dc.contributor.advisor |
Pavlov, V |
en |
dc.contributor.author |
Wang, Xin |
en |
dc.date.accessioned |
2015-03-02T20:01:43Z |
en |
dc.date.issued |
2014 |
en |
dc.identifier.citation |
2014 |
en |
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/24719 |
en |
dc.description |
Full text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only. |
en |
dc.description.abstract |
Previous experimental work showed that subjects tended to make decisions that deviated from optimal choices prescribed by the normative models in business decision-making; for example, in the Newsvendor experiments, newsvendors broadly exhibited behaviour patterns of ordering closer to the mean demand. Researchers have made many efforts and found that in-task training improves the quality of decisions. However, previous research also argued that in-task training has a limited use because the environment is fast-changing. For this reason, we decided to test the effect of out-of-task training (OOTT). This study is an initial attempt to explore the effectiveness of OOTT on impacting individual decision making under uncertainty, with two major purposes: 1) to examine whether OOTT could improve decision performance regarding profits; and 2) to determine whether decision biases could be reduced by OOTT using the approach of examining individual search patterns. This research is also concerned with the possibility of skills transfer between tasks across domains. A stylized profit-maximization decision task was designed, with two types of profit functions implemented at different levels of complexity. It provided decision makers a simple and clean environment in which to develop their search patterns and find the profit-maximizing value and also allowed us to evaluate the quality of single decisions using search algorithms. The use of different levels of task complexity also increased the generalizability of our findings to more complicated problems such as the Newsvendor problem. Two out-of-task exercises were introduced: a video game – Angry Birds; and the Number guessing game. The adjustment/search patterns acquired by the two games shared structural similarities with the business decision tasks. The results of this study demonstrated that individual search patterns were influenced both positively and negatively by OOTT, which implied a transfer of skills between tasks, although it was not always a success. The results provide some support for improving subjects’ profits using OOTT, and also supported the expectation that the optimality of decisions would be increased and thus decision biases would be reduced. In particular, Angry Birds showed more positive impacts on decision performance, while Numbers produced a detrimental effect under many conditions. Perhaps surprisingly, our results suggested that OOTT was more likely to benefit decision-making in relatively complex settings. |
en |
dc.publisher |
ResearchSpace@Auckland |
en |
dc.relation.ispartof |
Masters Thesis - University of Auckland |
en |
dc.rights |
Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. |
en |
dc.rights |
Restricted Item. Available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland. |
en |
dc.rights.uri |
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm |
en |
dc.title |
The Effect of Out-of-task Training on Search Patterns for Decisions Under Uncertainty: A Laboratory Study |
en |
dc.type |
Thesis |
en |
thesis.degree.grantor |
The University of Auckland |
en |
thesis.degree.level |
Masters |
en |
dc.rights.holder |
Copyright: The Author |
en |
pubs.elements-id |
477073 |
en |
pubs.record-created-at-source-date |
2015-03-03 |
en |
dc.identifier.wikidata |
Q112907531 |
|