Research suggests that Decision Education can lead to several key outcomes for students, both now and in the future.
How Does Decision Education Improve Students’ Lives?
Better Social and Behavioral Outcomes:
- Youth with higher decision-making competence engaged in more prosocial behavior and had fewer social and emotional problems.1
- Cognitive decision-making programs for youth led to a 40-50% decrease in their likelihood of involvement in violence.2
- Envisioning their future selves–a key Decision Education concept–led to a reduction in impulsive decision-making in adolescents.3
Improved Judgment and Information Literacy:
- Probability training with middle school students led to an 83% reduction in judgment errors when interpreting information.4
- Research on the Alliance’s Media Literacy Incubator showed a 36% improvement in students’ ability to evaluate media sources.
How Does Decision Education Provide Durable Skills For Future Success?
Better Life Outcomes:
- Interventions that teach decision-making to children and adolescents have the potential to significantly improve social, health, and financial outcomes later in life.5
Preparing Students For the Modern Workforce:
- Decision Education teaches durable skills that are in high demand across virtually all industries, career levels, and regions and that often carry substantial wage premiums.6
- These essential skills will be increasingly important in the future as they are central to many of the fastest-growing occupations and are also vital in effectively leveraging AI.7
How Are We Developing the Evidence Base?
Decision Education is a developing field. The evidence base is growing, and what we know so far points to both the urgency and promise of teaching students how to make better decisions. The Alliance is committed to building upon this evidence base by evaluating our own initiatives and supporting other researchers through grants and awards.
As field builders, the Alliance publishes evidence, analysis, and practical guidance to support educators, researchers, and all our partners working to bring Decision Education into classrooms across the country. Read our white papers to find our latest research findings and insights from our work advancing Decision Education.
Join the Growing Decision Education Movement
Given the impact of Decision Education on various outcomes throughout students’ lives, the Alliance’s mission is more vital than ever. We know we can’t do this alone. The Alliance’s work is backed by a growing number of teachers, families, researchers (including several Nobel laureates), philanthropists, business leaders, and community members who recognize the importance of skillful decision-making and the impact it has in their own lives.
Together, we are committed to generating demand, building solutions and providing support and structure for implementing Decision Education into every student’s learning experience.
Join us as we bring Decision Education to more students nationwide.
Citations
1 Weller, J. A., Moholy, M., Bossard, E., & Levin, I. P. (2014). Preadolescent Decision‐Making Competence Predicts Interpersonal Strengths and Difficulties: A 2‐Year Prospective Study. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(1), 76–88. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1822
2 Heller, S.B., Shah, A.K., Guryan, J., Ludwig, J., Mullainathan, S., Pollack, H.A. (2016). Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(1), 1-54. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw033
3 Bromberg, U., Lobatcheva, M., Peters, J. (2017). Episodic Future Thinking Reduces Temporal Discounting in Healthy Adolescents. PLoS One, 12(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188079
4 Agnoli, F. (1991). Development of Judgmental Heuristics and Logical Reasoning: Training Counteracts the Representativeness Heuristic. Cognitive Development, 6, 195-217. https://doi.org/10.1016/0885-2014(91)90036-D
5 Jacobson, D., Parker, A., Spetzler, C., Bruine de Bruin, W., Hollenbeck, K., et al. (2012) Improved Learning in U.S. History and Decision Competence with Decision-Focused Curriculum. PLoS ONE, 7(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045775; Weller, J. A., Moholy, M., Bossard, E., & Levin, I. P. (2014). Preadolescent Decision‐Making Competence Predicts Interpersonal Strengths and Difficulties: A 2‐Year Prospective Study. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(1), 76–88. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1822
6 Gunther, O., Leiden, E., Nania, J. (2025). Decision Skills in the Workforce. Burning Glass Institute https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/workforce-skills-report/
7 Gunther, O., Leiden, E., Nania, J. (2025). Decision Skills in the Workforce. Burning Glass Institute https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/workforce-skills-report/
