what a hypothesis is and formulate two hypotheses that might be investigated in education.
A hypothesis is a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. It is a specific, testable prediction about what you expect to happen in a study. For example, a study designed to look at the relationship between sleep deprivation and test performance might have a hypothesis that states, "This study is designed to assess the hypothesis that sleep-deprived people will perform worse on a test than individuals who are not sleep deprived."
How to Form a Hypothesis
The first step of a psychological investigation is to identify an area of interest and develop a hypothesis that can then be tested. While a hypothesis is often described as a hunch or a guess, it is actually much more specific. A hypothesis can be defined as an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables.
For example, a researcher might be interested in the relationship between study habits and test anxiety.
The researcher would propose a hypothesis about how these two variables are related, such as "Test anxiety decreases as a result of effective study habits."
In order to form a hypothesis, you should take these steps:
- Start by collecting as many observations about something as you can.
- Evaluate these observations and look for possible causes of the problem.
- Create a list of possible explanations that you might want to explore.
- After you have developed some possible hypotheses, it is important to think of ways that you could confirm or disprove each hypothesis through experimentation. This is known as falsifiability.
