Answer

This study is also a quasi-experiment as they have pre-existing groups, individuals who work for the company in City A and individuals who work for the company in City B . This study does have an independent variable, namely whether or not they have access to the health club and wellness program in the office building where they work, and the dependent variable is the degree of absenteeism. Once again, the researchers draw a false cause and effect conclusion. The differences may have been due to features of the cities and not the presence or absence of the wellness program. In fact, the researchers have inadvertently added an extraneous or confounding variable into their study by using two different cities. The absenteeism in City B may have been higher due to weather factors, climate, economic factors, etc. To test their hypothesis, they would totally need to redesign their study.

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