Testing a Theory
PSY/201
May 13, 2012

Testing a Theory
I am sure that throughout my lifetime I must have done something to test a theory. I have been thinking about this for days and have really wondered about this project. Off the top of my head the only thing that really comes to mind is when I managed two stores many years ago. The demographics of each location was very different as were the clientele which came into the store. Bottom line for both stores is sales and what we can do to do better. At each store we did a survey by the time of day and the number of people who entered the store. The results of this helped me to see what the trend in traffic was in the store and how I could better use the employees I had at the time to cover the “busy” times. We also asked the people coming in through our talk story welcoming to make them comfortable a series of questions. The customers had no idea we were doing a survey which meant the sales people were very good at asking the questions and making the customers feel welcomed and comfortable.

The research survey I did was similar to the ones psychologist use because I took a sampling of our customers for a short time. This represented the larger population of customers over a longer period of time. This detailed the time when customers flowed through the store so I was able to have sufficient coverage to handle the influx of customers. Using my employees to benefit the stores sales in assisting