QUESTION 3 (15 Marks) Read case extract below and answer ALL the questions that follow. Pioneer Manufacturers is an original equipment manufacturer in the aircraft manufacturing industry. The Company has in recent years experienced a number of problems relating to the development of a part for the new Boeing 777 aircraft Furthermore, the entry of a new company with superior technology in the sector is threatening the long-term sustainability of Pioneer manufacturers. Firstly, the new entrant has managed to poach a number of highly skilled employees from Pioneer Manufacturers. Secondly, there has been a spike in the number of defective products assembled on the new line, leading to an increase in the number of products rejected by Boeing. Thirdly, the profit margin of the company has been on a decline over the last few years, leading to a deterioration of its debt to equity ratio. a The new CEO of Pioneer Manufacturers, Mr. P.J. Snydom, is single-mindedly committed to achieving a sustained drastic reduction in the number of product defects on the new assembly line as soon as possible. Mr. Thabo Mankewu, a management consultant/researcher has been contracted to find a lasting solution to the poor product quality as evidenced by the high number of product defects on the new assembly line. The first step Mr. Mankewu took on arriving at the plant of Pioneer Manufacturers was collect data by directly observing the employees at work on the new assembly line for two days. Suspecting that the employees were insufficiently trained on how to efficiently operate the technologically-advanced machinery on the assembly, he interviewed a number of them face-to-face to get their perspectives on the challenges relating to operating the machinery. He hypothesized that the introduction of a specialised training will increase employees' level of ease in operating the machinery on the assembly line, and will consequently resolve the problem associated with product quality. So, he randomly selected 30 of the employees as participants in a study to further investigate the problem using a statistical test. At the beginning of the study, Mr. Mankewu asked the participants/employees to rate their levels of ease in terms of how they operate the machinery on the new assembly line on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the highest level of ease. After 4 weeks of thrice weekly evening training, the 30 employees/participants were asked again to indicate their level of ease on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the highest level of ease. Mr. Mankewu's objective was to investigate whether the employees' levels of ease changed after they had undergone the specialised training Analyzing the data obtained for Ease_pre_training and Ease_post_training using a statistical test of difference at the 5% level of significance, the following SPSS outputs were obtained: Descriptive Statistics Percentiles N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum 25th 75th Ease Pre training Ease_Post_training 30 30 4.4333 8.3000 1.54659 1.74494 2.00 3.00 Maximum 8.00 9.00 3.0000 5.0000 50th (Median) 4.0000 8.0000 5.2500 8.0000 Ranks N Mean Rank Sum of Ranks 9.00 Negative Ranks 20 4.50 Ease_Post_training - Ease_Pre_training Positive Ranks 25 14.76 369.00 Ties 34 30 Total a. Ease Post training Ease Pre training b. Ease_Post_training > Ease_Pre_training c. Ease Post training = Ease Pre training Test Statistics Ease_Post_training - Ease_Pre_training -4.365 Z .000 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) a. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test b. Based on negative ranks. 3.1. Identify THREE (3) data collection methods employed by Mr. Mankewu in this study. State ONE (1) advantage and disadvantage of each of the three methods. Mr. Mankewu's choice of data collection methods and data analysis is suggestive of what research strategy and design? (6 marks) 3.2. What statistical test did Mr. Mankewu use in the analysis? Interpret the output of the test. What is the parametric equivalent of this test? (4 marks) 3.3. If, in addition to the pre-training data, Mr. Mankewu had opted for a relatively longer continuous improvement process during which the 30 participants were progressively asked at three (3) specific milestones to rate their levels of ease in terms of how they operate the machinery on a scale of 1 to 10, what statistical test would have been appropriate? Why? What is the parametric equivalent of this test