Identifying Factors Exercise
Identify the factors, levels, and total number of
groups for each of the following research examples. State both the number of levels for each factor and describe each in words.
- A consultant is hired by a business concerned about their low sales the previous quarter. She notices that this business has a large number of part-time employees and that not all employees went through the orientation training. She believes that these factors may be contributing to the low productivity. To test this, she measures productivity (as number of units sold) among part-time and full-time employees who did or did not receive orientation training upon to being hired.
Dependent variable: _______________________________________
Factor A: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor A : _______________________________________
Factor B: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor B: _______________________________________
Number of groups: __________
- A psychologist believes that perception is influenced by a motivational bias (a bias to satisfy an individuals personal needs, such as their desire for control or power). The psychologist believes this bias is especially present in the context of sports. To test this, the psychologist had a group of sports fans watch a recorded football game where many penalties were called on each team. The participants were fans for either the home team, the away team, or were not a fan of either team. The number of penalties that each type of fan (neutral fan, home fan, away fan) disagreed with during the game for each team (home team, and away team) was recorded. It was expected that if fans showed a motivational bias, then they would disagree more often with penalties called against the team they were rooting for; whereas neutral fans should show the least disagreement overall.
Dependent variable: _______________________________________
Factor A: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor A: _______________________________________
Factor B: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor B: _______________________________________
Number of groups: __________
- A professor suggests that her college students will attend class more if quizzes were given in every class. To demonstrate the need for this change, the professor records the attendance of students (as the number of absences) in morning versus evening classes in which quizzes are given every class or just once a week. She hypothesized that attendance would be highest in the classes with quizzes in each class.
Dependent variable: _______________________________________
Factor A: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor A: _______________________________________
Factor B: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor B: _______________________________________
Number of groups: __________
- A researcher notes that male-female pairs of fraternal twins share a similar environment in a mothers’ womb. This exposes the female twin to higher levels of the hormone testosterone during prenatal development. This hormone is thought to be responsible for masculinizing the brain (it leads to male-typical behaviors). Likewise, the male twin is exposed to higher levels of the hormone estrogen. This hormone is thought to be responsible for feminizing the brain (it leads to female-typical behaviors). To test whether exposure to testosterone and estrogen may influence male and female typical behavior, the researcher selected a sample of female-male fraternal twins and compared them to identical twins of each gender (male, female). She measured tendencies toward aggression using an aggression assessment where higher scores indicated greater aggression (a male-typical trait). It was hypothesized that if hormone exposure influenced behavior, then aggression scores will vary among the groups.
Dependent variable: _______________________________________
Factor A: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor A: _______________________________________
Factor B: _______________________________________
Levels of Factor B: _______________________________________
Number of groups: __________
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