The Decision-Making Process – Individual and Society (Senior 4 General and Religious Studies) | Ganzaa

Individual and Society

Lessons

Senior 4 · General and Religious Studies

Individual and Society

4 lessons

Lesson 3 of 4

The Decision-Making Process

25 min

Eric's choice

Eric (an illustrative student) will finish S6 next year. He has three serious options: a university degree paid for with a student loan, a two-year technical (TVET) course in electrical installation near home, or starting a small phone-repair business with savings and a loan from his uncle. His friends tell him to follow them to university. His mother wants him near home. He likes repairing phones, but he is not sure he could earn enough.

Eric could choose by feeling, by following his friends, or by tossing a coin. Or he could use a process. A process does not guarantee the right answer, but it makes it far less likely that he will choose blindly and regret it. This lesson teaches the process and a tool, the decision matrix, that turns his values into numbers he can compare.

Definition

Decision: a choice between two or more possible courses of action. Decision-making: the process of reaching that choice.

Alternative: one of the possible courses of action. Eric has three.

Criterion (plural criteria): a standard used to judge the alternatives. Example: cost, interest, chance of a job.

Consequence: what follows from a choice, for you and for others, in the short and the long term.

Rational decision: one reached by gathering information and weighing the alternatives against clear criteria. Impulsive decision: one made quickly, on emotion or pressure, without weighing alternatives.

Seven steps

Figure 3: the decision-making cycle. Step 4 (orange) is where most of the thinking happens; step 7 (green) turns experience into better decisions next time. Drawn by Ganzaa.

Identify the decision. State it precisely: "What will I do after S6, starting in January?" A vague problem gives vague answers.
Gather information. From reliable sources: the costs of each option, what graduates earn, what the course requires. Ask people with experience.
List alternatives. Include ones you had not thought of at first. Eric might also take the TVET course and repair phones part time.
Weigh the evidence. Compare the alternatives against your criteria and values; think about consequences for you and for others. The decision matrix below is one tool.
Choose. Pick the alternative that best fits the evidence and your values.
Act. A decision that is never carried out is only a wish. Make a plan with dates.
Review the result. Did it work? What would you do differently? The lesson feeds your next decision.

Worked example: Eric's decision matrix

Eric chooses four criteria and gives each a weight (how much it matters to him, from 1 to 3). He scores each option from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) on each criterion. For cost, 5 means cheapest for his family. A weighted score is the score multiplied by the weight.

Criterion (weight)	University	TVET course	Phone-repair business
Interest in the work (×3)	4 → 12	3 → 9	4 → 12
Chance of a steady income (×3)	3 → 9	5 → 15	3 → 9
Cost to the family (×2)	2 → 4	4 → 8	3 → 6
Near home (×1)	2 → 2	4 → 4	5 → 5
Total	27	36	32

Working for the TVET course: 3 × 3 + 5 × 3 + 4 × 2 + 4 × 1 = 9 + 15 + 8 + 4 = 36. The TVET course scores highest.

Test the result. What if interest mattered much more to Eric, with a weight of 5? University: 4 × 5 + 9 + 4 + 2 = 35; TVET: 3 × 5 + 15 + 8 + 4 = 42; business: 4 × 5 + 9 + 6 + 5 = 40. The TVET course still wins, so the result is robust. Eric also notices that the business came second both times: combining the TVET course with part-time phone repair, a fourth alternative, might be better than either.

What pushes and pulls a decision

Influence	How it can help	How it can mislead
Values	Keep the choice consistent with who you want to be	Rarely misleads, unless you have not thought them through
Family	Experience, support, knowledge of you	Their wishes may not fit your talents
Peers	Encouragement, shared information	Pressure to follow the group
Culture and faith	Moral guidance, community wisdom	Customs may be applied without asking if they fit
Emotions	Signal what really matters to you	Anger, fear or excitement rush the choice
Information	Good evidence makes good choices	Rumours and false posts lead you astray
Law	Sets limits that protect you and others	Ignoring it brings penalties and harm

Deciding together

Communities make decisions too. Article 10 of Rwanda's Constitution commits the State to a "constant quest for solutions through dialogue and consensus", and home-grown solutions such as Umushyikirano (the National Dialogue) and Imihigo (performance contracts) are listed by the Rwanda Governance Board. A group decision follows the same seven steps, but step 4 becomes a discussion in which every member is heard, and step 5 aims at a choice that all can accept.

Warning

Four traps

Peer pressure: choosing what the group wants instead of what the evidence shows.
Deciding in anger or fear: strong emotions narrow what you notice. Wait until you are calm.
Only seeking information that agrees with you: look for the best argument against your favourite option.
"I have already spent so much": money or time already spent cannot be recovered, so it should not keep you on a path that no longer makes sense.

Tip

Pause, list, weigh. For a big decision: pause (never decide in the heat of the moment), list at least three alternatives, and weigh them against criteria you write down before you score. Writing the criteria first stops you from bending them to fit the option you already like.

Important

Discuss. Is a decision matrix too cold for decisions about people, such as whom to marry or whether to forgive someone? Which steps of the process still apply to such decisions, and which do not?

Lauren Kress: "The 7 step decision making process", about 3 minutes. Notice why she says the first step is to define the problem, not to brainstorm solutions, and compare her seven steps with Figure 3.

✦

Practice

Define decision-making and distinguish a rational decision from an impulsive one.
List the seven steps of the decision-making process in order.
Explain why step 7, review, is part of the process.
Using Eric's matrix, calculate the total for the phone-repair business, showing your working.
Uwase must choose between two schools. School A: quality 5, cost 2, distance 3. School B: quality 4, cost 4, distance 4. Weights: quality ×3, cost ×2, distance ×1. Which school scores higher?
Your friends pressure you to leave school at night for a party. Apply the seven steps to this decision.
Evaluate the decision matrix as a tool: give two strengths and two limitations.

Show answersHide answers

Decision-making is the process of choosing between possible courses of action. A rational decision gathers information and weighs alternatives against clear criteria; an impulsive decision is made quickly on emotion or pressure without weighing alternatives.
Identify the decision; gather information; list alternatives; weigh the evidence; choose; act; review the result.
Review shows whether the choice worked and why. It turns experience into learning, so the next decision is better, and it allows you to correct course early if the choice is failing.
4 × 3 + 3 × 3 + 3 × 2 + 5 × 1 = 12 + 9 + 6 + 5 = 32.
School A: 5 × 3 + 2 × 2 + 3 × 1 = 15 + 4 + 3 = 22. School B: 4 × 3 + 4 × 2 + 4 × 1 = 12 + 8 + 4 = 24. School B scores higher.
Decision: whether to go. Information: school rules and their penalties, the risks of being out at night, who will be there. Alternatives: go, refuse, refuse and suggest a weekend activity, report the plan. Weigh: safety, the law and school rules, your education, your friendship. Choose: refuse and suggest an alternative. Act: say no clearly. Review: how did your friends react, and what would you do next time?
Strengths: it makes criteria and values explicit; it lets you compare many options fairly; it can be tested by changing the weights. Limitations: the scores are still personal judgements; it can give false precision; it may leave out feelings, relationships and moral rules that cannot be scored.

Quick check

Put the steps of the decision-making process in order.

Tap the cards in the right order.

Key points

The decision-making process has seven steps: identify, gather information, list alternatives, weigh, choose, act, review.
A weighted decision matrix scores each alternative on criteria, multiplies by weights and adds; test the result by changing the weights.
Values, family, peers, culture, emotions, information and law all push and pull decisions; watch for peer pressure, anger, one-sided information and money already spent.
Groups decide through dialogue and consensus (Constitution, Article 10); every voice is heard at the weighing step.

Sources and credits

Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Justice: Article 10 quoted.
Home Grown Solutions, Rwanda Governance Board: Umushyikirano and Imihigo.
Photo: Rwanda Spark Community Meeting, Bet240, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Video: "The 7 step decision making process", Lauren Kress, embedded from YouTube.

Written by Ganzaa: Eric's case, Figure 3, the decision matrix, the tables and the exercises.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Eric's choice

2Seven steps

3What pushes and pulls a decision

4Deciding together

Eric's choice

Seven steps

What pushes and pulls a decision

Deciding together