Decision-making and cognitive structuring of students at university

In our paper, we focus on the relation of decision-making and cognitive structuring of students at university. In the introduction, we concern on various theories of decision-making, especially we concern on the theory of rational decision-making and the psychological theory of decision-making. In the centre of our attention is the theory of Janis and Mann, which is the resource of the research. Very important part of our paper is a section about cognitive structuring which consists of two elementary factors - the need for structure and the ability to achieve cognitive structure. Both processes, decision-making and cognitive structuring are based on information processing. We want to explore relations among the cognitive structuring components and the components of decision-making - self-esteem of decision maker, vigilance, shifting responsibility, procrastination, hypervigilance. The research question was if the ability to work with information is a condition of effective decision-making. In the end of the paper, we present conclusions connected with educational environment. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology