Background on planned research: A major government contractor wants to find out what type of control interface will work best for a new unmanned vehicle currently being developed for the U.S. Army.
statistics
Description
6.5 SPSS Activity: Calculating and Interpreting Results for a One-Way Between-Subjects ANOVA.
Activity description/instructions:
Problem Narrative 6.5:
Background on planned research: A major government contractor wants to find out what type of control
interface will work best for a new unmanned vehicle currently being developed for the U.S. Army. The
typical control interfaces that are available are 1) handheld video game/joystick controller, 2) Smart
phone/tablet controller, 3) integrated desktop joystick/keyboard/mouse controller, or 4) augmented reality
gesture-based controller. The researcher has done a literature search for this type of research and would
like to calculate the sample size needed. The major government contractor in the previous problem just
ran a power analysis using G*Power to calculate the proper sample size given a specific set of parameters
outlining effect size, alpha level, desired power, and number of groups. The power analysis revealed that
a total sample size of 76 participants were needed (19 per condition).
The procedure will involve each participant being exposed to only one type of controller. The participant
will be provided the randomly assigned controller and asked to run through a scenario where they will
have to control a computer-generated unmanned vehicle and proceed to a number of predetermined
waypoints. A "control score" will be generated by the computer based on how closely the operator can
maintain altitude, heading, and speed using the assigned controller. "Control scores" will range from 0 -
100, with lower numbers indicating less deviation from the prescribed parameters (altitude, heading, and
speed) and better overall performance during the scenario. The researchers believe they will find that one
controller will allow participants to perform better on their “control score” but do not know which
controller will allow participants to perform better or which controller will allow participants to perform
worse.
Download the Excel spreadsheet “6.5 Controller Type Data” and import the spreadsheet into SPSS for
subsequent analyses
