Research Assignment

Descriptive Statistics Employee health and wellness are essential for employees, their families, and their

organizations. Research suggests that occupational stress is a major risk factor for a wide

range of health outcomes. It has been also associated with staff turnover, absenteeism, poor

morale and reduced performance. The enormous burden caused by occupational stress

highlights the need for primary prevention strategies to reduce job stress and its negative

impact on health and employee performance (Limm et al., 2014).

The data set attached to this task (excel document) is based on the evaluation of a stress

management intervention (SMI) used to reduce stress in the workplace, with the purpose

of improving performance and reducing employee absenteeism.

Using this data set, this task aims to show you how to produce your first set of statistical output

using Excel. Stress as measured with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), was assessed before (pre-

test) and at the end of the 23 weeks intervention period (post-test).

1. Please use the attached data set to generate descriptive statistics: a) Mean (AVERAGE) and standard deviation (STDEV) for Stress

b) Maximum (MAX) and minimum (MIN) scores for Stress before and after

the intervention. 2. Based on the mean stress scores before and after the intervention decide whether SMI reduced stress levels. Briefly describe your results (maximum 100 words).

To produce the average for stress scores before and after the intervention follow these steps:

1. Click an empty cell (i.e. at the end of column E)

2. Click on the Function button (i.e. Fx)

3. This window will open

4. Choose AVERAGE and press OK

5. Select the numbers for which you want to produce the average (i.e. E2-E30)

6. Click OK

Note: Follow the same procedure to generate STDEV, Maximum and Minimum values.