FORMING A HYPOTHESIS

Forming a Hypothesis



Forming a Hypothesis

Introduction

A hypothesis is a tentative suggestion about what we might find. At its simplest, it takes the form that 'something is happening'. For example, if the study is constructed on the variables affecting student's grades/performance, there might be the possibility of several factors influencing student's performance/grades; however, the reliable results or framework to test a particular variable and its impact on another factor is assisted through hypothesis construction. There might be several forms of hypothesis that can be used for the framework to test particular variables. Working hypotheses differ from the more conventional use of the term, particularly in quantitative research, to mean a more precise statement about descriptive or relational phenomena. Nonetheless, descriptive hypotheses refer to the statements about events or something happening at a certain rate.

Relational hypotheses, on the other hand, express the anticipation that two or more items in the research will be related to one another in a particular way. Whereas a descriptive hypothesis leads to simple exploration, or fact-gathering, a relational hypothesis points towards investigating a more complex set of things, their interconnection, and a theoretical model that explains why there is that interconnection. In this paper, the overall process will be explained through which the hypothesis is constructed. This paper will enlighten the construction of relational hypothesis as the core objective of the paper is to focus on the variables that affect students' grades/performance; hence, in this scenario relational hypothesis will be formed in order to enlighten the positive or negative relationship between the study variables.

The Process of Hypothesis Formulation

Hypothesis is a form of generalization predicting that a relationship exists between variables. Many generalizations about politics are a sort of folklore. Others proceed from earlier work carried out by social scientists. Within the social sciences most statements about behavior relate to large groups of people. Hence, testing any hypothesis in the field of political science will involve statistical method. It will be dealing with probabilities. To test a hypothesis one must pose a null hypothesis (Grinnell, 2005, 89-96).

In the research to explore the impact of diverse variables affecting students' performance/grades, the null hypothesis represents no significant relationship between the independent and the dependent variable. Moreover, the alternate hypothesis asserts that there is a considerable relationship between the independent and dependent variable. This form of investigation would require a survey focused on the sample that might comprise students, parents and teachers. Having collated the data we would use the evidence to test the null hypothesis, employing statistical techniques to assess the probability of acquiring such data if the null hypothesis were correct (Murphy, Myors, 1998, 108-117).

These techniques are known as 'significance tests'. They estimate the probability that the rejection of a null hypothesis is a mistake. If the statistical tests indicate that the odds against it being a mistake are 100 to one, then this is stated as a “.01 level of significance” or in some cases 100 to five that can be stated as ...