SOME EXPERIENCES WITH THE TEACHING OF DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEMS TO MANAGEMENT STUDENTS

There are essentially two schools of thought regarding the function of decision support systems. One is that the main purpose is to support the decision-maker in whatever style of decision-making he or she wish es. The other is that the support, while suiting the decision-maker's individual style, must also be based on an appropriate theoretical par adigm. The work with students of decision support systems reported her e suggests that the latter, normative, view is not one which comes nat urally to many of the students, even when working on an example where it seemed relatively easy to incorporate. Other conclusions are also p resented, relating to the choice of software for decision support syst em development, the process of teaching about decision support systems , and group formation.