Research suggests that various factors can influence how professional an individual is perceived to be. While qualification and verbal communication are key, non-verbal cues also play a significant role. A psychologist investigated this using an independent measures design experiment. They compared the professionalism ratings (on a scale from 0 to 20) assigned by participants to job applicants who wore formal interview attire compared to those who wore smart-casual attire. Some of the data collected is presented in the table below.
| Ratings of professionalism (0 to 20) given to job applicants wearing formal attire compared to those wearing smart-casual attire (0 = 'not professional at all' to 20 = 'extremely professional') | Smart-casual attire | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal attire | Smart-casual attire | ||
| Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank |
| 17 | 15 | 13 | 10 |
| 14 | 11 | 2 | 1 |
| 11 | 8 | 8 | 5 |
| 17 | 15 | 4 | 2 |
| 15 | 12 | 9 | 6 |
| 18 | 17 | 17 | 15 |
| 7 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| 12 | 9 | 16 | 13 |
| 20 | 19.5 | 20 | 19.5 |
| 19 | 18 | 10 | 7 |
Explain why there are three ranks of 15.
513 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Data recording, analysis and presentation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.