Question

egina is considering different laptop computers before she finally buys a new laptop. She has collected information about four different laptops and focused on five attributes that she thinks are important. She has rated these laptops on the attributes and has asked you to help her in making a choice. Using the Fishbein Multi-Attribute Model, please help her make her decision.

Regina’s Attribute Matrix

Attribute	Importance Weights	HP Pavilion	Dell Latitude	Sony Vaio	Acer Aspire
Weight	0.4	Bad	Very Good	Fair	Very Bad
Integrated camera	0.1	Good	Bad	Very Good	Fair
Display Resolution	0.25	Very Bad	Excellent	Terrible	Good
Built-In Numeric Keyboard	0.05	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
Energy Star Compliance	0.2	Very Good	Terrible	Good	Terrible

Q. One of the attributes that Regina has considered gives her very little information to help her differentiate between her selected alternatives. Which attribute is this?

Built-In Numeric Keyboard

Display Resolution

Weight

Energy Star Compliance

Integrated camera

Answer 1

Answer : Built-In Numeric Keyboard

The answer is built-in numeric keyboard. The importance or weight given to each of the attribute defines how much that particular attribute helps in differentiating and choosing on the final alternative. As the importance given to Built-In Numeric Keyboard is only 0.05, it gives her very little information to help Regina differentiate between her selected alternatives. Additionally the value of this particular attribute is "Excellent" for all the alternatives. Hence there is no difference between the alternatives based on this attribute.