Constructing Hypotheses in Quantitative Research
Hypotheses are testable statements that link to your research question. Hypotheses link the research question to concise statements about the connection between variables. For example, if studying how mentoring affects first-generation students’ intention to stay at university, the research question could be:
“Does the presence of a mentoring relationship influence first-generation students’ intentions to remain at their university?”
Though this statement outlines the construct and variables, it doesn’t specify what we’re testing. We use the hypotheses to make this clear. Specifically, we create null and alternate hypotheses to indicate exactly what we intend to test. The null hypothesis suggests no observable difference or relationship, while the alternate hypothesis suggests there is one.
In the example above, itwould be as follows:
Null hypothesis: The presence of a mentoring relationship does not influence first-generation students’ intention to remain at their university.
Alternate hypothesis: The presence of a mentoring relationship influences first-generation students’ intention to remain at their university.
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It may be worded with or without a direction. As written above, it does not have a direction. To give them direction, we would consult previous literature to determine how a mentoring relationship is likely to influence intention to remain in school. If the research indicates that the presence of a mentoring relationship should increase students’ connections to the university and their willingness to remain, our alternate hypothesis would state:
“The presence of a mentoring relationship increases first-generation students’ intention to remain at their university.”
If the research indicates that the presence of a mentoring relationship minimizes students’ desire to make additional connections to the university and in turn decreases their willingness to remain, it would state:
“The presence of a mentoring relationship decreases first-generation students’ intention to remain at their university.”
Once you conduct your statistical analysis you will determine if it should be rejected in favor of the alternate hypothesis.
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