The Characteristics of a Good Research Hypothesis, Essay Example

Discuss the characteristics of a good research hypothesis. What distinguishes a null hypothesis from a research hypothesis? How would you explain the difference between nondirectional research and directional research hypotheses.

Basically, there are five specific characteristics associated with a good research hypothesis or some type of question that needs to be resolved or answered through research and study–1), a good hypothesis must be straightforward and stated as simply as possible; 2), the hypothesis statement must be well-written and grammatically sound, 3), the proposed answer must be able to be tested under experimentation via empirical observation and additional research; 4), the hypothesis must be based on or supported by outside facts and evidence that has previously been determined by other researchers; and 5), depending on the nature of the hypothesis, it should be able to be verified through specific measuring techniques that compare and differentiate variables (Characteristics of a Good Research Hypothesis, 2009).

As a proposal or educated guess, a good research hypothesis attempts to distinguish between fact and fallacy which can only be done through rigorous testing until the results of the testing shows conclusively whether the hypothesis is true or false.

Of course, in order to determine the truthfulness or falsity of a hypothesis, the researcher must find as much supporting evidence as possible, preferably recent evidence obtained by other researchers. Once the evidence has been gathered together, the researcher must then analyze it to determine if it supports or denies the basic premise of the hypothesis. In the end, the researcher must be able to demonstrate that his hypothesis is either true or false which in the future will assist other researchers contemplating whether something is accurate and reliable or is based on flawed information and data.

From a business organization standpoint, a null hypothesis attempts to demonstrate the absence of connections between individual variables, such as hypothesizing or postulating that the dismal sales of a particular product or service has no relationship to its quality or to a low demand in the marketplace. Therefore, the alternate is the research hypothesis. If a researcher wishes to disprove the null hypothesis, he/she must conduct extensive research to determine its validity or falsity. This would involve empirical testing of the null hypothesis and a thorough search of existing literature that either verifies or disproves it. If the latter turns out to be true, then the researcher will have to alter his research hypothesis.

As to nondirectional research, this would involve devising a hypothesis that asks whether a difference exists between variables; in other words, the hypothesis acknowledges that differences have been observed but does not provide how to determine the differences. In contrast, a directional research approach  stresses the direction that the research must take in order to determine the validity of the research hypothesis through testing and experimentation while also noting that differences between variables are predictable which must be supported through testing and what has already been uncovered by earlier researchers. Put another way, directional research follows a prescribed path while non-directional research follows several pathways that will either validate the research hypothesis or prove it to be wrong or invalid.

References

Characteristics of a good research hypothesis. (2009). Retrieved from http://conflictmanagement2008.blogspot.com/2010/03/characteristics-of-good-research.html