Adolescents' thinking about an important life decision -- choosing a college to attend -- will be examined as it evolves over a 12 month period. Specifically, the factors (e.g., location, program offerings) and alternatives (e.g., University of Minnesota, Leeward Community College) adolescents consider and weigh at various points in the process will be assessed. This decision, likely the first one of this magnitude to be faced by adolescents, has a number of vocational, educational, social and emotional implications, many of which will have long-term consequences. Thus, results of this study will have both practical applications for high school students, teachers and counselors, and broader theoretical implications for cognitive models of real-life decision making. This work will use a sequential longitudinal design, with up to four interviews per student, beginning in the spring of the student's junior year, ending in spring of the student's senior year. In each interview, students will describe their current thinking and experiences in choosing a college, both through open-ended questions and through structured items. Specifically, students will describe the factors they are considering and their relative weights, the alternatives they are considering, and how each alternative is rated on each factor. Students will also indicate their current """"""""best alternative,"""""""" and will rate their overall level of satisfaction and comfort with the decision making process. Using measures adopted from multi-attribute utility theory, students' integration of factors with their weightings and alternatives and their ratings on each of the factors can be compared to a normative model of the decision. The project encompasses four questions: (1) How do students structure this decision, in terms of the factors and alternatives considered, at various points in the process, and how does not change over time? (2) How does a student's integration of factors and alternatives compare with normative models (given that students' weightings and ratings)? (3) To what extent do evaluations of the decision making and satisfaction with the process relate to the ways students structure the decision and/or to the efficacy of their performance (as assessed through normative measures)? (4) How do students describe the decision making process? Answers to these questions will be evaluated for differences as a function of gender, ability and previous experience with these interviews.
| Galotti, Kathleen M (2007) Decision structuring in important real-life choices. Psychol Sci 18:320-5 |
