Trying to Make Elective Class Choice Easier

Yun, Joseph

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/49108 Copy

Description

Title

Trying to Make Elective Class Choice Easier

Author(s)

Yun, Joseph

Issue Date

2014-05

Keyword(s)

Advertisement

Abstract

"The problem of ""too much choice"" or ""choice overload"" is experienced by us all in almost every area of our lives. Whether it be shopping online for a laptop or deciding which chewing gum to choose from the grocery aisle, the process of choosing can be quite overwhelming. In higher education, anyone that has attended college has most likely had an encounter with a course catalog system with more classes than anyone could possibly sort through. Our research focuses on looking at choice overload in the undergraduate elective course selection process, and how various forms of categorization affect measures of choice overload. Course catalogs generally have always sorted classes taxonomically, namely by course subject. We are looking at the effects of presenting versions of a course catalog (created with real university course data) that are either categorized taxonomically (i.e. advertising, computer science, history, etc.), thematically (i.e. running a business, learning a new language,understanding substance abuse, etc.), or not categorized at all. One of the goals of our research is to see if there is a way to help students see and consider many more elective classes without increasing (and hopefully decreasing) choice overload."

Type of Resource

• text
• image

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49108

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 Joseph Yun

Owning Collections