You’re Hired! A Hiring Simulation for Sport Management Students That Incorporates the Hidden Profile Phenomenon
in Sport Management Education JournalClick name to view affiliation
Decision making is a crucial skill for sport management students to develop. However, we are all subject to cognitive biases that may influence our decision making. Groups are often offered as a remedy to address individual cognitive biases, the maxim being that two, or more, heads are better than one. Nevertheless, group dynamics may also accentuate cognitive biases resulting in suboptimal decision making. In this teaching simulation, students are tasked with selecting the best candidate to hire for a fictional sport organization. The simulation was designed using the hidden profile condition, such that students rarely identify the optimal candidate, when the task is performed either individually or in a group. Even when the full candidate profiles are revealed, a sizeable minority is still unable to identify the best candidate. This study explains the theoretical reasoning for these occurrences and provides a detailed account of the construction of the simulation, along with details on how to implement and debrief the exercise with students.
Jules Woolf is with the Department of Exercise Science, Health Studies, Physical Education, and Sport Management, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Jess C. Dixon is with the Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
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