A Researcher Was Interested in Determining Whether More Frequent Breaks

question 52

Essay

A researcher was interested in determining whether more frequent breaks (i.e., "coffee breaks") in a business setting would help employees to be more productive. With the cooperation of the management, employees on one floor of the corporate offices were allowed to take a 10-minute break each hour (at any time) between 8:00 and 11:00 A.M. (for a total of 30 minutes). The comparison group comprised employees on different floors who followed the usual corporate policy of taking a 30-minute break sometime during the morning (at any time). Measures of productivity were gathered for each employee according to his or her job (e.g., number of reports written, number of sales made, etc.). A time series analysis was applied to compare the productivity of both groups of employees for six months before and after the intervention (started in July). Quite surprisingly, the productivity of both groups increased following the onset of the intervention, suggesting to the researcher that the timing of breaks makes no difference.
-Explain why the "Hawthorne effect" may have influenced the results of this study.

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Definitions:

Monthly Schedule Depositors

Taxpayers who are required to deposit certain types of taxes on a monthly basis.

Semiweekly Schedule Depositors

Employers who are required to deposit employment taxes semiweekly based on the schedule determined by the IRS.

FICA Taxes

Taxes imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act on both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare.

Federal Withholding

The process by which an employer withholds a portion of an employee's income to cover federal income taxes.