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About Hypothesis Testing

An essential component of the scientific process is the formulation and evaluation of hypotheses. In seeking to learn more about the social world, social scientists ask many different kinds of questions about relationships between factors of social life. How do investors change their behavior when market conditions change? What role did political and social factors play in the Salem witch trials? Do feelings of connectedness influence students' performance in school? To address these questions, social scientists form hypotheses which they then evaluate using some form of data. You may be familiar with examples of hypotheses and hypothesis testing from the natural sciences, perhaps through schoolwork or participation in a school science fair. You may have evaluated hypotheses such as:

The combination of certain chemical compounds yields heat energy. Plants' growth is enhanced through exposure to ultraviolet light. When a moving object collides with another object, the total kinetic energy of the two objects does not change.

Typically, hypotheses such as these are generated from some theory or theoretical perspective, then evaluated using data collected through some laboratory procedures. Research in the social sciences works similarly (though often outside the laboratory). This module is designed to introduce you to hypotheses in the social sciences.

What is a Hypothesis?
A hypothesis is an empirically-testable statement about a relationship involving two or more variables. Examples of hypotheses from the social sciences include:

Investors seek low-risk investments in economic downturns. The Salem witch trials were an expression of tension of political and social power in that community. Students' feelings of connectedness to school are an essential element of their academic success.

Each of these specifies a relationship that may or may not exist under particular conditions. They are testable statements about relationships between different factors. But why bother with forming a hypothesis as part of the research process?

Why Use Hypotheses in Social Science Research?


In examining phenomena of the social world, there are any number of relationships that we could examine to learn more about their workings. However, it is possible that some of the relationships that we observe might be due to chance, rather than some relationship between two variables.

For instance, consider a hypothetical experiment that is designed to evaluate whether enhancing hospital patients' "sense of control" influences their health. In this experiment, conducted in McGregor Hospital, ten people in the chronic care ward were sampled and given "enhanced control" over their schedule and living conditions. They could specify when they would have their meals, which hours they could receive visitors, and which programs they could watch on television. To compare the benefits of this enhanced control, an additional ten patients of the chronic care ward were chosen, though their routines were not altered. After six weeks, the health of all subjects was measured and it was found that the mean level of health (on a 10-point scale with higher numbers indicating better health) was 6 for the enhanced control group and 4 for the non-enhanced group. Perhaps the first question that should be asked is: "Can we be sure that the enhanced sense of control is responsible for the difference between the groups, rather than chance?" It might be that simply by chance the people who were chosen for the enhanced control group were somewhat healthier before the experiment than those assigned to the other group. Or it might be that these differences were due only to chance, rather than some benefit of control over living conditions. What is needed is a way to evaluate the likelihood that relationships, such as those in the study in the hospital described above, occurred by chance. The establishing and testing of hypotheses is such a method.

Generating and Testing Hypotheses


Generally speaking, in social science research, we establish two competing hypotheses that we then evaluate in light of some empirical data. These hypotheses are referred to as the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The primary purpose of hypothesis testing is to examine the likelihood of the null hypothesis with data. The null hypothesis is often the reverse of what the experimenter actually believes; it is put forward to allow the data to contradict it. In the study of the effect of sense of control on health, the researchers expect that a sense of control will improve health. The null hypothesis they would establish in this setting, then, is that enhancing sense of control will have no effect on health. The alternative hypothesis is one that stands in contrast to the null, usually that the condition or change will have some effect. In the sense of control example, the alternative hypothesis is that changes in sense of control will result in a change in health. Depending on the data, the null hypothesis either will or will not be rejected as a viable possibility. If the data show a sufficiently large effect of the sense of control, then the null hypothesis that sense of control has no effect can be rejected. Specific criteria used to accept or reject the null hypothesis are discussed in the modules describing statistical tests used to evaluate hypotheses. With this understanding of the way that hypotheses are generated in the social sciences, you're ready to look at specific tools that are used to test hypotheses.

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