Content

• Steps
• Advice

Hypothesis is a description of a law of nature or an explanation of phenomena in the real world, which can be verified through observation and experimentation. In scientific research, a hypothesis is often proposed in the form of an exploratory, testable and negative claim - used to explain some of the phenomena observed in nature. This is hypothesis explanation. In addition, the hypothesis can also be a description of a law, how it works in nature. That is general hypothesis. Hypotheses can make these guess: claims that one variable will influence the other through controlled experiments. However, many scientific literature supports the view that the hypothesis is simply that educational judgment and no different from prediction. More information about this misunderstanding will be found below.

Many academic disciplines, from the physical sciences to the life and social sciences, use hypothesis testing as a means of testing ideas, understanding the world, and enriching scientific knowledge. Whether you are a scholar or freshman taking a science class, it is important to understand what a hypothesis is and how to build your own hypothesis and make your prediction. The instructions below will help you take your first steps.

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Prepare to write your hypothesis

1. Choose a topic. Choose a topic that you find interesting and useful if you can learn more about it.
   • If you are writing a theory for your school assignment, this step is probably already in place.
2. Read existing studies. Gather all the information you can find about the selected topic. You need to become an expert on the subject and know what is discovered.
   • Focus on academic and academic writing. Make sure your information is accurate, comprehensive, and not misleading.
   • You can find information in the textbook, at the library or online. If you are still in school, you can also get help from teachers, librarians and classmates.
3. Document analysis. Take the time to read the material you have gathered. As you do this, find and note the unanswered questions in the document. They can give you excellent research-driven ideas.
   • For example, if you are concerned with the effects of caffeine on the human body and find that no one seems to find out how caffeine affects men and women differently, that could be the start. point for you to build your hypothesis. Or, when you are interested in organic farming methods, you may find that no one has considered whether organic fertilizers give different growth rates in plants compared to inorganic fertilizers.
   • Sometimes, you can discover gaps in existing documents by searching for statements like "undecided" or explicitly lacking information. You can also look in the literature that doesn't seem really convincing, less likely or too good to be true, such as: caffeine improves math skills. If it is a verifiable claim, you will be of great help to your scientific knowledge by doing your own investigation. If it can be verified, that claim will become even more amazing. If the results are not valid enough, you are contributing to the process of self-examination, correction - a very essential aspect of science.
   • Examining these types of questions is a great way to fill in important gaps in the field of study and be different.
4. Make a question. After researching the material, ask one or more unanswered questions that you would like to learn more about. They will be your research issues.
   • Continuing with the example above, you might ask: "How does caffeine affect women when compared to men?" or "How does organic fertilizer affect crop growth when compared with inorganic fertilizers?". The remainder of the study will aim to answer these questions.
5. Find hints for possible answers. Once you have a research question, review the literature to see whether published studies and / or theories provide any clue to conceptual potential answers to a research question. by you or not. If so, they can be the basis of your hypothesis.
   • With the example above, if you see through the literature that with some other stimulants, the level of impact on women always seems to be greater than on men, this could be an indication of this condition. This may also be true for caffeine. Similarly, if observable, in general, compost seems to always be associated with smaller plants, you can explain by the hypothesis that organic fertilized plants grow more slowly than plants fertilized. muscle.
   advertisement

Part 2 of 2: Formulate your hypothesis

1. Variable definition.General hypothesis describes the rules or modes of operation that can exist between two variables: the independent variable and the dependent variable. If experimentally validates this, you can decide to give a reason for their existence or the mechanism behind them. The proposed reason or mechanism is hypothesis explanation.
   • You can also consider the independent variable as the variable that makes a difference or effect. In our example, the independent variable is gender: a person is male or female, and the type of fertilizer: inorganic or organic fertilizer.
   • The dependent variable is the object affected by ("depends" on) the independent variable. In the example above, the dependent variable would be the measured effect of caffeine or fertilizer.
   • Your hypothesis should only suggest one relationship. Most importantly, it should have only one independent variable. If there is more than one, you cannot determine which variable is the true source of any observed effects.
2. Build a simple hypothesis. When you have spent time thinking about research questions and variables, present an initial idea of ​​how to connect between variables with a simple assertion.
   • At this point, don't worry too much about accuracy or going into detail.
   • In the example above, it could be an affirmation as to whether a person's gender can affect caffeine's effect on them. For example, at this point, your hypothesis could be as simple as: "A person's sex has to do with the way caffeine affects their heart rate." Or, that could be a general affirmation of plant and fertilizer growth. Your simple explanatory hypothesis might be: "Plants with different fertilizers have different sizes because they grow at different rates".
3. Determine the direction. Hypotheses can be directed or undirected. The scalar hypothesis states that one variable affects the other in some way, but it does not specify how it works. A hypothesis tends to provide more information about the nature (or "direction") of the relationship, specifically asserting how one variable affects the other.
   • For our example, the scalar hypothesis could be: "There is a relationship between a person's sex and the increase in heart rate that caffeine causes for that person" and "There is a relationship between fertilizers and tree growth ".
   • Guess Directions for examples above could be: "After using caffeine, the increase in heart rate in women is higher than in men" and "Inorganic fertilizers will grow faster than plants that use compost. muscle ". In fact, the predictions and theories that form the predictions are extremely different statements. This difference will be further discussed in the next section.
   • If the documentation provides any basis for constructing a directed prediction, you should do it because directed prediction yields more information. In the physical science in particular, scalar prediction is often not accepted.
4. Be specific with your hypothesis. Once you have a rough idea on paper, now is the time to start sifting. Specification hypothesis you as much as possible, clarify exactly what ideas will be tested and inspired by you forecast become specific and measurable. As a result, they can provide evidence of the relationships between the variables.
   • When necessary, make the totality (the person or the thing) that you are hoping to uncover new insights. For example, if you are interested only in the effects of caffeine on the elderly, your prediction could be: "The increase in heart rate in women over 65 is higher than in men of the same age". If you are only interested in the effects of fertilizer on tomato plants, your prediction could be: "Inorganic fertilizers will grow faster than tomatoes that have been fertilized for the first three months. ".
5. Make sure they are testable. The hypothesis must propose a relationship between two variables or causes behind the relationship between them, and can be observed and measured in the real and observable world.
   • For example, you wouldn't want to construct the hypothesis: "Red is the best color". This is an opinion and cannot be tested experimentally. However, the general hypothesis: "Red is the most favored color" can be tested with a simple randomized survey. If you can truly prove that red is the most popular color, your next step might be to ask questions: Why is red the most popular color? The suggested answer would be hypothesis explanation your.
   • Usually, a hypothesis is expressed in the form of an if-then sentence. For example: "If children are given caffeine their heart rate increases." This statement is not a hypothesis. This type of statement is only a brief description of the empirical method that follows a prediction and is the most common misrepresentation in science education. A simple way to formulate hypotheses and predictions for this approach is to ask yourself why You think your heart rate will increase with caffeine. Here, hypothesis explanation It could be: caffeine is a stimulant. By this point, some scientists will write research hypothesis, an assertion includes hypothesis, experimentation, and prediction: If caffeine is a stimulant and some children are given caffeine while others are given non-caffeinated drinks, then the heart rate in the caffeinated children will increase more than the rest..
   • It sounds strange, but researchers rarely prove a hypothesis to be true or false. Instead, they look for evidence that the contrary of their hypothesis is likely not true. If the opposite (caffeine is not a stimulant) is likely to be incorrect, the hypothesis (caffeine is a stimulant) is likely to be true.
   • With the example above, when examining the effects of caffeine on children's heart rate, the evidence suggests that your hypothesis is incorrect - sometimes referred to as Hypothesis no, which can appear if the heart rate in both the caffeinated and the non-caffeinated child (called the control group) did not change or both went up or down with the same degree - no difference between the two groups young. If you want to test the effects of different fertilizers, the evidence that your hypothesis is incorrect is that the plants grow at the same rate regardless of the type of fertilizer or the plants used with organic fertilizers grow faster. The important thing to note here is: Hypothesis no becomes much more useful when the significance of the result is tested statistically. When statistics are applied to the results of an experiment, the researcher proceeds to test the idea of ​​the statistical hypothesis. For example, test that there is no relationship between two variables or that there is no difference between the two groups.
6. Test your hypothesis. Conduct observation or experiment. Evidence may allow a rejection of the null hypothesis and thus support the experimental hypothesis. However, it is also possible that the evidence does not allow a null hypothesis, and that is completely fine. Any result matters, even if it gets you back to the starting line. Continually "going back to the starting point" and reviewing ideas is the way of true science! advertisement

Advice

• When researching the literature, find research that is similar to the one you want to do and further develop based on the other researchers' results. Also, pay attention to any assertions that you suspect and test them for yourself.
• The hypothesis should be specific, but it should not be so overwhelming that it can only be applied to your experiment. Surely you need to understand the general want to study. However, no one (except roommate) would be interested in reading the report with the prediction: "The number of push-ups that my three roommates are capable of doing are different".
• Don't let personal opinions and feelings influence the research. The hypothesis should never be stated: "I believe ...", "I think ...", "I feel ..." or "My opinion is ...".
• Remember that science is not necessarily a linear process and can be approached in many different ways.