Study of gender composition of decision-making groups.

The American Journal of Political Science (Apr. 2014)

published a study on a woman’s impact in mixed-gender deliberating groups. The researchers randomly assigned subjects to one of several 5-member decision-making groups. The groups’ gender composition varied as follows:

0 females, 1 female, 2 females, 3 females, 4 females, or 5 females. Each group was then randomly assigned to utilize one of two types of decision rules: unanimous or majority rule. Ten groups were created for each of the 6 * 2 = 12 combinations of gender composition and decision rule.

One variable of interest, measured for each group, was the number of words spoken by women on a certain topic per 1,000 total words spoken during the deliberations.

a. Why is this experiment considered a designed study?

b. Identify the experimental unit and dependent variable in this study.

c. Identify the factors and treatments for this study.