Bianca is conducting an experiment to determine how temperatures affect the productivity of employees. she has just completed the first phase of her experiment, in which she had a group of employees perform job-related tasks in a special room where the temperature was 10 degrees cooler than on the factory floor. the employees in the experimental group consistently outperformed employees in the factory. the hawthorne effect suggests that the most likely reason for this improvement in performance is that the cooler working conditions allowed the employees in the experiment to work harder without getting tired.

Doogan corporation makes a product with the following standard costs: standard quantity or hours standard price or rate direct materials 2.0 grams $ 7.00 per gram direct labor 1.6 hours $ 12.00 per hour variable overhead 1.6 hours $ 6.00 per hour the company produced 5,000 units in january using 10,340 grams of direct material and 2,320 direct labor-hours. during the month, the company purchased 10,910 grams of the direct material at $7.30 per gram. the actual direct labor rate was $12.85 per hour and the actual variable overhead rate was $5.80 per hour. the company applies variable overhead on the basis of direct labor-hours. the direct materials purchases variance is computed when the materials are purchased. the materials quantity variance for january is: