STATISTIC 1

Review this document in its entirety! You are asked to interpret the data and write a report of your findings and inferences. You are also testing the hypotheses and you will determine whether or not to reject the null-hypotheses. Based on that determination, you will make a recommendation to your COO.

Background: You are the Human Resources Manager of a company that cares greatly about its employee development program, especially pertaining to the millennial generation. You are aware of a study that compared traditional mentoring practices to reverse mentoring practices and you want to make a recommendation to the Chief Operating Officer about implementing a reverse mentoring program. Turnover is high, and you think that reverse mentoring may increase affective commitment and employees will stay in the organization. Reverse mentoring refers to tenured and older employees being mentored by new, younger employees. Traditional mentoring is the practice of an older, tenured worker mentoring a new employee. Your company already participates in a traditional mentoring program.

Q1. Among employees of the millennial generation who participated in a mentoring program, to what extent, if any, does affective commitment to the organization differ based on participation in reverse vs. traditional mentoring, while controlling for quality and length and frequency of mentoring relationship.

Hypotheses

H10. There is no significant difference in affective commitment to the organization between Millennials participating in reverse mentoring compared to Millennials participating in traditional mentoring, controlling for quality and length and frequency of mentoring relationship.

H1a. There is a significant difference in affective commitment to the organization between Millennials participating in reverse mentoring compared to Millennials participating in traditional mentoring, controlling for quality and length and frequency of mentoring relationship.

Descriptive Statistics

Demographic Survey Age

Note: N = 90

Demographic Survey Gender

Note: N = 90

Demographic Survey Length of Employment

Table 6

Demographic Survey Level of Education

Note: N = 90

LMX-7 Scores Calculation and Interpretation

DATA:

Based on the responses of each participant the LMX-7 score was calculated by totaling the responses to the 7 questions. On a Likert-type scale, points where assigned to each answer ranking from 1 to 6. The following guidelines established by Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995) were used to interpret the meaning of the scores: very high = 30–35, high = 25–29, moderate = 20–24, low = 15–19, and very low = 7-14. Scores in the upper ranges indicate stronger, higher-quality exchanges, whereas scores in the lower ranges indicate exchanges of lesser quality.

LMX-7 Scores (groups combined)

Note: N = 90

Table 8

LMX-7 Scores (Traditional Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

LMX-7 Scores (Reverse Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

Length and Frequency of Mentoring

Length and frequency of mentoring was measured by asking participants to select 1 of 4 options. The options were as follows: a) less than six months, b) at least six months with a minimum of two interactions, c) six months to one year with at least four interactions, d) one year or more with five or more interactions. For analyses purposes the string answers were converted to numerical values with 1 representing less than 6 months, 2 represented at least six months with a minimum of two interactions, 3 represented six months to one year with at least four interactions, and 4 represented one year or more with five or more interactions.

Table 10

Length and Frequency of Mentoring (groups combined)

Note: N = 90

Length and Frequency of Mentoring (Traditional Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

Length and Frequency of Mentoring (Reverse Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

Affective Commitment Scores

Based on participant responses ranging from strong agreement to strong disagreement to eight questions from the Meyer and Allen (1991) Affective Commitment Survey, totals were calculated for each response with the highest possible score being 48 and the lowest possible score being 8. Four items in the commitment scale were worded such that strong agreement actually reflected a lower level of commitment and were designed this way to encourage participants to think about each statement carefully rather than agreeing or disagreeing with statements in a pattern. These four items were thus calculated in reverse key. The higher the score, the greater the affective commitment to the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991).

Affective Commitment Scores (groups combined)

Note: N = 90

Table 14

Affective Commitment Scores (Traditional Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

Affective Commitment Scores (Reverse Mentoring Group)

Note: N = 45

Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA)

A one-way ANCOVA was used to compare the traditional mentoring group to the reverse mentoring group to determine whether the different types of mentoring showed significant differences on affective commitment to the organization. Leader-member exchange quality (LMX) and length and frequency of mentoring (LFM) were used as covariates to determine if LMX and LFM would influence outcomes.

Table 16

Homogeneity of Regression Slopes

Shapiro-Wilk’s Tests of Normality

Note: *This is lower bound of the true significance a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

There was homogeneity of variances, as assessed by Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance (p = .868).

Table 18

Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances

Dependent Variable: Affective Commitment

Mean and Standard Deviation

Table 20

Adjusted Means

Note: a = covariates appearing in the model are evaluated at the following values: LMX = 28.63, LFM = 2.86.

Test of Between-Subjects Effects

Dependent Variable: Affective Commitment

To further evaluate the differences between reverse and traditional mentoring and affective commitment to the organization, two sub-groups were extracted from the overall data. The sub-groups were divided into the participants that had a very high or high affective commitment score and the participants who had a moderate to low or very low affective commitment score.

Table 22

Means of Affective Commitment (high/low), LMF, LMX

Note: N = 90; 41 High Affective Commitment (22 Reverse, 19 Traditional); 49 Low Affective Commitment (23 Reverse, 26 Traditional)

Means of Affective Commitment, LMF, LMX by Age Group

Note: N = 90