What is Hypothesis?

Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a tentative assumption or guess made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical conclusions. In other words, it is a concessional statement that contains what researcher thinks the out come of the investigation may be.  Therefore, before a hypothesis becomes a statement of fact it must be subjected to rigorous scientific testing (testing of hypothesis). Note that hypotheses are tentative answers to research questions and research questions are drive from statement of problem.  You should note the links.

There are two types of hypothesis:

i. The research hypothesis
ii. The statistical hypothesis.
The dissimilarity between the two is mainly based on the methods of data collection. The research hypothesis adopts qualitative method of data collection while statistical hypothesis uses quantitative method of data collection.  As Ezeh (2011:39) noted “…statistical hypotheses contain statistical parameters (e.g mean, correlation coefficient etc.)  and are testable, the research hypotheses do not contain statistical parameters and therefore not testable.” He also opines that “the research hypotheses are mainly used in qualitative studies while statistical hypotheses are more use in quantitative studies”.
The research hypotheses are usually used in social sciences while the statistical hypotheses are commonly used in physical sciences. This is because of the nature of their studies which determines method of data collection.
There are two types of statistical hypothesis. This occurs in testing of correlation between two measured variables. The two types are:

i. Null hypothesis: This states that there is no correction (relationship) between two measured hypothesis
ii. Alternative hypothesis: This affirms there is a relationship between two measured hypotheses.