資料表達方式如何影響心智模型的形成及解決問題的績效

Abstract

本論文主要在探討如何將一表格式的管理性資料，以圖形式的方式表達，而目的在於提高管理者的決策績效。研究進行的方式分為三個階段，前兩個階段為事前測試，第三次為正式實驗。第一次事前測試旨在瞭解個人、決策任務及資料表達方式（即表格與常用圖形）之間的關係，結果顯示資料表達方式的績效好環，受以往的個人經驗或訓練影響。另外，決策任務和資料表達方式有極大的相關。這次測試的收獲是這類的研究宜找類似背景或專長的受試者，以摒除個別差異的因素，以及歸納出各種表達方式適用的場合。第二次事前測試則選擇財務分析為決策任務，並以此領域的專家為受試對象，給予表格式和圖形式報表。結果出乎預期地，專家受沿習以久的習慣影響，幾乎無法接受圖形式報表。不過這次也透露了一些財務分析專家們的心智模型。 最後的正式實驗改以財務分析的初學者為對象，兩組分用表格式和圖形式報表的大學部學生，其財力分析的績效沒有顯著的差異。因此本研究說明了財務報表以圖形方式提供給初學者做簡單的財務分析是可行的；以及圖形在輔助財務分析這個任務時，所需注意的特定原則。

The objective of this study is to evaluate the decision performance of managers by offering graphical data instead of conventional tabular data. The study consists of two pretests and one experiment. The first pretest examines how the individuals、decision tasks and data representation interrelated each other. The results suggest that the prior experiences/training of individuals affect their preperence and performance in using data represented in different forms. The second pretest uses financial analysis as the decision task to explore experts' problem solving performances with both tabular as well as graphical financial reports. The result is against our expectation as experts utilize only the conventional tabular reports under time pressure and trained heuristic. The formal experiment selects novice students in financial managemnt, as the subjects which are divided into two groups. Each group is provided with either tabular or graphic reports only respectively. The performances, in terms of time spent and accuracy between these two groups are not signficantly different. Hence this study suggests the feasibility of designing graphical financial reports to support novices to do financial analysis.