In 1997, the American Psychological Association (APA) conducted a study to assess the career outcomes of graduates of accredited university professional psychology programs. The research covered the graduates of 3,104 accredited programs who received a baccalaureate degree in psychology between January 1992 and December 1993. The job status, job characteristics, job satisfaction, and other data as of 1995 were collected through the administration of a survey from 791 eligible persons. The response rate was 38 percent (Grocer & Kohout, 1997).
With respect to job satisfaction, the survey found that the respondents reporting higher levels of job satisfaction were those individual who also reported higher levels of satisfaction with location, relationship with supervisor/coworkers, and degree of freedom to work independently. Respondents who reported lower levels of job satisfaction were those individuals who also reported lower levels of satisfaction with promotion, advancement, fit, and level of challenge (Grocer & Kohout, 1997). The statistical procedures employed were primarily frequency distributions and cross-tabulations without any testing for statistical significance.
To test a relationship within the areas of job satisfaction measured in the APA survey, two sets of hypotheses (null and alternative hypotheses) were formulated as follows:
1. With respect to (a) respondent gender as an independent (explanatory) variable and (b) salary satisfaction as a dependent (outcome) variable, the hypotheses were as follows:
H0: There is no statistically significant variation in salary satisfaction between male and female respondents
H1: Salary satisfaction is higher among male respondents than among female respondents
The null hypothesis was tested through the application of analysis of variance (ANOVA). The criterion for the rejection for the null hypothesis was a determination o
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