Strengthening the evaluation of teaching satisfaction plays a crucial role in guiding teachers to improve their teaching quality and competence, as well as in aiding educational institutions in the formulation of effective teaching reforms and plans. The evaluation process for teaching satisfaction is usually regarded as a typical multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) process, which inherently possesses uncertainty and fuzziness due to the subjective nature of human cognition. In order to improve the subtle discrimination of evaluation information data and enhance the accuracy of the evaluation results, we have developed an integrated MADM method by combining a new distance measure and an improved TOPSIS method for interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IvIFSs). First, a novel distance measure for IvIFSs based on triangular divergence is proposed to capture the differences between two IvIFSs, and some properties of this distance measure are investigated. Then, the superiority of this new distance measure is compared with some existing distance measures. Afterward, an improved TOPSIS method is also established based on the proposed triangular distance under the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy setting. Besides, to illustrate the practicality of the new method, a numerical example is presentedto evaluate mathematics teaching satisfaction. Moreover, a comparative analysis that includes existing TOPSIS methods, is presented to demonstrate the superiority of the given method. The comparison outcomes show that the proposed technique can effectively discern uncertainties or subtle differences in IvIFSs, resulting in more accurate and comprehensive evaluation results for teaching satisfaction. Overall, the findings of this study emphasize the importance of incorporating the new distance measure in MADM. The proposed approach serves as a valuable tool for decision-makers to compare and evaluate alternatives effectively.

Probabilistic linguistic terms set (PLTS), a new tool for expressing uncertain decision information, is composed of all possible linguistic terms (LTs) and their related probabilities. It also increases the corresponding probability of LTs in hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS). On the other hand, aggregation operator is an important information fusion tool, the Maclaurin symmetric mean (MSM) operator can provide more flexibility and robustness in information fusion, and make it more suitable for solving MADM problems with independent attributes. This current study adopts the merits of PLTS and MSM operator, and then a novel probabilistic linguistic decision making approach are targeted. Firstly, the operations of two PLTSs are redefined based upon Archimedean t-norm (ATN) and Archimedean t-conorm (ATC); Secondly, the probabilistic linguistic generalized MSM operator (PLGMSM) is proposed based on ATN and ATC, some properties of PLGMSM are investigated, then some special PLGMSM operators have been studied in detail when the parameters take different values and the generator of ATN takes different functions. Thirdly, the weighted probabilistic linguistic generalized MSM operator (WPLGMSM) is studied along with some properties of PLGMSM, some special WPLGMSM operators have been also investigated in detail when the parameters take different values and the generator of ATN takes different functions. Finally, on the basis of our proposed aggregation operators, the aggregated-based decision making approach is designed and an example is supplied to manifest the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Furthermore, some comparison analyses with extant decision approaches are carried out to illustrate the validity and feasibility of the proposed approach.