4.

Decision-making
 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

4.1
Exercise 1
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 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?

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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

1) Youve bought a $400 ticket to watch a famous musical. When you arrive at the theatre, you
discover that youve lost your ticket. Youve 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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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 difcult decisions, and help
you nd out the most suitable option for you. It helps you to make wise and effective
decisions!

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

4.3
Exercise 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 rst difcult 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 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: Dening 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 dene 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 redene your question: Since
you do not have a specic 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 redene 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 simplied example, we try to demonstrate that the clarication of
questions helps solve problems.
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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 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.

Philosophy
Programme 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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Decision-making

Psychology
Programme 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 scientic research that is most suitable for students
with good analytical ability.
Programme details: Psychology uses scientic 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 Technologies

Programme 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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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 difculties. How
is your ability in this area? What was your past performance in related subject
examinations?

2. Employment prospect
Is it easy to 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 nance is your major consideration, you should take note of any subsidies or
scholarships that may help with your nancial difculty, 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 qualication you need, your lack of such qualities could become
your obstacles at work.
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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 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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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

Step 5: Weighing the alternatives

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

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

+2 very suitable Note: Positive numbers (+2 or

+1 quite suitable +1) indicate that the alternative is
0 neither suitable nor unsuitable able to full the variables, whereas
-1 not quite suitable negative numbers (-2 or -1) denote
-2 not suitable at all the opposite.

Complete the following table for the 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
Personal interest and ability
Employment prospects
Others opinions
Resources or scholarships
Personality
Importance Score
5 0
5 +1
2 +2
2 +1
4 -1

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

Step 6: Calculating a decision

Multiply the
To calculate a decision, we multiply the ratings of the variables to consider with importance by
their corresponding scores. the score for each
variable. The
For instance, the following table shows the sample ratings for Alternative 1 (Integrated Business result is in bold
Administration Programme) by a student: in the subtotal
column
Alternative 1: Integrated Business Administration Programme
Variables to consider Importance Score Subtotal
Personal interest and ability 5 0 5x0=0
Employment prospects 5 +1 5x1=5
Others opinions 2 +2 2x2=4
Resources or scholarships 2 +1 2x1=2
Personality 4 -1 4 x (-)1 = -4
Total: 7

Add the subtotals (in bold) together and write down the sum
in the bottom row, as the total score for this alternative.

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:

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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

Alternative 3:
Variables to consider Importance Score Subtotal
Personal interest and ability
Employment prospects
Others opinions
Resources or scholarships
Personality
Total:

Alternative 4:
Variables to consider Importance Score Subtotal
Personal interest and ability
Employment prospects
Others opinions
Resources or scholarships
Personality
Total:

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 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 nal choices.

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

Step 8: Reection

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

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

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

Step 9: Summary

Decision-making is a difcult 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 satised 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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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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 dene 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 dened question is likely
to lead to a wrong decision.

You can practise Step 1 again in the following exercise.

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

4.5
Exercise 3
Holiday 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 dene your question from another perspective?

In this situation, my decision is to:

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

And my problem is:

Now, lets think again from another perspective. Despite the countless number of attractive
destinations, we know that peoples 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 rst identifying the way I like to
travel and the activities I want to do), now I can dene the question more precisely as follows:

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

Now, lets sum it up.

The original question is:

The question is subsequently dened as:

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 Worksheet 4
Decision-making

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

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