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SI 502: Choice and Learning (Fall 1998)

Final Exam   [Solution Key]
Sample Exam Answers  
Lecture time Tuesday and Thursday, 9-10 a.m.
Lecture Place 260 Dennison
Instructors
Jeffrey MacKie-Mason (Professor) 
301C West Hall 
Office hours: M 9-11am or by appt 
Phone: 647-4856 
jmm@umich.edu
Gary Olson (Professor) 
306A West Hall 
Office hours: W 9-11am or by appt 
Phone: 763-5644 
gmo@umich.edu
 
Assistants
Scott Fay 
4006 Shapiro 
Office hours: M 3-5pm or by appt 
scottfay@umich.edu
Qiping Zhang 
404 West Hall 
Office hours: T 1-3pm or by appt 
qiping@umich.edu
 
Discussion Sessions Students must also register for ONE of the four discussion group 
  • SI502-2 Thursday 1:10 - 2:00 West Hall 431
  • SI502-3 Thursday 2:10 - 3:00 West Hall 431
  • SI502-4 Thursday 7:10 - 8:00 West Hall 311
  • SI502-5 Thursday 8:10 - 9:00 West Hall 311 
Course Description Focuses on the basic activity of choosing and examining the myriad factors that influence choice, including in particular learning to choose. The concepts of adaptability and rationality will be key ones. Much choice and learning is in the service of achieving goals. Rational choice theory is the study of an idealized form of goal-directed behavior. How does information affect rational choice making? How can rational choice theory be applied to the design or management of information systems? On the other hand, many behaviors and social outcomes do not seem to be the consequence of explicit goal-directed behavior. Yet, those behaviors that persist, and those social configurations and biological structures that are stable, tend to be adaptive over longer time scales or at larger levels of social aggregation. They are responsive to environmental threats and to competition from alternative behaviors. A useful link between adaptability and rationality brings the two threads together to provide a rich, predictive, and adaptive framework for understanding the interaction between information, choice, and learning.
Course Requirements 
  • Students are required to do the assigned readings before class, to attend class and discussion session, to submit assigned written work, and to pass a final exam. 
  • There will be 10 short written assignments during the semester. They will be graded on a 1-5 scale, and one point will be taken away for each day that they are late. 
  • The final exam will be on Dec. 15 (Tues), 1:30-3:30. 
  • The final exam will count for 40% of the grade. The written assignments will count for 60%, and will be equally weighted.
Textbooks Required: 
     
  • Anderson, John n R. (1995) Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications (4th Ed.).  New York: W.H. Freeman
  • Kingma, Bruce R. (1996) The economics of Information: A Guide to Economic and Cost-Benefit Analysis for Information Professionals.
  • Coursepack. (available at Urich's Bookstore)
Optional: 
  • Varian, Hal R. (1996) Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach (4th ed).New York: W.W. Norton.
 This page was last updated on 12/9/98.