Hypothesis Testing In Research

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Hypothesis Testing In Research
This topic will discuss what a hypothesis is, the place of hypothesis testing in
research and what the steps for hypothesis testing are.
Hypothesis: A prediction of the outcome of a study. Hypotheses are drawn from
theories and research questions or from direct observations.
In fact, a research problem can be formulated as a hypothesis. To test the
hypothesis we need to formulate it in terms that can actually be analysed with
statistical tools.
As an example, if we want to explore whether using a specific teaching method at
school will result in better school marks (research question), then the hypothesis
could be that the mean school marks of students being taught with that specific
teaching method will be higher than of those being taught using other methods. In
this example, we stated a hypothesis about the expected differences between
groups. Other hypotheses may refer to correlations between variables.
Thus, to formulate a hypothesis, we need to refer to the descriptive statistics (such
as the mean final marks), and specify a set of conditions about these statistics (such
as a difference between the means, or in a different example, a positive or negative
correlation). The hypothesis we formulate applies to the population of interest.
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
In order to be able to test the hypothesis, we need to formulate what is called
the Nulland the Alternative Hypothesis, as all further testing is based on accepting
the one and rejecting the other.
The example below shows how to formulate the null and alternative hypotheses from
a research question.
Research Questions
Does teaching method influence students performance at school?
Do students being taught using Teaching Method A perform better at school

than those being taught using Teaching Method B?

Note: Many different hypotheses can come from a research question. Hypotheses
are usually more specific than research questions; in this example, we would specify:
Which students (e.g. S1)
Which performance (e.g. as reflected in their final exam marks of the year)
Which teaching methods

A good hypothesis needs to be specific enough and to carry implications for testing
the expected relations.
Null Hypothesis H 0

There is no difference in the final exam marks between S1 students taught using
Teaching Method A and those taught using Teaching Method B.
NOTE: The H 0 is formulated in such a way that no differences or relationships are
expected. Participants (or groups of participants) are expected to perform in similar
ways.
Alternative Hypothesis (Experimental / Research Hypothesis)
H1: (Non-directional, two-tailed hypothesis): There is a difference in the final

exam marks between S1 students who are taught using Teaching Method A
and taught using Teaching Method B.
H2: (Directional, one-tailed hypothesis): S1 students taught using Teaching
Method A perform worse in their final exam than those taught using
Teaching Method B.
Note: Alternative hypotheses can be non-directional (H1), in which case we do not
make predictions about the direction of the difference (whether they will do better or
worse).
They can also be directional (H2), as we predict in which direction (better or worse)
our two groups of participants (those taught using method A and those using method
B) will differ (as shown by their final exam marks). Alternative hypotheses similar to
H2above are made based on prior evidence or theoretical argument or direct
observations.
Task 3 - Reflection
How can you translate Research Questions to Hypothesis? Have a look at this link.
Now try to formulate your own Research Questions and convert them to relevant
Hypotheses including variables such as: performance at school, extracurricular
activities, socioeconomic status, motivation, attitude towards homework, birth order,
and number of siblings. If you still need some help, look at the relevant slides
referring to Quantitative methods.
Why State Hypothesis?
The hypothesis guides us on the selection of a certain design, observations and
methods of researching over others.
Based on previous theory and research, research questions are formulated, which
are translated into hypothesis, which, by turn, are tested using a sample in order to
make inferences for the whole population.
If we could test the whole population directly, we would not need to formulate
hypothesis, conduct inferential statistics and make inferences for the population
based on a sample. However, it is often impossible to test the whole population, and
we need to make our observations based on a sample.
If differences (or relationships) between variables are revealed, then the null
hypothesis is tested for significance. This test may determine whether these

differences (or relationships) are real, in other words, if they are due to true
differences between the groups instead of due to, say, sampling error.
Sample results are often subject to sampling fluctuations. These fluctuations could
account for the differences between the mean exam scores the students had in our
example. Since we are researching a sample drawn from a population, we should
always expect some variation in the sample statistics, such as the mean exam
scores, in our example, between the groups of students being taught using different
methods.
Steps in Hypothesis Testing
As we have seen earlier in this Unit, hypothesis testing is all about populations and
using a sample based on which we make inferences about the population. We have
seen so far how to formulate hypothesis, what is the place of hypothesis testing in
research, and some important concepts such as sampling distributions, confidence
intervals, critical regions and significance levels. In this topic, we will refer to the
steps of hypothesis testing.
The first step is to formulate the alternative and null hypotheses.
The second step is to test the null hypothesis (rather than seeking to support

the experimental hypothesis), by carrying out a statistical test of significance

to determine whether it can be rejected, and consequently, whether there is
a difference between the groups under investigation.
For our example research question (effect of teaching method on final exams
marks), the researcher would run statistical tests to test whether the difference
between the means of the two samples of students (those who used method A and
those who used method B) is zero.
Remember that: When testing the hypothesis of a relationship between two variables
we calculate a probability: the probability of obtaining such a relationship as a result
of sampling error alone (conditional probability). It is the probability of obtaining a
relationship in our sample by sampling error alone, if there was no such relationship
in the population. If this probability is small enough, then it makes more sense to
conclude that the relationship observed in our sample also exists in the population.
In the third step, the sample statistics appropriate for the sample, variables

and hypothesis are calculated (in our hypotheses, the mean exam score).
In the fourth step, a significance test is conducted, to see if the null hypothesis
can be rejected.
To do this, we first start with the assumption that the null hypothesis is true, and
proceed to determine the probability of obtaining the sample results. In order to
understand hypothesis testing, this is a quite important step to understand.
If the null hypothesis is true, what is the probability of obtaining the sample results?
Hypothesis testing involves the calculation of the probability of observing the data
collected. If this probability (also known as p-value) is small it would be very unlikely
that the observed sequence would have occurred if the null hypothesis were true.

The hypothesis is retained if a test of significance would show that if the research
were repeated many times, similar results would occur in at least 95 out of 100
repetitions, or in other words if the p-value (probability of obtaining the results) is less
than 5% (we would then write: p< .0.05). This specific criterion of significance level is
a convention. (Sometimes two other probability levels are reported, that is, p< 0.01
(odds of 99 to 1) and p< 0.001 (odds of 999 to 1, as will be mentioned later in this
topic).
Therefore, in the final step, the decision is made to reject or accept the null

hypothesis:
If the probability is small (that is less than 0.05), the null hypothesis is rejected and
the experimental hypothesis is retained, since we can say with some certainty (95%
certainty) that the differences discovered between the groups in our example are not
due to sampling error, but other factors.
Looking at the odds we realise that it is much more likely that the null hypothesis will
be retained (95 to 1 for the 0.05 level of significance). To reject the null hypothesis
we require at least a probability of 95 confirmations that there are differences in the
groups (for every 100 repetitions of the study)
If the probability is large, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
Another example is available here.
Type I and Type II Errors
It may become obvious from what has been discussed so far, that, as the procedure
of significance testing is based on probabilities, it is not without errors.
We may sometimes incorrectly reject the null hypothesis (rejects it when it is true).
This is called Type I error ().
Other times, we may fail to reject the null hypothesis, and actually reject the
alternative hypothesis (when it is true), which is called Type II error ().
For a summarising table and a further explanation about the two types of errors
follow the links:
www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/hypothesis_testing.html#1err
www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/hypothesis_testing.html#2err

Source of this article:

http://www.strath.ac.uk/aer/materials/4dataanalysisineducationalresearch/unit3/hypot
hesistestinginresearch/