An Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making Approach for Tablet Computer Selection

Abstract

Today, educational institutions follow modern technology and use technological products such as smart board and tablet computer widely as education tools owing to the rapidly developing technology. The lessons supported by these technologies, make learning more effective by influencing student motivation positively. In that scope, the discussed developing technology and its innovative tools will help to improve the quality of education in the long term and contribute to the development of the different skills of the students. In this study, tablet computer selection problem of a high school located in Denizli, Turkey will be analyzed deeply. That determined high school decided to use tablet computers in the lessons as an education tool and the school management aimed to select the most suitable tablet computer to give their students. In this context, tablet computer alternatives have been assessed by an integrated approach based on the combined use of two MCDM (Multi Criteria Decision Making) methods; AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and OCRA (Operational Competitiveness RAting). The weights of the criteria were determined with AHP method, then OCRA method was used to rank tablet computer alternatives. The school management has been guided in the selection process of the most suitable tablet computer for their students. They found the search results satisfactory and decided to buy the selected tablet computer by the integrated MCDM method proposed in this study.