Posted: April 29th, 2021

Respond to Discussion Question

The Hawthorne Effect was a research focused on investigating methods of increasing productivity in an electrical company (McCarney, 2007). Based on the study there is always an increase in productivity irrespective of the circumstances (Levitt & List, 2009). So, if lighting conditions were improved and then reduced productivity would still increase. According to McCarney (2007), this outcome may be described as “an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important”.  The study highlight various data collection issues. One major data collection issue has to do with the use of questions without answers / incomplete data. This was a very risky move by the researcher as the smallest amount of missing data can make the research unreliable or unsuitable. The second data collection issue had to do with the fact that there participants knew when the lighting was going to change, so they had the opportunity to change their behaviors if they wanted. This was out right bias. Therefore, it could be concluded that if participants were unaware of the changing of the lights there behaviors could differ which would give the study a different outcome. According to McDavid, (2013), this could be viewed as a Response shift bias.     References  Levitt, S., & List, J. (2009). Was there really a Hawthorne effect at the Hawthorne plant? An analysis of the original illumination experiments. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w15016.pdf  McCarney, R., Warner, J., Iliffe, S., van Haselen, R., Griffin, M., & Fisher, P. (2007). The Hawthorne Effect: A randomized, controlled trial. BMC Med Res Methodol, (7)30. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1936999/.  McDavid, J. C., Huse, I., & Hawthorn, L. R. L. (2013). Program evaluation and performance measurement: An introduction to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (pp. 145-185).

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