A study report in Journal of Small Business Management (1977) concluded that self-employed individuals experience higher job stress than individuals who are not self employed. In this study job stress was assessed with a 15-item scale designed to measure various aspects of ambiguity and role conflict. Rating for each of the 15 items were made using a scale with 1-5 response options ranging from strong agreement to strong disagreement. The sum of the ratings for the 15 items for each individual surveyed is between 15 and 75, with higher values indicating a higher degree of job stress.
Suppose that similar approach, using a 20-item scale with 1-5 response options, was used to measure the job stress of individuals for 15 randomly selected real estate agents, 15 architects, and 15 stock brokers. The stress levels of the three professions are given below:
Stress Level in Percent
Real Estate Architect Stockbroker
81 43 65
48 63 48
68 60 57
69 52 91
54 54 70
62 77 67
76 68 83
56 57 75
61 61 53
65 80 71
64 50 54
69 37 72
83 73 65
85 84 58
75 58 58
Using a = 0.05, test for any significant difference in job stress among the three professions [Put the data in excel first. Then use Tools, Data Analysis function, one-factor ANOVA. Show all five steps of hypothesis testing].