Hypothesis Formulation

Hypothesis Formulation

The concepts of hypotheses and research questions differ in that hypotheses suppose relationships and the research follows to test the proposed relationships, whereas research questions often ask open-ended questions without predicting what the answers might be. Given that a hypothesis predicts a relationship, its formulation often requires the use of theory or prior evidence. Without the guidance of theory or prior evidence, one will not be able to make an “educated guess” of the relationship, which is key to hypothesis formulation. If there is a lack of prior evidence or theory, research questions should instead be asked. However, it is important to note that this is not to say that a research question is used only for studies that pose open-ended questions. No matter what type of study is being conducted, researchers should always first form the research question. With sufficient theoretical guidance and/or prior evidence, a hypothesis could be derived from the research question to help narrow down the research focus. In other words, the formulation of a hypothesis requires the existence of a research question, but researchers could ask research questions without formulating a hypothesis. For example, for researchers who want to study the drinking behavior of college students, they may initially pose a research question. On the other hand, researchers may notice, after reading previous literature, that social norms play a big role in college students’ decisions about drinking and decide to test the relationship between the social norms and the drinking behavior. Researchers could narrow down the research question to “What is the relationship between social norms and college student drinking behavior?” Based on the research question, the following hypothesis could be formulated: “There is a significant relationship between social norms and college student drinking behavior.” This hypothesis that proposes a relationship between social norms and college student drinking behavior helps point the research in a specific direction (i.e., test whether the relationship is statistically significant) compared to various approaches that can be used to answer the research question (e.g., interviewing college students to find out what the social norms are and identify the relationship with the drinking behavior). A hypothesis states the expected answer to the research question.

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