Question at position 15 Dr. Eva's research team evaluates whether introducing flexible work hours improves employee productivity. They compare employees who voluntarily switched to flexible hours with those who stayed on fixed schedules. How could they best reduce selection bias?Use a double-blind procedureMatch employees in both groups based on job role and tenureRandomly assign employees to work schedulesInclude a placebo groupSingle choice
A
Use a double-blind procedure
B
Match employees in both groups based on job role and tenure
C
Randomly assign employees to work schedules
D
Include a placebo group

Question

Question at position 15 Dr. Eva's research team evaluates whether introducing flexible work hours improves employee productivity. They compare employees who voluntarily switched to flexible hours with those who stayed on fixed schedules. How could they best reduce selection bias?Use a double-blind procedureMatch employees in both groups based on job role and tenureRandomly assign employees to work schedulesInclude a placebo groupSingle choice

A

Use a double-blind procedure

B

Match employees in both groups based on job role and tenure

C

Randomly assign employees to work schedules

D

Include a placebo group

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

To assess the effect of flexible work hours while minimizing bias, we must consider how participants are allocated to conditions and what biases could arise.
Option 1: Use a double-blind procedure. In social/organizational research about work schedules, blinding participants or researchers to group assignment is typically not feasible or relevant, because employees know their own schedules and managers know who is in which group. Therefore this approach would not effectively reduce selection bias here.
Option 2: Match employees in both groups based on job role and tenure. Matching can help balance observed characteristics across groups, but it does not eliminate selection bias stemming from unobserved factors (e.g., intrinsic motivation, team dynamics). While helpful, it is not as strong a safeguard against bias as randomization.
Option 3: Randomly assign employees to work schedules. Random assignment is the gold standard for reducing selection bias because it, on average, equalizes both observed and unobserved confounders across groups, allowing a causal interpretation of any productivity differences attributable to schedule type.
Option 4: Include a placebo group. Placebo controls are primarily used in pharmacological or testing contexts to control for expectancy effects. In a study of work schedules, a placebo group does not align with the intervention, and thus cannot effectively address selection bias related to who chooses flexible hours or who remains on fixed schedules.
Overall, the strongest method to minimize selection bias in this context is random assignment of employees to work schedules, since it directly randomizes exposure and reduces systematic differences between groups.