Experiencing Information Processing Strategies as a to Decision Making

Abstract

This paper presents an experiential exercise designed to permit students to explore their own decision-making styles within the context of the current stream of findings concerning information handling and simplification strategies for decision-making. In the exercise, students are required to choose between several different apartments, and in so doing, experience information overload and implementation of decision simplification procedures. Formal information processing strategies are experienced by the students, compared with their unassisted decision simplification method, and used as the basis of classroom discussion of the viability and ease of implementation of each of the various strategies. This discussion is expected to lead to students’ discovery of multi-stage processing.