Tascarella, Patty. "PNC Study: Small business owners don't expect uptick." The Business Journal. 1 April 2010. http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2010/03/29/daily40.html
1) Survey was conducted by the Artemis Strategy Group
2) Survey was sponsored by the PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
3) No, if anything, the PNC group would want people to think that their business will be seeing increases in sales and profits, but this is not the case. It seems that PNC conducted the survey without bias.
4) Yes- 508 business owners nationally and 152 withing Pennsylvania participated in the telephone survey between February 4 and 19. Other than that no specific information is given on methodology.
5) Yes, they give percentages as to what business owners are expecting over the course of the next year in terms of profits, sales, and hiring. Still, some answers are somewhat vague, saying, " One in four expect to see noticeable improvement within the next 12 months." This leaves the reader somewhat unsure as the what a "noticeable change" is.
6) No graphs are used in the article.
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Pappas, Stephanie. "Job stress can pack on the pounds; Study: Workers who survive layoffs watch more TV, exercise less." MSNBC. 1 April 2010.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36102036/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
1. The lead author of this study is Isabel Diana Fernandez, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.
2. While not specifically mentioned, the article said that Fernandez and her researchers worked with a larger workplace health program.
3. If the sponsor is a workplace health program, then yes, they are most likely looking for the cause of high BMI's in their employees.
4. This study was conducted within a downsized company in upstate New York, so is therefore not a random sample because the questions were only asked to employees of this one company. It is specifically said that the researchers measured the BMI's of 2,782 employees, mostly white, middle-aged men with college educations. A survey must have been conducted because the article says that employees answered questions regarding their diets, job stress, and leisure-time activities.
5. The results were explained in a way that could be understood, however it would have been clearer if they were expressed in some sort of chart, graph, or table so that readers could clearly see the relationship between job stress and BMI.
6. No graphs were used.