Question 3: Identify the errors

Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

Researchers were interested in the job satisfaction of people across three different employment sectors (health sciences, medical sciences, and engineering). In particular, they hypothesised that people within the health sciences domain would be more satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain. They also suggested that people within the medical science domain would be less satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain. Job satisfaction was measured on a metric scale, with higher scores indicating higher levels of satisfaction.

The researchers for this study analysed the collected data in SPSS and wrote a report to address the research question (page 7). Unfortunately, they have interpreted parts of the output (page 8) incorrectly, which subsequently led to their report being full of errors. Their report has been divided into five sections (A to E). Identify one error in each section (there can be more than one) and comment on what should have been written instead. Record your answers in the script book provided – make sure you label the question as clearly as possible in your script book, e.g.:

Question 3_________________________________________________

Section A Errors:____________________________________________

Should have been written as:__________________________________

Section B Errors:____________________________________________

Should have been written as:__________________________________

Section C Errors:____________________________________________

Should have been written as:__________________________________

Section D Errors:____________________________________________

Should have been written as:__________________________________

Section E Errors:____________________________________________

Should have been written as:_______________________________

The full report (with errors)

A. Researchers would like to investigate how people’s job satisfaction levels vary across four different employment sectors. In particular, they hypothesised that people within the health sciences domain would be more satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain. They also suggested that people within the medical science domain would be less satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain. The descriptives statistics (mean and standard deviation) are provided in Table 1 below.

B. Table 1

Means and Standard Deviations of job satisfaction across different job sectors

C. A single factor analysis of variance showed a significant difference in mean job satisfaction scores across the different job sectors, F(2, 57) = 26.23, p < .001, partial n2 = .24.

D. A planned contrast showed a significant decrease in job satisfaction for people in the health sciences compared to people in engineering, t(57) = 4.27, p < .001. A further planned contrast showed that people in the medical sciences had significantly higher job satisfaction scores on average, compared to people in engineering, t(57) = 7.20, p < .001.

E. The researcher’s hypotheses are only partially supported. Contrary to expectations, people within the health sciences domain are less satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain. However, as expected, people within the medical science domain are more satisfied with their jobs compared to people within the engineering domain.

SPSS Output for the report