Abstract
In the field of multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM), “decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory” (DEMATEL) is a popular method that has been deployed to discover hidden relationships among many inter-twined factors of numerous real-world problems. This paper discusses several limitations of the DEMATEL method in mining the causal relationships and ranking the factors. Also, in this paper, we develop a novel decision-making framework that will be able to overcome the issues found in the DEMATEL method and tackle both formal and informal decisions. This model, which we call “Causal Relationship and Ranking Technique (CRRT)”, uses a data-deterministic expert weighing setup rather than assigning equal weights or pre-defined weights to each expert. The model proposes a better technique to mine factor inter-relations and proposes two new types of digraphs portraying the causal inter-relationships among the factors, and also proposes a new two-step factor ranking method based on the derived causal relationships. The intuitionistic fuzzy setting is considered in this work in order to capture the uncertainty of expert opinions. Furthermore, our proposed framework is applied to a real-life case study on discovering various factors of a high school administration, that have a significant influence on students’ performance. Comparison with standard methods such as TOPSIS and VIKOR for student performance data and also some other datasets such as supplier selection data, and sustainability data proves that the model is able to rank the factors better than the existing models.
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Acknowledgements
The authors of this paper would like to express their sincere gratitude to all the teachers and professors who have actively participated in the survey conducted for the data collection for this research work. Suvojit Dhara acknowledges the support through the prime minister research fellowship (PMRF) which immensely helped in the research work.
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Dhara, S., Goswami, A. Causal Relationship and Ranking Technique (CRRT): A Novel Group Decision-Making Model and Application in Students’ Performance Assessment in Indian High School Context. Group Decis Negot 32, 835–870 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-023-09827-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-023-09827-z