Analytical Hierarchy Process Applied to Pedagogical Method Selection Problems

Table 4

Advantages and limitations of MCDM methods.

MCDM methods	Advantages	Limitations
Elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE)	(i) Can be adapted to qualitative and quantitative criteria; (ii) It is applied to choosing, ranking, and sorting decision problems	(i) It is time consuming; (ii) Its process is difficult to be understood by the decision-maker
Grey theory	It has the ability to deal with missing data	(i) It does not give the best solution but helps to find a good solution
Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)	(i) Can be adapted to qualitative and quantitative criteria; (ii) Easy and flexible; (iii) Complex multicriteria, multialternative problem is simplified into a hierarchical structure; (iv) Pairwise comparison of different alternatives with respect to different criteria; (v) It enables checking inconsistencies to avoid bias in decision-making	(i) Important number of pairwise comparisons; (ii) Ranking requires deep knowledge about the object to be judged
Technique of order preference by similarity of ideal solution (TOPSIS)	(i) It is best on the fact that optimal solution must have the shortest geometric distance from the ideal solution; (ii) Can be adapted to qualitative and quantitative data	(i) Does not take into account uncertainty; (ii) Can provide unreliable solutions
preference ranking organization methods for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE)	(i) It can be applied to qualitative and quantitative data; (ii) It is used in complex problems where a group of decision-makers are engaged	It does not simplify the problem by giving a hierarchical structure; as a result, decision process becomes more difficult when many criteria and alternatives are involved