Chapter 15.3, Problem 15.27ACI

Does rudeness really matter in the workplace? Refer to the Academy of Management Journal (October 2007) study on rudeness in the workplace, Exercise 8.21 (p. 445). Recall that 98 college students enrolled in a management course were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: rudeness condition (where students were berated by a facilitator for being irresponsible and unprofessional) and control group (no facilitator comments). Each student was asked to write down as many uses for a brick as possible in 5 minutes.

The data are reproduced in the next table (p. 15-20).

1. a. Show that although the data for the rudeness condition are approximately normally distributed, the control group data are skewed.
2. b. Conduct the appropriate non parametric test (at α = .01) to determine if the true median performance level for students in the rudeness condition is lower than the true median performance level for students in the control group.

1. c. Explain why the parametric 2-sample test conducted in Exercise 8.21 is appropriate even though the data for both groups are not normally distributed. (Note that the nonparametric and parametric tests yield the same conclusions.)