AIM
- To investigate gender differences in helping behaviour with regards to holding the
door open for another person or not.
SAMPLE
- 20 participants, 10 of each gender, aged 17-18 years from King Edward VI College,
Stourbridge (use your own school and area).
- Opportunity sampling was used.
ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS
- There will be significantly more females who hold the door open with any body part
for another person 3 metres away than males.
NULL HYPOTHESIS
- There will be no significant difference between the number of males and females
holding the door open with any body part for another person 3 metres away.
- Any difference will be due to chance.
METHOD
- The independent variable was gender, and the dependent variable was whether the
door was held open or not for someone 3 metres behind.
- Controls included using the same door, only including members of the academic
institution, and defining holding the door as using any body part.
- Nominal data was recorded by tallying which gender helped and did not help.
- First, a pilot study identified a door with a regular but manageable flow of people.
- Then, seated in the reception of …. (put your own school name and area) , we
conducted a naturalistic covert observation.
- Two researchers collected qualitative data describing appearance and any remarks,
while one recorded quantitative data tallying who helped.
- Data was collected over an hour on an opportunity sample of 20 participants.
RESULTS
- Seventeen out of 20 people held the door.
- Nine females held the door, and eight males did.
- Only one participant (a girl) said thank you to a male staff member.
AO3