king


 

 
 
 
 
Student impulsivity in decision making with 
computer simulations 

 
John King 

School of Education 
James Cook University of North Queensland 

Rhonda King  
Northern Region Department of Education, Townsville. 

 
A series of decision-making activities in real-life and life-like situations 
were undertaken by a class of year six primary school students over a 
period of three months. Students played the computer simulation Shipwreck 
before and after the activities. During the simulation sessions, interactions 
between pairs of students were audio taped. Other data recorded included 
the survival scores generated by the program, the time of play for each pair 
and responses to questions at the end of the game sessions and at the end of 
the experiment. A control class played the game at the same times and the 
same data were recorded. Results suggest that while the treatment group 
showed no reduction in impulsivity in decision making, they remained 
stable in this respect compared to the control group. 

 
 
The Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling in Australia as 
published by the Australian Education Council in 1989 affirms the need 
"to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which will enable 
students to participate as active and informed citizens in our democratic 
Australian society within an international context" (Department of 
Education, Qld, 1992, p.6). To ensure that students develop the skills of 
active and informed citizenship, greater attention has been focused on 
student decision making and how decision making can be enhanced. 
 
 
 
 
 



King and King 31 

With the increasing availability of microcomputers in schools, the use of 
simulations to develop the decision-making skills of students has become 
a viable option. Stewart (1988) has suggested that "The computer will, 
undoubtedly, play an increasingly more important role in aiding the 
decision-making process" and that " ... it will still be necessary for human 
beings to make the ultimate decisions ... " (viii). What is problematic is 
whether the use of simulations per se can enhance the decision-making 
capability of students as some developers of this type of software claim. 
 
Various contradictory statements have been forthcoming in the literature 
about the relative merits of simulations in educational contexts. Whiteside 
(1985/86) has claimed that " ... many games and simulations can be used 
to foster in individuals some process related skills such as decision 
making" (p.116). Brant, Hooper and Sugrue (1991), in a review of 
educational simulations, concluded "Research conducted over the past two 
decades on the effectiveness of instructional simulations has yielded less 
than encouraging results" (p.469). Little research to date however, appears 
to focus on the use of simulations to develop generalised decision-making 
skills, that is, to produce better decision makers. 
 
While the present study considered transferability of thinking skills 
involved in decision making, it was not investigating transfer of skills 
from one knowledge-rich domain to another, as the knowledge domain in 
all instances related to social issues requiring limited specific knowledge. 
Rather, the focus was on the transfer of decision-making skills across 
contexts, in this case, from real-life and life-like decision-making contexts 
to a life-like computer simulation context. The aim was to reduce the 
impulsivity of decision making. 
 
The CoRT-1 thinking skill program was chosen as the instrument to 
mediate the impulsivity of decision making in the simulation context 
because of its applicability to both the transfer issue and decision-making 
skill development. This program approaches the transfer problem using 
two major strategies. Firstly, CoRT practice situations purposefully avoid 
complexity of subject matter to ensure that the focus is on the processes of 
thinking. Secondly, CoRT explicitly details and labels specific skills, eg. 
PMI (plus, minus, interesting), so that they are easily recognised and 
applied in a purposeful manner. In relation to decision making, CoRT-1 
purports to provide students with skills to suspend judgement when 
making decisions and developing plans of action. As de Bono (1985, p.371) 
proposes, the purpose of the CoRT Program is to provide a 'clear view' or 
'perceptual map' of a situation. He claims that CoRT-1 "encourages pupils 
to look in a wider sweep round a situation instead of rushing off after the 
obvious short-term, egocentric, prejudged line of thought" (1976, p.129). 
 
 



32 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1993, 9(1) 

Since interactivity and the verbalisation of thoughts were important 
aspects of this experiment, students worked in pairs when using the 
simulation. This approach finds support from Trowbridge's (1987) 
investigation of interaction patterns of students working with computers 
which concluded that "interactivity was enhanced when students worked 
in twos or threes" (p 47) 
 
In summary, the purpose of the study was to investigate whether training 
in decision making can produce a cognitive style shift, from impulsive to 
reflective, when using a computer simulation. 
 
The sample and software 
 
Two classes of Year 6 students in a provincial city primary school were 
chosen for this study. The average age of the students was 11 years 2 
months. One class was used as the treatment group and the other as the 
control group. Both classes were mixed gender and mixed ability, and 
each functioned with one teacher during the period of the study. Some 
students arrived at and some departed from both classes during the course 
of the experiment. Ten pairs of students remained intact in each class for 
the entire study. Only data obtained from these intact pairs were used. 
Both teachers were experienced and one of the researchers was the teacher 
of the treatment class. 
 
A public domain program called Shipwreck was used in conjunction with 
an Apple IIe microcomputer for the study. The program was chosen 
because it provides a rich environment for decision making, is easy to 
operate, and contains the motivating goal of survival on a deserted island 
after a shipwreck. The program also incorporates a survival score which is 
provided as a percentage after the operator makes each decision. The score 
varies after each of a series of five to eight decisions that the operator 
makes while playing one game. 
 
Treatment and data collection 
 
The treatment class received instruction on using four of the CoRT-1 
thinking skills most relevant to decision making over a three month period 
after having initially played the simulation game. They also had the 
opportunity to apply these four skills to a planning strategy for real-life 
and life-like decision-making situations. 
 
The teaching approach used followed the procedure detailed in the CoRT-
1 Teacher's Notes booklet (de Bono, 1986) which includes an introduction 
to the skill, practice activities together with questions and principles to  
 
 



King and King 33 

stimulate discussion and evaluation of the skill. During the initial four 
weeks, students also applied these individual skills to various 
contemporary and everyday issues which arose during discussions. These 
practice activities involved an additional two hours. Total treatment time 
for the first four weeks was six hours. 
 
Students were introduced to a planning strategy for decision making 
which incorporated the above four skills during the fifth week. The 
students had the opportunity to apply this planning strategy to a range of 
decision-making situations in the following five weeks. All these activities 
were relevant and meaningful to the students and did not require 
significant specialised knowledge. During this six week period of the 
treatment time, planning activities involved a total time of ten hours. The 
total CoRT-1 instruction and practice time during the 10 week treatment 
was 16 hours. During this 10 week school time, the control group 
continued with their normal class routine which did not include any 
explicit instruction on thinking skills; nor was the content of their 
instruction necessarily similar to that of the treatment group. The control-
group teacher was only involved in student release for the study. 
 
Pairs of students from both classes were audio taped prior to the treatment 
while making decisions relating to the computer simulation. The 
simulation required students to make decisions about what four objects 
from a list of 20 to take from their sinking ship so that they could survive 
on an island. The program then challenged the students selection by 
requiring them to choose one of their four items to survive in a particular 
situation, eg. Which of your items would you use to signal ships at night? 
The survival scores achieved for each scenario while playing each game 
were also recorded and averaged by the researchers. These scores 
provided immediate feedback as to the quality of the decision. The 
students played this game twice. The researchers measured the time of 
play for each pair in order to use it as an indication of students' covers use 
of decision-making skills. 
 
The student pairs were interviewed immediately after completing their 
two-game session. These interviews were also audio taped. The questions 
asked were: "What did you think of this activity?"' end "How did you 
make decisions during this game?" Further questions were asked when 
considered appropriate. After the treatment, the same pairs of students 
played the simulation for another two-game session and data were 
collected in the same manner as for the initial game. When the treatment 
and the post-test sessions were completed, the treatment class was 
required to respond in writing as to how they made decisions when 
playing the game, how they thought when making decisions, what they 
knew about CoRT thinking and how CoRT thinking helped them make 
decisions. The questions were displayed on the blackboard one at a time 



34 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1993, 9(1) 

and students' written responses collected before the next question was 
displayed. 
 
Results and discussion 
 
Audio taped interactions 
Audio taped interactions were analysed for each pair of students to 
ascertain the nature of the exchanges for both pre-treatment and post-
treatment sessions. The interactions were organised into three main 
groups: those where a decision was made with no reason given (NR), 
those where a decision was made with a reason provided (WR) and those 
where a decision followed on from a discussion (WD). A discussion was 
defined as more than two interactions. The researchers selected these 
categories to ascertain the extent to which students were suspending 
judgement and reflecting on their decisions. The first two of the above 
main groups were further subdivided into those decisions where no 
partner response (NPR) was recorded and those where verbal agreement 
(VA) was forthcoming. The results of this analysis of audio taped 
interactions are presented in Table 1 as frequency of occurrence. 
 

Table 1: Audio taped interactions as frequency data 
 

 Decision (NR) Decision (WR) Decision (WD) 
  NPR VA NPR VA  

Treatment: Pre 
Post 

59 
46 

126 
119 

0 
0 

16 
17 

21 
19 

Control: Pre 
Post 

20 
62 

126 
90 

7 
8 

30 
22 

9 
2 

 
The two columns under Decision (WR) were combined for the treatment 
group to avoid low expected values in the chi-square analysis for the NPR 
column. A chi-square analysis was performed for both groups separately 
in order to test for significant changes in interaction patterns before and 
after the treatment. No significant effect was found for the treatment 

group (  = 0.90, for p = 0.83 and df = 3) suggesting that no change in 
interaction pattern occurred as a result of the treatment. The absence of 
significant increases for the treatment group in decision making with 
reasons (WR), or with discussion (WD) (Table 1), suggests that transfer of 
desired decision-making skills was not forthcoming as a result of the 
CoRT-1 treatment. 
 

A significant effect was found for the control group (  = 33.11, for p < 
0.001 and df = 4). An inspection of post-hoc cell contributions for the 
control group analysis indicated that an increase in impulsivity had 



King and King 35 

occurred for this group. This was manifested by a significant increase in 
decision making with no pawner response (NPR), with a concomitant 
reduction in verbal agreement (VA) from the partner, together with 
significantly less discussion (WD). This may have resulted from their 
previous experience with the game which could have provided them with 
a greater degree of confidence to make decisions without their partner's 
help. While this factor should similarly have had an impact on the 
treatment group, the lack of a observed effect in this group may have 
resulted from a mediating influence of the CoRT-1 program. Hence, while 
the CoRT-1 treatment had no positive effect in reducing impulsivity in 
decision making in the treatment group, it appears to have had a 
stabilising influence when compared to the control group. 
 
End-of-session interviews 
For the first question relating to interest in the program, all students in 
both groups responded positively for both pre- and post-test sessions. 
When asked how they made decisions during the game, analysis of the 
responses for both pre- and post-test interviews suggested that there was 
no change in students' awareness of the decision-making processes they 
used during the simulation. Students' responses focused on the content of 
the game rather than the processes used to make decisions; and in the 
main, they made their decisions based to a considerable degree on their 
past experience or beliefs. 
 
Survival scores 
The average survival scores were recorded and averaged for each student 
pair for both the treatment and control group before the treatment 
commenced. This was also done for the post-treatment game session. A 
two-factor repeated measures ANOVA with the pre-test and post-test 
scores as the repeated measure and the treatment and control groups as 
the between-groups factor indicated no significance for either the main 
effects or for the interaction. This implies that there was no difference in 
the pre-treatment performance of the two groups and that the treatment 
produced no significant effect on survival scores. 
 
This suggests that the treatment group did not improve its decision-
making ability, as measured by the computer program, from having 
undergone the treatment. However, the audio taped interactions indicated 
a level of ingenuity and laterality in some student decision making which 
was not often recognised by the program as deserving points towards 
survival. Students were quite often unruffled when their four choices of 
survival objects did not seem to fit the requirement of the scenario with 
which they were later presented. They came up with some ingenious  
 
 
 



36 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1993, 9(1) 

compromises. Examples included: using a saw, in lieu of a mirror which 
they had not chosen to bring, in order to attract a ship at noon; using a can 
of beans to reflect moonlight in order to attract a ship at night; and using a 
blanket to sieve water in order to catch fish. One player succeeded in 
convincing his partner that a small mirror would be useful to shine 
sunlight on fish in order to stun them. 
 
Some alternatives provided real solutions which remained unrewarded by 
the program. While it needs to be recognised that the program used in this 
study was relatively unsophisticated in the way in which it processed 
student responses, the detailed analysis of student interactions does reveal 
insights as to the requirements of programs, like simulations, which 
attempt to raise the level of student decision making and thinking in 
general. It is essential that this type of program be flexible to student 
responses, either by being thoroughly evaluated at a trial stage to fully 
ascertain the range of student responses, or through a greater intelligence 
in processing responses. Tamashiro and Bechtelheimer (1991) suggest the 
use of expert systems for this purpose with young children, since these 
programs are capable of making explicit their own decision-making 
process. 
 
Time of play 
The time taken for each pair of students to play the pre- and post-test two 
game sessions was measured and averaged for the control and the 
treatment group. The average fumes were analysed using a repeated 
measures two factor ANOVA which indicated no significance for the main 
effects or for the interaction. This indicates that the treatment had no effect 
on the average time of play and suggests no increased reflectivity in 
decision making by either group. 
 
Final written responses 
Students from the treatment group were asked to respond to four 
questions at the completion of the treatment and the second game session, 
as outlined in the methodology section. The responses to the written 
questions were analysed for evidence of awareness of their own thinking 
skills employed in a decision-making context and knowledge of CoRT-1 
thinking skills. Responses to the first question "How did you make 
decisions when you played shipwreck?" were analysed under the 
categories indicated in Table 2 below. Some student responses related to 
more than one of the categories used. 
 
 
 
 
 
 



King and King 37 

Table 2: Ways of making decisions with Shipwreck 
 

Category Number of Responses 
By previous general experience 
By previous experience with the game 
By social interaction 
By use of general cognitive processes 
By use of CoRT thinking 

13 
6 
4 
4 
3 

 
Almost two thirds of the responses referred to previous experience, with 
an emphasis on knowledge rather than decision-making processes. 
Cognitive processes, including CoRT thinking, accounted for less than one 
quarter of the responses, with only one tenth explicitly referring to CoRT 
skills. This suggests that the CoRT treatment figured in a minor way in the 
students' expressed views on the way they make decisions. Responses to 
the question "How do you think when you make decisions?" were 
analysed according to the student perspectives outlined in Table 3. Some 
students' responses related to more than one of the categories used in the 
analysis. 
 

Table 3: Ways of thinking for decision making 
 

Perspective Number of Responses 
General cognitive 
Specific CoRT 
Social 
Behavioural 
Affective / Ethical 

14 
6 
2 
2 
2 

 
Responses relating to the general cognitive perspective included those 
which referred to general thinking processes such as: "I think of all the 
things that are going on in my head and try to solve them"; "I think of the 
things that would be most important about making my decisions"; and "I 
think what would be most effective or if it would suit the conditions 
provided". References by students to particular CoRT skills were included 
under the 'specific CoRT' category whereas responses were placed in the 
'social' category when reference was made to joint decision making or 
talking with a partner. Behavioural responses referred to those in which a 
specific behaviour was mentioned such as "I think making a decision 
when I am working hard and trying" The lone affective and ethical 
responses included: "If I feel like it or not. If I like what decision it is, I will 
probably do it if I like it"; and "If I was making a decision, I would think - 
is it fair or is it unfair?". 
 
While the students provided responses to the above questions which 
indicated some use of CoRT skills as well as general cognitive skills, this 



38 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1993, 9(1) 

was not reflected in the audio taped interactions, or covertly in the time of 
play for the second game session. 
 
In response to the question "What do you know about CoRT thinking?", 
eighteen of the twenty students in the treatment group indicated 
knowledge of all the four CoRT-1 thinking skills taught in the classroom 
context while the remaining two students indicated knowledge of two and 
three of the skills respectively. As part of their responses, all except three 
students related the CoRT-1 thinking skills to the decision making or 
planning process. The students obviously possessed knowledge of CoRT-1 
thinking skills but failed to apply this knowledge to the simulation 
context. Hence, their knowledge of decision-making skills was 'inert' 
(Whitehead, 1929). The Cognition and Technology group (1990) argue that 
the inert knowledge problem can be overcome by further anchoring the 
instruction in some way. The teaching of decision making through CoRT-1 
skills in the present study might have been enhanced by greater or more 
realistic involvement of the students in the classroom decision-making 
situations. 
 
The question "How does CoRT thinking help you to make decisions?" 
produced a range of positive but undifferentiated responses relating to 
ways in which they perceived CoRT thinking facilitated the decision-
making process. For example: "It means thinking hard before you do 
something stupid"; "It helps me to decide what to do when I am stuck"; 
and "Information is easy to get if you use CoRT thinking". The one 
response which challenged the assumption in the question asked was: 
"Well it sometimes helps me, or sometimes I feel lazy to do all of the steps 
in CoRT thinking". 
 
Concluding comments 
 
A number of explanations are suggested for the apparent failure of the 
CoRT-1 treatment to significantly reduce impulsivity in student decision 
making. Firstly, some students may have become conditioned to the 
effects of playing computer games where instant decisions are required to 
avoid the multiplicity of electronic hazards which manifest themselves in 
this game genre. There seems to be a strong need for a braking device 
when attempting to use microcomputer simulations for decision-making 
skill development. The results of the present study suggest that an 
appropriate and necessary mechanism to force students into a more 
reflective mode when using computer simulations is to insert explicit 
prompts. These may, at the very least, serve to remind students of 
decision-making skills before they proceed to the decision-making stage. 
 
Secondly, while the treatment in the present experiment involved practice 
in decision making in a variety of situations, it is not claimed that either a 



King and King 39 

high level of mastery or near automaticity was achieved during the 
treatment for the situations used and for the time available. Hence, an 
explanation for the apparent lack of transfer of generalised decision-
making skills to the computer-simulated context may relate to a lack of 
intensity of instruction, insufficient length of time for skill development or 
a combination of the two. This raises the pedagogical question that if 
moderate instruction in thinking skills applied to appropriate contexts 
over a three-month period produces no apparent transfer of skills to other 
contexts, and if the perceived remedy is to increase the concentration of 
instruction, perhaps over a longer time frame, is the educational 
investment likely to be worthwhile? Alternatively, should we be looking 
for other ways which may produce the required result more efficiently? 
 
Thirdly, Greeno (1989, p.135) argues that "thinking is an interaction 
between an individual and a physical and social situation". It is not just a 
cognitive process - physical and social contexts must be taken into account 
when viewing thinking. In the present study, challenging a partner's 
decision or reason for a decision may have been perceived by some 
students as an antisocial activity. This may have reduced the desire for 
considered debate during the simulation sessions. 
 
Finally, as the average age of the sample was 11 years 2 months, many of 
the students in this study may not have reached the formal operational 
stage. It could follow that a majority had not begun "to experience the 
powers of reflective and internalised thinking" (Hunter, 1991, p.73). A 
repeat of this experiment with older students may help to provide 
evidence to support this possibility. Hunter also suggests that a thinker is 
one who is "committed to becoming more reflective, more self-aware, and 
more systematic" (p.75). It may well be that to achieve successful transfer 
of generalised decision-making skills which promote reflection, students 
need to learn and accept the value of suspending judgement as well as the 
skills of suspending judgement. 
 
References 
 
Brant, G., Hooper, E. and Sugrue, B. (1991). Which comes first, the 

simulation or the lecture? Journal of Educational Computing Research, 7(4), 
469-481. 

De Bono, E. (1976). Teaching Thinking. London: Temple Smith. 
De Bono, E. (1985). The CoRT Thinking Program. In J. Segal, S. Chipman, 

& R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and Learning Skills, Volume 1: Relating 
Instruction to Research, (pp.363-387). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum 
Associates, Publishers. 

De Bono, E. (1986). CoRT Thinking: Teacher's Notes. Oxford: Pergamon 
Press. 

 



40 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1993, 9(1) 

Department of Education, Qld. (1992) Development Plan 1992-96. 
Education Views, 1(1), 3-6. 

Greeno, J. G. (1989). A perspective on thinking. American Psychologist, 
February, 134-141. 

Hunter, E. (1991). Focus on critical thinking skills across the curriculum. 
NASSP Bulletin, 75(532), 72-76. 

Stewart, W. J. (1988). How to Teach Decision-Making Skills to Elementary and 
Secondary Students. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. 

Tamashiro, R. & Bechtelheimer, L. (1991). Expert systems in the 
elementary grades: Developing thinking skills and independent 
learning. The Computing Teacher, 18(5), 21-26. 

The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1990). Anchored 
instruction and its relationship to situated cognition. Educational 
Researcher, 19(6), 2-10. 

Trowbridge, D. (1987). An investigation of groups working at the 
computer. In D. E. Berger, K. Pezdek & W. P. Banks (Eds.), Applications 
of Cognitive Psychology: Problem Solving, Education, and Computing. 
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (pp.47-58). 

Whitehead, A. N. (1929). The Aims of Education. New York: Macmillan. 
Whiteside, A. (1985/86). The unexpected treasure: Developing problem 

solving skills through "Interactive Fantasies". Computers in the Schools, 
2(4), 115-122. 

 
Authors: Dr John King is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Computing in the 
School of Education, James Cook University of North Queensland, 
Townsville. His research interests encompass the effects of microcomputer 
use in teaching and learning. 
 
Ms Rhonda King is an Educational Adviser in Leadership and 
Management, Northern Region, Department of Education, Queensland. Her 
professional and research interests include the use of microcomputers in the 
Social Studies curriculum. 
 
Please cite as: King, J. and King, R. (1993). Student impulsivity in decision 
making with computer simulations. Australian Journal of Educational 
Technology, 9(1), 30-40. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet9/king.html