Date of Award
8-1977
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Richard W. Malott
Second Advisor
Dr. Howard Farris
Third Advisor
Dr. Brian Iwata
Fourth Advisor
Dr. J. Michael Keenan
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
The present series of studies is a behavioral systems analysis of the problems of job performance, promptness at work, and cost control. Many studies surveyed in the business and industrial literature have methodological problems, and those employing good experimental control have not addressed the cost effectiveness of the procedures they evaluated (Pommer and Streedbeck, 1974; Hermann et. al., 1974). Those studies employing quasi-experimental designs generate inadequate data and also often fail to address the cost effectiveness of the procedures used (Brobst, 1976; Kent, 1974; Schnelle and Lee, 1974; Campbell and Stnley, 1966; Baer, Wolf and Risley, 1969). A major reason for these deficiencies in such studies is the additional time and money involved in doing a more adequate study. These same studies also lack client participation in the design, which is often desirable for ethical and practical reasons (Kent, 1974).
In the present studies, we used time-series quasi-experimental designs (Campbell and Stanley, 1966) combined with a behavioral systems approach (Malott, 1972). The critical difference between true and quasi-experimental design, the researcher controls the random assignment of the sample population to treatment and no-treatment conditions. We employed a single group in each of these studies, making numerous observations in each of at least two successive conditions. The greatest single threat to internal validity in this time0series design is the possibility of some uncontrolled simultaneous event actually causing the changes observed. Schnelle, Kirchner, McNees, and Lawler (1975) used the time-series analysis when it was impossible to gain full experimental control. We used a time-series analysis for similar reasons. A further source of confounding in these studies was that we conducted them concurrently so that at one point three independent variables were implemented simultaneously. Table 1 shows the schedule of independent variables.
Recommended Citation
Greening, Marie Louise, "Behavior Systems Analysis of a Worker Managed Bakery" (1977). Masters Theses. 2231.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/2231