Statistical Methods | Assignment

Statistical Methods

Statistical Methods
Question 1
The article of interest for the thematic analysis was collected from
https://www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2020/jan/06/finland-is-planning-a-four-day-
week-is-this-the-secret-of-happiness#comments (Andre, 2020). The sample of 20 comments
for this study are as given below:
1. I would go for it. But I think it would be 37/40 hours in 4 days rather than a 20% cut all
around.
2. Hmm... Didn’t a UK political party recently propose this?
3. It is the secret to happiness if your boss does not expect you to fit 5 days into 4 or answer
work emails from home.
4. Ok if it is 30 hours over 4 days. If one does the current 37.5 over 4, then - if you're like
me - the quality of one's work would suffer in that extra couple of hours each day.
5. It is better that a 5-day week. That is just a fact.
6. What a fantastic idea. Watch, as even more work - of higher and higher skill levels - is
lost to the budding third world.
7. In order to stay mentally healthy, the system should reduce to 4 days out of 7 our
exposure to work environments and keep such exposure to the minimum.
8. I am paid an hourly wage, so no thanks. My goal is to increase the number of hours I
work in a week...
9. Work places are the first source of mental illness.
10. This only works if you don't have Jeremy Corbyn as your Prime Minister apparently,
otherwise its antisemitic Marxism.
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Statistical Methods
11. Lived in Helsinki for 30years, being self-employed I could not afford to work a four day
week. Sounds healthy but in practice would not work for me.
12. After all we are not on this planet for a long time but for a good time. It's about
increasing happiness not increasing money which we will probably never enjoy.
13. The evidence is very selective - sure, if you work in an office you may be able to
complete your work in four days, everywhere else, from retail, to manufacturing, to bus
driving you cannot.
14. No surprise really: the Scandi countries have been demonstrating how life could be
across the western world, if only we'd stop electing egregious chumps into No 10 and the
White House.
15. Incredibly important and perhaps ineluctable. Really exciting to see Finland taking the
initiative on this.
16. If you can earn the same or more income for your company in 4 days as what you
currently do in 5, then what's the problem? If you can't then you are looking eventually a
large pay cut
17. Interesting that MEPs who work nothing like these number of hours think everyone else
should be.
18. We could work a 4 day week now, but corporate profit increases are all that matter in this
world.
19. I do a four-day week, and spend Fridays with my son; it's brilliant!
20. It depends on the nature of the job. A heart surgeon is not going to be 40% more
productive by working less days!
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Statistical Methods
The following themes can be identified from the sample comments above:
1. Politics, which appears four times.
2. Health, which appears three times.
3. Money, which appears five times.
Question 2
Politics as a theme in this context reveals how the adoption of a four-day working week in
heavily reliant on the politics of a country. The comments associate the lack of adoption of this
working model to the leadership elected in the United Kingdom and the United States of
America. This gives an indication the political leadership elected in a country affects working
models and environments. The theme of politics is recognizable from the wording used such as
the case for comment number 2 and emotional language in the case of comment number 14.
The theme of health in the context of the article infer that health is a factor of consideration for
working model adoption. The comments suggest that the adoption of a four-day working week is
associated with better health for the employee. This theme is recognizable from emotive
language as used in comment number 7.
The theme of money in this context captures both pay and profit for employees and employers
respectively. From the comments there is a feeling that money, being the main incentive for
working, it plays a big role in the development of working models and subsequently the adoption
of a four-day working week in the United Kingdom. The comments point at the employees’
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