study snippet

Instructions

You should be familiar with the Study Snippets by now.  This assignment is to create  your  own.  There are three parts to the assignment  (describe an experiment,  write questions,  write the correct answers).  To receive full points, you must do the following:  1) Write a paragraph describing an experiment 2) Write between 3 and 5 questions about the study 3) Write the correct answers to the questions that you wrote.EXAMPLE!!!!Dr. Jones works as an industrial/organizational psychologist for a large microchip manufacturing plant in Phoenix, AZ.  The company is contemplating moving to a flex-time work schedule for its employees.  Instead of working 5 days a week at the traditional 8-hour shift from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm with an hour off for lunch, employees will work four 10-hour shifts choosing which 4 days to work.    Although other companies have reported that flex time schedules increase both employee morale and production levels, the company executives are concerned that not enough employees will be on site during critical production times.They ask Dr. Jones to carry out an evaluation study of the new work schedule.  There are two fabrication units at the plant, Fab A and Fab B.  Company records give monthly production levels for each unit.  Dr. Jones chooses to move all employees in Fab A to the new flex schedule for the next three months.  Employees in Fab B will stay on their old schedule.    The figure attached to the first question shows chip production levels for the two units for the 3 month trial period (2010) along with comparable data from the previous year (2009).  What kind of study was this?This was a classic quasi-experimental study.    More specifically, it was a nonequivalent control groups design.  But rather than having pretest and posttest data for the two groups, there were continuous data during the study period.    Was there an independent variable?  A dependent variable?The independent variable was flex time vs. regular schedule.  One group (experimental group) received the flex time and another group (control group) kept their old schedule.  The dependent variable was chip production.Why is it unlikely that a true experiment could be performed?Notice that there was no control over how individual subjects (employees) were assigned to the levels of the independent variable or treatment conditions.  It is true that Dr. Jones decided which Fab unit (A or B) was to receive the new flex time, and she may have even flipped a coin to decide this, but by control over the assignment of subjects we mean control over each subject.  If all of the employees in both units were put into a single group and then randomly assigned to either flex time or regular schedule then we would have had a true experiment.  But this would not have been practical, as is often the case in real-world settings.How many different groups of participants were there?There were two groups of participants, Fab A and Fab B employees.What was the research hypothesis for the study?  What are your conclusions from looking at the data?The research hypothesis was that production levels for the employees on flex time (Fab A) would be higher than production levels for the employees working the regular schedule (Fab B).  An inspection of the data in the figure strongly suggests that the research hypothesis is supported.    Notice that production levels under the new schedule (Fab A - 2010) are consistently higher than production levels during the same months of the previous year (Fab A 2009).  Now you might wonder, but maybe there was something different between 2009 and 2010 that could explain the increase, say the economy improved and employees were generally more satisfied with their jobs, or the weather was better and fewer employees had trouble getting to work, or .  But notice that production levels did not generally increase between 2009 and 2010 for Fab B.  This is the beauty of having a control group.  Its not perfect because it is a nonequivalent control group, but it does provide a very useful comparison.

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