EMT 417- Hypothesis Formulation and Testing

The word hypothesis consists of two words: Hypo + thesis = Hypothesis (Kabir, 2016) ‗Hypo‘ means tentative or subject to verification and ‗Thesis‘ means statement about the solution of a problem. The meaning of the term hypothesis is a tentative statement about the solution of a problem. Hypothesis offers a solution to the problem that is to be verified empirically and based on some rationale. Another meaning of the word hypothesis, which is composed of two words, – ‗Hypo‘ means composition of two or more variables which is to be verified. ‗Thesis‘ means position of these variables in the specific frame of reference. This is the operational meaning of the term hypothesis. Hypothesis is the composition of some variables which have some specific position or role of the variables i.e. to be verified 29 empirically. It is a proposition about the factual and conceptual elements. Hypothesis is called a leap into the dark. It is a brilliant guess about the solution of a problem. A hypothesis is a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. A hypothesis is a specific, testable prediction about what you expect to happen in your study. To be complete, the hypothesis must include three components – ●The variables; ●The population; and ●The relationship between the variables. Remember, a hypothesis does not have to be correct. While the hypothesis predicts what the researchers expect to see, the goal of research is to determine whether this guess is right or wrong. When conducting an experiment, researchers might explore a number of different factors to determine which one might contribute to the ultimate outcome. In many cases, researchers may find that the results of an experiment do not support the original hypothesis. When writing up these results, the researchers might suggest other options that should be explored in future studies. Example 1 is a hypothesis for a non-experimental study. Example 1: It is hypothesized that first grade girls will show better reading comprehension than first grade boys. In Example 1, the author is predicting that s/he will find higher comprehension among girls than boys. To test it, a non-experimental study would be appropriate because nothing in the hypothesis suggests that treatments will be given. A simple research hypothesis predicts a relationship between two variables. From your study of variables, it should be clear that the two variables in Example 1 are (1) gender and (2) reading comprehension. The hypothesis states that reading comprehension is related to gender. Example 2 is a hypothesis for an experimental study. Example 2: It is hypothesized that children who are shown a video with mild violence will be more aggressive on the playground than those who are shown a similar video without the violence. In Example 2, the independent variable is violence (mild vs. none), and the dependent variable is aggressiveness on the playground.