hypothesis

Cards (11)

  • what is an aim?
    • aims are developed from theories.
    • aims are general statements of what the researcher intends to investigate
    • (purpose of the study)
    • when writing an aim, it must start with ‘to investigate‘
  • what is a hypothesis?
    • a statement that is made at the start of a study and clearly describes the relationship/difference between variables as stated in the theory
    • (a prediction about the research findings)
  • what are the two types of hypotheses?
    directional
    non-directional
  • difference
    experiment
  • relationship
    correlation in data
  • what is a directional hypothesis?
    makes clear the sort of difference that is anticipated between two conditions or two groups of people.
    Also known as a one-tailed hypothesis
    • it uses words such as more or less, higher or lower, faster or slower ect
  • what is a non-directional hypothesis?
    states that there is a difference between conditions or groups but the nature of the difference is not specified.
    ‘Also known as a two-tailed hypothesis
    • when writing a hypothesis, you should always start with a non-directional one
  • what type of hypothesis is this: people who drink energy drinks become more talkative then people who don’t.
    directional because it uses the word ‘more’
  • what type of hypothesis is this: there is a difference between people who drink energy drinks in terms of talkativeness compared with people who don’t drink energy drinks
    non-directional because its not specific on the difference
  • how do you decide which hypothesis to use?
    directional:
    • when a theory or the findings of previous research studies suggest a particular outcome
    non-directional
    • when there is no theory or previous research, or the findings from earlier studies are contradictory
  • what is a null hypothesis ?
    this suggests that statistically significant effect or relationship will not be found