A cognitive psychologist wanted to investigate whether workplace background noise affects task concentration.
The psychologist needed a stratified sample of 30 employees. She obtained the sample from a company employing 120 full-time staff and 80 part-time staff.
The participants were asked to complete a complex proofreading task. There were two conditions in the study, Condition A and Condition B:
There were 15 participants in each condition. The psychologist recorded the time taken (in minutes) to complete the proofreading task and the number of errors made.
The psychologist wanted to randomly allocate the 30 employees in her stratified sample to the two conditions. She needed an equal number of full-time employees in each condition (9 in each) and an equal number of part-time employees in each condition (6 in each).
Explain how she would have done this.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 689 questions, matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
