On the effectiveness of decisional guidance

The objective of this study was to determine the impact on decision makers of two forms of computer support — suggestive guidance and informative guidance — on the problem formulation stage of judgmental tasks. Three hypotheses were postulated regarding the effectiveness of these two forms of guidance. The three hypotheses were tested in two experiments comprising two judgmental tasks of differing complexity. The task performance of 282 subjects provided the basis for the assessment of the two forms of computer support. In the first experiment, which had the less complex task, we found that the availability of DSS improved task performance. In this scenario, suggestive guidance was found to enable subjects to perform significantly better than those subjects using informative guidance. However, in the second experiment, which had the more complex task, subjects using informative guidance outperformed those who were either supported with a suggestive guidance or who received no-DSS support at all (i.e., only pencil and paper was used). No significant difference was demonstrated to exist between those who were supported with suggestive guidance and those who were not supported with DSS. The results are analyzed with respect to current findings in decision research.