Why weren’t workers shifted during the test so they could experience working under both systems?
This was a real-world test, not a controlled laboratory test. A large-scale movement of employees from one system to the other would have added an unrealistic element to the test. It also would have made it apparent to the subjects that a comparison between the two lighting systems was the true focus of the test. In fact, because this was a phased renovation, some parabolic workers moved in the indirect area before the parabolic area was completed, which may have had some influence on overall preference figures. Within each group, some changed offices and some didn’t. Whether workers moved offices within the group or not was examined statistically and shown to have no significant effect on their opinions about lighting.
