Uhkakuvia koulutuksen tasa-arvolle

Edellisessä blogipostauksessani pyysin vastaamaan kyselyyn, jossa annettiin arvioita erilaisten uhkakuvien todennäköisyyksistä ja vaikutuksista koulutukselliselle tasa-arvolle Suomessa.

Kyselylinkki johti kunkin vastaajan kohdalla satunnaisesti kahteen vaihtoehtoisesta kyselystä. Näissä oli erilainen kyselyformaatti. Tutkin, miten kyselyformaatti vaikuttaa todennäköisyys ja vaikutusarvioiden korrelaatioon. Vaikutusta ei ollut.

Uhkakuvat ja arviointiasteikot muodostettiin melko nopeasti, koska niillä ei ollut suurta merkitystä varsinaisen tutkimuskysymykseni kannalta.* Raportoin tulokset kuitenkin tässä.

Arvioitavia uhkakuvia oli yhdeksän:

Should most effort be put into what is 'most important'?

Everything could be better but we only have limited capabilities to fix and improve things. It is therefore important to ask how should we prioritize our efforts.

One idea you often hear is that we should put our efforts into what are the 'most important' things. What is considered important varies, for instance, finding a cure to a terrible disease is important because many people die from this disease. Fixing some societal problem is important because the problem causes much inequality among people. Developing friendly A.I. is important because evil A.I. could take over the world. Improving our educational system is important because it could have a huge impact on the productiveness of our society.

What is common for all of these, is that the possible benefits from solving the problem are very large. Although prioritization based on possible benefits can sometimes work as the rule of thumb it includes a pitfall: Even if we put a lot of effort into solving the very important problem, it might be that the problem won't be solved or the state of the world improves only very little.

Taking importance into account is a good start but including a second factor will greatly improve our prioritization ability.

Knowing what you want to stop wasting your time

Imagine that you would have no idea of what you want.

You would be choosing at random! 

The case for knowing what you want (the first cornerstone of good decision making) is simple: the reason for doing things is to get what you want. 

1+1=2, kannattaako Natoon liittyä?

Kannattaako Suomen liittyä Natoon? En tiedä, mutta olen eri mieltä seuraavasta presidentti Sauli Niinistön väitteestä: "Nato-jäsenyyskysymystä ei voi arvioida vain plussia ja miinuksia listaamalla, ikään kuin taulukkolaskentana.” (Suurlähettiläskokous 26.8., lähde: hs.fi).

Four cornerstones of good decision making

Apart from things out of our influence, the consequences of our actions (and omissions) determine how good our lives are. Probably most of our actions are based on routine and instincts. However, many are based on our conscious decision making. Some of these decisions are small, such as what do you choose to have for lunch today, but some are big, such as what education you want to pursue or whether you want to invest your time on writing a blog.

I am a PhD student in Systems Analysis and Decision Making. I created this blog to share my ideas about how to make better decisions to live better lives and to make the world a better place. In this post, I will explain what I see as the four cornerstones of good decision making.