Decision Education is the teaching and learning of skillful judgment formation and decision-making.
Drawn from multiple fields in the sciences and humanities, Decision Education is an interdisciplinary approach to teaching students how to think, not what to think. It empowers students to develop skills and dispositions that help them determine for themselves what they value, what is true, and what to do. Just like literacy, numeracy, and leadership, applied decision-making skills can be learned and developed over time.
I believe people’s lives depend on the decisions they make, so if we can teach them to make better decisions, we can improve their lives.
Daniel Kahneman
Nobel Prize Winner, Author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, and the World’s Authority on Cognitive Biases
Decision Education is divided into four learning domains that build skills from grades K-12.
The domains are:
Thinking Probabilistically
Every decision is a forecast of the future, using today’s insights to predict tomorrow’s outcomes. Thinking probabilistically enhances our decision-making by helping us judge the likelihood of outcomes. It also improves our understanding of uncertainty and allows us to calibrate our confidence in specific outcomes based on our knowledge and experience.
Recognizing and Resisting Cognitive Biases
Our minds rely on shortcuts—or heuristics—when we are forming judgments and making decisions. In general, these shortcuts are helpful—but sometimes, these shortcuts result in cognitive biases, a type of error in thinking when we are processing and interpreting information. Recognizing and resisting cognitive biases leads to better decision-making.
Structuring Decisions
We are better decision makers when we embrace decisions as opportunities, clarify our values, and generate and research different options. This can help develop a strong sense of agency and improve our ability to reach decisions that work best for us in both the short and long term.
