Herzberg also further classified peoples actions and how and why they do them, for instance, if one performs a work related action because they have to then that is ranked as movement, but if one performs a work related action because they want to then that is ranked as motivation (Scheid, 2010). The principles of Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene theory have been applied to a wide variety of factors influencing worker satisfaction. These factors comprise: working circumstances, quality of supervision, salary, status, security, company, job, company policies and interpersonal associations (Two Factor Theory -- Herzberg, Frederick, 2011). In the application of Motivation-Hygiene theory to this study of employee attendance and satisfaction, the factor that will be looked at is that of onsite childcare programs.

Utilizing this theory in regards to employee attendance and motivation it can be said that if a company provides onsite childcare, employees will attend work at a higher rate and thus will be more motivated and perform better. According to the theory hygiene factors such as fringe benefits do not provide employees with satisfaction but a lack of these can lead to dissatisfaction. Thus if an employer provides onsite childcare as a fringe benefit, workers would attend work more frequently and therefore be less dissatisfied and better performers.

The following statement represents the underlying logic for designing and conducting this study. If employers believe that: (a) their efforts and actions produce motivated employees, (b) employees who don't have to worry about daily childcare are more likely to attend work and be more motivated and (c) onsite childcare can be provided with minimal effort, then providing onsite childcare will increase daily attendance and thus lead to highly motivated employees who have better performance than previously seen.

References

Gawel, Joseph E. (1997). Herzberg's theory of motivation and Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 5(11). Retrieved from http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=11

Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg/

Scheid, Jean. (2010). Herzberg's Motivation Theory. Retrieved from http://www.brighthub.com/office/human-resources/articles/92551.aspx

Two Factor Theory -- Herzberg, Frederick. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_herzberg_two_factor_theory.html

External, Internal and Construct Validity

The purpose of measurement is to measure what one intends to measure. Researchers want to know if their measure is valid, and the evaluation of validity express their concern with accurate measurement. Validity is the capacity of a measure to measure what it is supposed to measure. If it is determined that it does not measure what it is designed to measure then concerns will follow.

External Validity

External validity refers to the estimated truth of conclusions that involve generalizations, or more generally, the generalizability of conclusions. In other words, external validity is the level to which the conclusions in a study would hold for other people in other places and at other times. A danger to external validity is an explanation of how one might be mistaken in making a generalization. This kind of risk comes about when experimenters draw wrong influences from the sample data to other people, other locations, and past or future circumstances. These threats arise for the reason that of the characteristics of individuals selected for the sample, the individuality of the setting and the timing of the experiment.

Problems of external validity usually relate to the likelihood that a particular but limited set of experimental circumstances may not deal with the connections of untested variables in the real world. The experimental condition may be artificial and it may not symbolize the true setting and conditions in which the investigated actions take place. If a study lacks external validity, it will be hard to repeat the experiment utilizing different subjects, settings or time periods.

Internal Validity

In selecting or assessing experimental research designs, researchers must establish whether they have internal validity. Internal validity is the approximate truth about suppositions concerning cause-effect or causal relationships. Therefore, internal validity is pertinent only in studies that attempt to establish a causal relationship. It is not pertinent in most observational or descriptive studies, for example. On the other hand, for studies that assess the effects of social programs or interventions, internal validity is possibly the primary contemplation. One of the things that are most difficult to grasp about internal validity is that it is pertinent...

That is, one can think of internal validity as a zero generalizability apprehension. All that internal validity means is that one has confirmation that what they did in the study caused what they observed to happen.
There are six major kinds of extraneous variables that may jeopardize internal validity: history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, selection and mortality. A history effect refers to a particular event in the external environment, between the first and second measurements, that is outside the control of the experimenter. The maturation effect is an effect on the consequences of an experiment caused by alterations in the experimental subjects over time. A testing effect is also called a pretesting effect, because it is an alteration in the validity of an experiment that takes place when an initial measurement or test alerts respondents to the temperament of the experiment. A change in the wording of questions, a change in interviewers, or a change in other actions to measure the dependent variable causes an instrumentation result, which may put at risk internal validity. The selection effect is a sample bias ensuing from differential selection of respondents for the comparison groups, or sample selection error. A mortality effect may happen if many subjects drop from one experimental treatment group and not from other treatment or control groups.

Construct Validity

Construct validity refers to the level to which inferences can rightfully be made from the operationalizations in a study to the theoretical constructs on which those operationalizations are based. An operationalization is the researcher's transformation of an idea or construct into something genuine and tangible. Like external validity construct validity is linked to generalizing. Construct validity involves generalizing from one program or measure to the concept or idea of another program or measures. Construct validity is usually presented as one of numerous different types such as face validity, predictive validity or concurrent validity.

Threats to construct validity happen when investigators use insufficient definitions and measure of variables. When doing research is it important for proposal writers to address validity issues by:

Recognizing the possible threats to validity that may occur in the study.

Defining the precise kind of threat and what possible issues it presents to the study.

Discussing how one suggests addressing the threat in the design of the experiment.

Referring to references to books that talk about the issue of threats to validity.

In order to attain construct validity, a researcher must have previously determined the meaning of the measure by ascertaining what basic researchers call convergent validity and discriminant validity. Convergent validity is synonymous with criterion validity. The criterion may be a construct that one would rationally expect to be connected with the new measure. Consequently, to ascertain validity, the new measure should join with other similar measures; a measure theoretical concept has convergent validity when it is extremely correlated with dissimilar measures of similar constructs. A measure has discriminant validity when it has a low association with measures of dissimilar concepts. This is a multifaceted method of establishing validity and is of less concern to applied researchers than to basic researchers.

Impact of validity issues on envisioned research

When looking at the research study of whether having onsite childcare leads to improved attendance and thus improved production by employees in regards to validity issues there are many issues that can be seen. One would be using the rate of absenteeism to measure production illustrates another validity issue. It is possible that absenteeism is not valid measure of production, because it could reflect either a wave of illness in the community or unsatisfied workers not coming to work. Another issue might be using having onsite childcare as opposed to offsite childcare as a measurement of absenteeism, because the rate of absenteeism may be related to a community wide illness as well and not have anything to do with childcare issues.

Another issue in carrying out this research would be that of making sure that the group of employees stayed the same throughout the entire research. It is possible that some participants might leave the company for one reason or another during the study thus affecting the internal validity of the study. A threat to the external validity of this study would be that the generalization made in that having an onsite daycare would affect an employees rate of absenteeism and whether absenteeism affect productivity or not.

It would also be important to make sure that there is no sample bias resulting from differential selection of respondents for the comparison groups, or sample selection error. It would be necessary to distribute the participants in a way that is going to ensure that providing onsite childcare is the factor that improves an employee's attendance rate and thus one's productivity. If there is bias is distributing participant's among the comparison groups then it will not be able to be determined that onsite childcare is the true cause of improved behavior, if…