Chapter 5

Hypotheses
The meaning of Hypotheses
Hypotheses is a hunch, assumption, suspicion, assertions or an idea about a phenomena,
relationship or situation, the reality or truth of which you do not know.
A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of the relationship between two or more variables.
A hypothesis is a proposition, condition, or principle which is assumed perhaps without
belief, inorder to draw out its logical consequences and this method to test its accord with
facts which are known or may be determined.
Hypothesis is a proposition that is stated in a testable form and that predicts a particular
relationship between two or more variables.
Hypothesis is a tentative statement about something, the validity of which is usually
unknown.
Importance of Hypotheses
1. It provides direction to research
It defines what relevant and what is irrelevant. Thus it prevents the review of irrelevant
literature and the collection of useless or excess data. It not only prevents wastage in the
collection of data, but also ensures the collection of the data necessary to answer the
question posed in the statement of the problem.
2. It sensitizes the investigator to certain aspects of the situations which are
relevant from the standpoint of the problem in hand
It spells the difference between precision and haphazardness, between fruitful and
fruitless research.
3. It is a guide to the thinking process and the process of discovery.
It is the investigator’s eye-a sort of guiding light in the world of darkness.
4. It focuses research.
Without it research would be like a random and aimless wondering.
5. It prevents blind research.
It prevents indiscriminate gathering of data which may later turnout to be irrelevant.
6. It sensitizes the individual facts and conditions that might otherwise be
overlooked.
7. It places clear and specific goals before the researcher.
These clear and specific goals provide the investigator with a basis for selecting samples
and research procedures to meet these goals.
8. It serves the function of linking together related facts and information and
organizing them into one comprehensive whole.
9. It enables the investigator to understand with greater clarity his problem and
its ramifications, as well as the data which beat it.
It further enables a researcher to clarify the procedures and methods which are incapable
of providing the necessary data.
10. It serves as a framework for drawing conclusions.
It makes possible the interpretation of data in the light of the tentative proposition or
provisional guess. It provides the outline for setting conclusions in a meaningful way.
11. A hypothesis may enable you to add to the formulation of theory and help
you to bridge the gaps in the body of knowledge.
Characteristics of Good Hypotheses
There are a number of considerations to keep in mind, as they are important, for valid
verification, when constructing hypotheses.
1. A hypothesis should be simple, specific, and conceptual clear.
There is no place for ambiguity in construction of hypotheses, as ambiguity will make the
verification of your hypotheses almost impossible. A good hypothesis is the one which is
based on the operationally defined concepts. It should be uni-dimensional , that it should
test only one relationship at a time.
2. A hypothesis should be capable of verification.
Methods and techniques must be available for data collection and analysis. It should be
formulated in a way that can be tested directly and found to be probably true or probably
false.
3. A hypothesis should be related to the body of knowledge.
It is important that your hypothesis emerges from the existing body of knowledge, and
that it adds to it, as this is an important function of research. This can only be achieved if
the hypothesis has its roots in the existing body of knowledge.
4. A hypothesis should be operationalisable.
That is, it can be expressed in terms that can be measured. If it can not be measured, it
can not be tested and hence no conclusions can be drawn.

Types of Hypotheses
As explained, any assumption that you seek to validate through an inquiry is called
hypothesis. Hence, theoretically there should be only one type hypothesis, that is the
research hypotheses-the basis for your investigation.
However, because of the convention in scientific inquiries and because of the wording
used in the construction of a hypothesis, hypothesis can be classified in to several types.
Broadly, there are two categories of hypothesis:
1. Research Hypothesis
2. Alternate Hypothesis
The formulation of alternate hypothesis is a convention in scientific inquiries. Its main
function is to explicitly specify the relationship that will be considered as true in case the
research hypothesis proves to be wrong.
In a way an alternate hypothesis is an opposite of the research hypothesis. Again, as
convention a null hypotheses or hypotheses of no difference is formulated as an alternate
hypotheses.
Based on the following example we can differentiate the types of hypotheses
Suppose you want to study the smoking pattern in a community in relation to gender
differentials. The following hypotheses could be constructed.
1. There is no significance difference in the proportion of male and female smokers
in the study population.
2. A greater proportion of females than males are smokers in the study population.
3. Sixty percent of females and thirty percent of males in the study population are
smokers.
4. There are twice as many female smokers as male smokers in the study population.
The first hypothesis formulated indicates that there is no difference in the proportion
female and male smokers. When you construct such hypothesis, it is called null
hypothesis and usually written as HO.
The second hypothesis implies that there is a difference in the proportion of male and
female smokers among the population, though the extent of the difference is not
specified. A hypothesis in which a researcher stipulates that there will be a difference but
does not specify its magnitude is called a hypothesis of difference.
The researcher might have enough knowledge about the topic to speculate almost the
exact prevalence of the situation or the outcome of a treatment program in quantitative
units. Such type of hypothesis is called a hypothesis of point –prevalence.
A hypothesis that speculates the extent of a relationship in terms of the effect of different
treatment groups on the dependent variable is known as hypothesis of association. E,g.,
example number 4 above.
There may be some confusion between null and research hypothesis as indicated in the
fig below as the null hypothesis is classified under research hypothesis as well. Any
hypothesis including null hypothesis can become the basis of an inquiry. When a null
hypothesis becomes the basis of an investigation, it becomes a research hypothesis.

Types of
Hypothesis

Alternate Research
Hypothesis hypothesis

Hypothesis
Hypothesis Hypothesis
Null Null of
of of point
Hypothesis hypothesis prevalence Associatio
difference
n

Fig – Types of hypothesis

Procedures for Hypotheses Testing
To test hypothesis means to tell (on the basis of the data the researcher has collected)
whether or not the hypothesis seems to be valid.
Procedures in hypothesis testing refers to all those steps that we undertake for making a
choice between the two actions i.e., rejection and acceptance of a null hypothesis.
The various steps involved in hypothesis testing are stated below:
1. Making a formal statement
2. Selecting a significance level
3. Deciding the distribution to use
4. Selecting a random sample and computing an appropriate value
5. Calculation of the probability
6. Comparing the probability

State H0 and Ha

Specify the level of significance (or the value)

Decide the correct sampling distribution

Sample a random sample(s) and workout an appropriate value

from sampling data

Calculate the probability that sample result would diverge as

widely as it has from expectations, if HO were true

Is this probability equal to or smaller thanvalue in case of one

tailed test, and in case of two tailed test

Yes No

Reject Ho Accept Ho

Thereby run the risk of Thereby run some risk of

committing Type I error committing type II error
Limitations of the tests of Hypotheses
1. The tests do not explain the reasons as to why do the difference exist, say between
the means of the two samples. They simply indicate whether the difference is due
to fluctuations the sampling or because of other reasons but the test do not tell us
as to which is /are the other reason(s) causing the difference.
Errors in Hypothesis Testing
When a hypothesis is tested, there are four possible outcomes:
 The hypothesis is true but our test leads to its rejection.
 The hypothesis is false but our test leads to its acceptance.
 The hypothesis is true and our test leads to its acceptance.
 The hypothesis is false and our test leads to its rejection.
Of these four possibilities, the first two lead to an erroneous decision. The first possibility
leads to a Type I error and the second possibility leads to a Type II error.
This can be shown as follows:

Decision State of nature

Ho is true Ho is false
Accept Ho Correct Decision Type II error (  )
Reject Ho Type I error(  ) Correct Decision

Deduction & Induction

In logic, we often refer to the two broad methods of reasoning as the deductive and
inductive approaches.
Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is
informally called a "top-down" approach. We might begin with thinking up a theory
about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that
we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the
hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data --
a confirmation (or not) of our original theories.

Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader
generalizations and theories. Informally, we sometimes call this a "bottom up" approach.
In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect
patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and
finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories.

These two methods of reasoning have a very different feel to them when you're
conducting research. Inductive reasoning, by its very nature, is more open-ended and
exploratory, especially at the beginning. Deductive reasoning is narrower in nature and is
concerned with testing or confirming hypotheses. Even though a particular study may
look like it's purely deductive (e.g., an experiment designed to test the hypothesized
effects of some treatment on some outcome), most social research involves both
inductive and deductive reasoning processes at some time in the project. In fact, it doesn't
take a rocket scientist to see that we could assemble the two graphs above into a single
circular one that continually cycles from theories down to observations and back up again
to theories. Even in the most constrained experiment, the researchers may observe
patterns in the data that lead them to develop new theories.