Multi-Attribute Group Decision-Making Based on Interval-Valued q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Power Generalized Maclaurin Symmetric Mean Operator and Its Application in Online Education Platform Performance Evaluation

Abstract

This paper aims to propose a novel multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) method based on interval-valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets (IVq-ROFSs). The IVq-ROFSs have been proved to be effective in handling MAGDM problems, and several novel decision-making methods have been proposed. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that these approaches still have some limitations, and there still exist some realistic situations that cannot be solved by existing MAGDM methods. Hence, the objective of this paper is to introduce a novel MAGDM method, which can overcome some of the drawbacks of existing approaches. To effectively and appropriately aggregate interval-valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy numbers (IVq-ROFNs), we combine the power average with generalized Maclaurin symmetric mean (GMSM), propose the power GMSM operator and extend it into IVq-ROFSs. Afterwards, a collection of new aggregation operators for IVq-ROFNs are developed. In this paper, we study definitions of these operators and investigate their characteristics as well as special cases. Then, based on the new aggregation operators, we present a new MAGDM method. Finally, we apply the proposed MAGDM method in online education platform performance evaluation to illustrate its effectiveness and validity. In addition, we also provide comparative analysis to explain why decision-makers should use our method instead of the others.