Distance education quality evaluation based on multigranularity probabilistic linguistic term sets and disappointment theory

Distance education quality evaluation is extremely important in improving the quality of education under COVID-19. As traditional teaching-quality evaluation methods are no longer applicable, it is crucial to construct effective evaluation methods. In the evaluation of distance education quality, decision-makers have different linguistic expression preferences, and the evaluation information may be biased due to an improper grasp of the problem. In addition, the correlation between the criteria of distance education quality evaluation is common, and the results of existing evaluation methods are quite different. In this paper, to compensate for these deficiencies, we utilize the multi-granularity probabilistic linguistic term set (MGPLTS), which can reflect the linguistic expression preference of decision-makers and the importance of linguistic terms, and propose a multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) method. First, the dispersion and concentration degrees are proposed as the theoretical basis for judging the hesitancy of decision-makers' evaluation information, and the decision-maker weight adjustment model is constructed. To reflect the importance and correlation of criteria, the SWARA method and the CRITIC method are constructed as criteria weight methods. To obtain reliable decision results, decision-makers' psychological expectations are taken into account, the MULTIMOORA method is improved upon, and a new integration theory is proposed to improve its robustness. Finally, through an example case of distance education quality evaluation and comparison with other methods, the effectiveness, practicability and superiority of this method are verified. (C) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.