A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that employees with paid sick leave are 28% less likely to be involved in a work-related accident than employees who do not receive payment for sick leave. Researchers hypothesize that employees with unpaid
sick leave feel pressured to work during time of illness for fear of lack of pay. On-the-job accidents are then spurred by impaired judgment or motor skills due to illness or illness-related medications. The highest-risk occupations, such as construction, showed the highest discrepancy in incidents based upon paid and unpaid leave.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to determine whether the researchers’ hypothesis is reasonable. Be sure to explain what effects the answers to these questions would have on the validity of the hypothesis.
The recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that employees with paid sick leave are 28% less likely to be involved in a work-related accident than employees who do not receive payment for sick leave. On the basis of this study, the researchers hypothesize a few facts but they have done so on the basis of a few assumptions against which questions can be easily raised. The answers to these questions play a vital role in determining whether the hypothesis is cogent or not. The following are the most important questions.
The researchers hypothesize that employees with unpaid sick leaves feel pressured to work during time of illness for the fear of lack of pay. On-the-job accidents are then spurred by impaired judgment or motor skills due to illness or illness-related medications. But what the researches failed clarify is that whether the accidents that took place were when the employees were actually sick. The study doesn't clarify that the employees taken into consideration were sick at the time of the work-related accident. If the employees were not physically sick when the observations were made then the researchers' hypothesis regarding impaired judgement or motor skills due to illness or illness related medication is rendered moot.
Secondly, there are a varied types of sicknesses. Some sicknesses are even of the type where the person can go about their daily life without the sickness proving to be a hinderence. In such a case even the employees who have paid sick leaves mght not take them and choose to continue daily. The question to be answered here is whether the nature of the sickness involved is take into consideration while trying to hypothesize on the study.
Furthermore, the researchers present that the highest-risk occupations, such as construction, showed the highest discrepency in incidents based upon paid and unpaid leaves. But the researchers should also consider the nature of the incidents. They merely state that they show the highest discrepency between incidents based upon paid and unpaid leave. What needs to be answered is that how many of these incidents were due to employees who were sick while the incident took place.
The most compelling flaw in the argument will be determining the nature of the work related accidents and the skill level of the employees involved in the accidents. Employees with higher skill level will look for jobs with more benefits like paid sick leaves and hence the accidents taking place will be much lesser as compared to people with a lesser skill set who take up jobs with lesser benefits.
In conclusion, the answers to the questions can prove pivotal to the hypothesis of the researchers and hence they need to be considered and answered carefully for making the hypothesis more sound.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 464 350
No. of Characters: 2311 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.641 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.981 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.748 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.981 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.587 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... are the most important questions. The researchers hypothesize that employees ...
^^^
Line 5, column 405, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...employees were actually sick. The study doesnt clarify that the employees taken into c...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 599, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'researchers'' or 'researcher's'?
Suggestion: researchers'; researcher's
...hen the observations were made then the researchers hypothesis regarding impaired judgement...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 30, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'type'?
Suggestion: type
... moot. Secondly, there are a varied types of sicknesses. Some sicknesses are even...
^^^^^
Line 11, column 318, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...idents taking place will be much lesser as compared to people with a lesser skill ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, furthermore, hence, if, look, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, while, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2362.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 463.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10151187905 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63868890866 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79688867997 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455723542117 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 721.8 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.0571560883 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.1 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.15 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.95 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.49581161516 0.218282227539 227% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.138358809244 0.0743258471296 186% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.185728936814 0.0701772020484 265% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.240132402348 0.128457276422 187% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.154378015437 0.0628817314937 246% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.