1:37
You have a research question and now you need to turn it into a hypothesis.
A hypothesis Is an educated prediction that provides an explanation for
an observed event.
An observed event is a measurable result or condition.
If you cannot measure it, then you cannot form a hypothesis about it,
because you cannot confirm or reject it.
In addition, a hypothesis typical it takes the poem of an if and
statement, so you can test it with your research.
Needless to say, it can all be a little intimidating and many novice
researchers find this to be the most difficult stage of the scientific method.
In fact, it is not as difficult as it looks.
And if you have followed the steps of the scientific process and found an area of
research and potential research problem, then you may already have a few ideas.
The hypothesis is a clear statement of what is intended to be investigated.
It should be specified before research is conducted and
openly stated in reporting their results.
This follows the reader to identify the research objectives.
Identify the key abstract concepts involved in the research and identify
its relationship to both the problem statement, and the literature review.
3:03
I can offer the following tips for thinking about and
writing good hypothesis.
The research question comes first.
Before you make a hypothesis,
you have to clearly identify the question you are interested in studying.
3:18
A hypothesis is a statement not a question.
Your hypothesis is not the scientific question in your research project.
The hypothesis, as I said is an educated,
testable prediction about what will happen.
3:41
Reading your hypothesis should tell the reader exactly what you
thought was going to happen when you started your research.
Keep the variables in mind.
A good hypothesis defines the variables in easy to measure terms like,
who the participants are?
What changes during the testing?
4:06
Make sure you have hypothesis is testable.
To prove or disprove your hypothesis,
you need to be able to do an experiment and take measurements or
make observations to see how two things your variables are related.
You should also be able to repeat your experiment over and over again.
4:28
If necessary, to create a testable hypothesis,
make sure you have done all of those things.
Thought about what experiments you will need to carry out to do the test.
Identified the variables in the research, included the independent and
dependent variable in the hypothesis statement.
This helps ensure that your statement is specific enough.
4:58
You may find many studies similar to yours have already been conducted.
What you learn from available literature and
data can help you shape your research, and hypothesis.
Dont bite off more than you can chew.
5:14
Answering some scientific questions can involve more than one experiment,
each with it's own hypothesis.
Make sure that your hypothesis is a specific statement
relating to a single experiment.
The research structure helps you create research that is quantifiable,
verifiable, replicable and defensible.
Most research projects share the same general structure
which could be represented in the shape of an hourglass.
Scientists use an experiment to search for cause and effect relations in nature.
In other words, they design and experiment, so
that changes to one item cause something else to vary in a predictable way.
These changing quantities are called variables.
A variable is any factor trade or
condition that can exist in different amounts of types.
An experiment usually has three kinds of variables.
Independent, dependent and controlled.
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An independent variable is the one that is changed by the scientist.
To ensure a fair test, it is important for an experiment to be a fair test.
You conduct a fair test by making sure that you change one factor at a time
while keeping all other conditions the same.
A good experiment has only one independent variable.
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As the scientist changes the independent variable, he or she observes what happens.
The scientist focuses his or her observations on one dependent
variable to see how it responds to the change made to the independent variable.
The new value of the dependent variable is caused by and
depends on the value of the independent variable.
For example, if you open a faucet, the independent variable,
the quantity of water flowing, dependent variable changes in response.
You observe that the water flow increases.
The number of dependent variables in an experiment varies, but
there is often more than one.
Experiments often have controlled variables.
Controlled variables are quantities that scientists wants to remain constant and
he or she must observe them, as carefully as the dependent variables.
For example, if you want to measure how much of water increases when you
open a faucet, it is important to make sure that the water pressure,
the control variable is held constant.
That's because both the water pressure and
the opening of a faucet have an impact on how much water flows.
If we change both of them at the same time, we can't be sure
how much of the change in water flow is because of the faucet opening and
how much, because of the water pressure.
In other words, it would not be a fair test.
Most experiments have more than one controlled variable.
Elena BazanovaDirector of the Language Training and Testing Center
