Bedarfsanalyse fachlicher Metadaten - Universität St.Gallen

112 Beitrag E
12.3.2 Literature Systemization
User segmentation: Most of the techniques presented here have their roots in psychology
and deal with an individual’s cognitive style. Although we are aware that other
techniques exist, we limited our scope to those that have been applied in ISR.
One of the most popular and widespread methods in research and practice is the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) [Myers 1976]. This personality assessment is
based on the work of Jung [1959] and classifies an individual’s personality along four
dichotomies: attitude, perceiving function, judging function, and lifestyle. With respect
to decision support and decision making, the perceiving and judging functions are of
particular interest. For the first, a person tends to either trust the data and facts at hand
(sensing type) or seek for a broader context in which to understand the data (intuition
type). In terms of judging function, in turn, a person tends to either judge a situation
from a detached point using logical reasoning (thinking type) or by associating him- or
herself with the situation, including balancing the needs of those involved (feeling
type). An individual’s preference within each dimension is identified using a questionnaire
that asks the subject to choose intuitively from two answers for each question.
Related to the judging functions within MBTI is Witkin’s concept of field-dependence
and field- independence [Witkin et al. 1977]. Field-dependent individuals perceive
data in their context as a whole and are less attentive to detail (low analytical). Fieldindependent
people perceive data items independent of their context, paying much
more attention to details (high analytical). Thomas [1987] provides empirical evidence
that field-dependency is strongly related to MBTI’s feeling type and fieldindependency
to MBTI’s thinking type. The individual’s preference for one or the other
is tested via pairs of simple and complex figures. The subject is asked to find the
simple figure within the complex figure within a given time.
Another one-dimensional measure of a person’s decision style is Huysmans’s distinction
between the analytical and heuristic approach [Huysmans 1970a; Huysmans
1970b]. Individuals with a preference for the analytical style seek causal relationships
to identify an optimal solution to a problem, usually ignoring factors that cannot be
quantified. In contrast, individuals with a preference for a heuristic style include qualitative
factors in their model development (e.g., past experience, intuition, and unqualified
feelings). Huysmans uses independent judges to assess his subjects’ personalities
based on observations of them solving analytical puzzles and business cases [Huysmans
1970b].