Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 32, Number 2
Spring 2001
The Effectiveness of Decisional Guidance: An Empirical Evaluation
Mihir Parikh
Institute for Technology and Enterprise, Polytechnic University,
Five Metrotech Center, LC401, Brooklyn, NY 11201, e-mail: mparikh@poly.edu
Bijan Fazlollahi
Computer Information System, J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Administration, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA 30303, e-mail:
bijan@gsu.edu
Sameer Verma
College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway
Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132, e-mail:sverma@sfsu.edu
Abstract. Decisional guidance is defined as how a decision
support system (DSS) influences its users as they structure and
execute the decision-making process. It is assumed that decisional
guidance has profound effects on decision making, but these effects
are understudied and empirically unproven. This paper describes
an empirical, laboratory-experiment-based evaluation of the effectiveness
of deliberate decisional guidance and its four types. We developed
and used a comprehensive model consisting of four evaluation
criteria: decision quality, user satisfaction, user learning,
and decision-making efficiency. On these criteria, we compared
decisional guidance versus no guidance, informative versus suggestive
decisional guidance, and predefined versus dynamic decisional
guidance. We found that deliberate decisional guidance was more
effective on all four criteria; suggestive guidance was more
effective in improving decision quality and user satisfaction,
and informative guidance was more effective in user learning
about the problem domain; dynamic guidance was more effective
than predefined guidance in improving decision quality and user
learning; and both suggestive guidance and dynamic guidance reduced
the decision time.
Subject Areas: Decision Support Systems, Decisional
Guidance, DSS Effectiveness, Experimental Design, and Laboratory
Experiment. |