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Abstract

Differences in subjects who remained with or dropped out of a research project were evaluated using discriminant analyses. Subjects were 79 factory employees who received ten different questionnaires measuring perceptions and attitudes during a 22 month research period. Attrition was not predicted by any of the eight personality variables. Situational variables significantly predicted attrition; subjects who completed all questionnaires were more likely to have been assigned to one set of sister teams, to have been socialized into the organization by group/formal methods, and to have been initially assigned to the night shift. Discriminant analysis is a statistical tool to determine some of the bias of longitudinal data.

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The Use of Discriminant Analyses to Determine Subject Attrition Bias in Field Research

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