suitable at all

Complete the following table for the fi rst chosen alternative (Integrated Business Administration Programme):

Alternative Programme Variables to consider Importance Score Personal interest and ability Employment prospects Others’ opinions Resources or scholarships Personality

For instance, the following table shows the sample ratings for the Integrated Business Administration Programme by a student:

Alternative 1: Integrated Business Administration Programme Variables to consider Importance Score Personal interest and ability 5 0 Employment prospects 5 +1 Others’ opinions 2 +2 Resources or scholarships 2 +1 Personality 4 -1


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Step 6: Calculating a decision

To calculate a decision, we multiply the ratings of the variables to consider with their corresponding scores.

For instance, the following table shows the sample ratings for Alternative 1 (Integrated Business Administration Programme) by a student:

Alternative 1: Integrated Business Administration Programme Variables to consider Importance Score Subtotal Personal interest and ability 5 0 5 x 0 = 0 Employment prospects 5 +1 5 x 1 = 5 Others’ opinions 2 +2 2 x 2 = 4 Resources or scholarships 2 +1 2 x 1 = 2 Personality 4 -1 4 x (-)1 = -4 Total: 7

Now based on your opinion, try to complete the following calculation tables for this situation. (In this scenario, you have four alternatives so you will need four calculation tables.)

Alternative 1: Variables to consider Importance Score Subtotal Personal interest and ability Employment prospects Others’ opinions Resources or scholarships Personality Total:

Add the subtotals (in bold) together and write down the sum

in the bottom row, as the total score for this alternative.

Multiply the importance by the score for each variable. The result is in bold in the subtotal column


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Alternative 2:Variables to consider Importance Score SubtotalPersonal interest and ability Employment prospects Others’ opinions Resources or scholarships Personality Total:




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Step 7: Overall assessment

The alternative with the highest total score is the best alternative. If two alternatives have the same totals, then we need to add other variables to consider to the worksheet until one scores higher than the other. Since the scores of these two alternatives are so close, only a slight difference is needed to reach a decision. You can also apply the “2/3 ideal rule” to help your decision-making:

• 2/3 Ideal Rule

This approach attempts to reach a decision by comparing the total score with an “ideal score”. An ideal alternative is the one that gets the highest score (i.e. ideal score) in all variables to consider, but in reality this is hardly ever the case. Therefore, if an alternative obtains 2/3 of the ideal score, it is considered to be a rather appropriate alternative. Of course, alternatives which score more than 2/3 of the ideal score are even more desirable, whereas those which score below should be ruled out.

For instance, in our rating scale, a perfect alternative will get a score of +2 in all variables to consider. Thus, the fi rst step of the “2/3 ideal rule” is to multiply each variable to consider by +2 to obtain the highest score (i.e. the maximum total score of an ideal alternative). By this calculation, the maximum total score of an ideal study programme is 50. The benchmark based on 2/3 of this idea score would then be: 50 x 2/3=331/3.

If all the total scores in the worksheet are below 33, you may add other variables to consider. By following these steps, you will continue to add variables to consider and recalculate the total scores until one of the alternatives scores higher than 2/3 of the ideal score.

Although the worksheet is useful, there are many factors that cannot be listed out and calculated in terms of score. The above scores are used to help us decide rather than determine our fi nal choices.


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Step 8: Refl ection

• Did you have diffi culties using the decision-making worksheet? What were the diffi culties and how did you resolve them?

• Do you think the worksheet can help you make a wise decision? Why?


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Step 9: Summary

Decision-making is a diffi cult process as it involves a lot of hard thinking. Studies have indicated that when making decisions, people who used decision-making worksheet were more likely to be satisfi ed with their results than those not using them. In general, they thought that a decision made with the help of a decision-making worksheet was better than one made without it.

Of course, we do not need help from decision-making worksheets for trivial events like buying an ice cream. However, in the course of our life, there are many occasions where we need to make important decisions. When you have a major life decision to make, a decision-making worksheet is a tool that can help.


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4.4 The techniques of decision-making – A revision

You must have a clear understanding of the question you need to decide upon. You need to think from different perspectives and defi ne the problem from different perspectives so as to identify the core of the problem precisely. This is not easy, so you should spend a little more time on this step because a wrongly defi ned question is likely to lead to a wrong decision.

You can practise Step 1 again in the following exercise.


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Holiday fi nally arrives after all the classes and exams. You decide to go travelling and you are considering your destination. You are aware that there are too many destinations featured in travel brochures and they all seem so attractive. You have no idea how to begin.

How to think and defi ne your question from another perspective?

In this situation, my decision is to:

4.5Exercise 3


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And my problem is:

Now, let’s think again from another perspective. Despite the countless number of attractive destinations, we know that people’s preferences vary with regard to how they want to travel and the type of activities they like. In your case, what are your preferences? (You may choose more than one answer.)

� Trying out exciting and novel activities� Exploring unique cultures / histories� Shopping� Meeting people from all over the world� Sunshine and beach� Others:

Having thought about the question from another perspective (by fi rst identifying the way I like to travel and the activities I want to do), now I can defi ne the question more precisely as follows:


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Now, let’s sum it up.

The original question is:

The question is subsequently defi ned as:


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I think the original question/the newly defi ned question (choose one only) can better help me make a decision in this situation because:

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