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Research philosophy

This defines how you gather, analyze and use the data for your particular research.
In quantitative research we use positivism which tests cause and effect relation whereas in qualitative interpretivism is used which does not test cause and effect relation, it provides the reader with detailed understanding of the topic with different point of views.

Research approach

Deductive approach tests an existing theory and inductive approach helps develop a new theory. In qualitative research inductive approach is followed as qualitative study is for new and innovative topics therefore little to no literature exists. Whereas in quantitative study a theory is tested therefore deductive approach is followed.

Research design

Exploratory research design studies research questions and leaves a gap for further studies on that topic whereas conclusive research design, tests and provides findings for the study and concludes the study. In quantitative research both these approaches can be followed however in qualitative only an exploratory design is implemented.

Data Analysis

To test and analyze the data quantitative study requires to run statistical tests these can include testing the reliability and validity of variables, testing the impact on variables on each other through regression. In qualitative data is analyzed through different methods these include

• Thematic Analysis: This is when data is grouped into themes based on their similarities.
• Content Analysis: This is when you can identify patterns through the provided data.
• Discourse Analysis: This is when you analyze the language, speech or debate. This is mostly conducted to understand cultures.

Depending on your topic and guidelines each of the two, or a mixed data collection method, can be used.

Mixed Data

Mixed data is used when quantitative and qualitative both methods are used in a research. Your topic identifies the research type. In a mixed research a topic could be

“To Analyse The Impact Of Plain Folk Advertising Techniques On Family Shopping
Behaviour Of Consumers: A Case Of Asda Uk”

Here the topic talks about both analysis and impact therefore it is important that a mixed research method is followed. This could be collection of surveys and also taking interviews to test the results of those surveys or vice versa. In a mixed approach data collection methods of quantitative and qualitative are combined.

Data Collection Methods

Just like qualitative and quantitative data can differ so can their methods. Quantitative data collection methods include objective measurements and statistical data analysis. This mostly revolves around numbers and quantifiable data. Quantitative data collection methods include surveys and experiments.

Qualitative data collection methods include observational measurement and visual analysis and mostly depends on non-quantifiable elements. Qualitative data collection methods include interviews with open ended questions and focus groups.

What data type you should use?

Choosing a research method and data type solely depends on the guidelines and requirements you have been provided with from your institute. If your institution requires you to study “the effect of prices on brand switching behavior” you will have to opt for a quantitative study to test the impact of prices on switching behavior and to test the dependency of switching behavior on prices.

When to use quantitative data?

Quantitative data should be used when a researcher is trying to quantify an issue, like we discussed in the example above. The effect on prices on brand switching behavior needs to be quantified.

When to use qualitative data?

Qualitative data should be used when a hypothesis is being developed for further testing or when non-quantifiable factors like emotions and feelings have to be tested.

Sample Data

Dos and Don’ts

Here are some dos and don’ts to follow while collecting data.

Steps for writing a systematic literature review

With assistance from our PhD dissertation proposal writing experts, the following are the steps of writing a successful systematic literature review.

Let’s learn about the unique steps in a systematic review.

Step1: Formulate a Research question

This step is to develop the research question or gap that can be further studied. A well-structured systematic literature review must begin with a well-structured question as well. It provides a boundary to your research which ultimately narrows down your focus to related information. The research question may follow the PICOS framework, according to which your question must be designed with strength to answer the following aspects;

Step2: Identify your research question

In this step, you will have to identify your research question. Then, make decisions here about what to study within the niche areas. You will also need to identify the top researchers whose work you are likely to read. Finally, remember the criteria to set your research question so that it can encounter a bigger picture.

Step3: Define eligibility criteria 

Defining eligibility criteria means that you are setting boundaries to include or exclude the studies in your research. Abundant information is available on the internet, so you limit what you research to account for your input.

After you have set the criteria, make sure you stick to that to ensure the exclusion part of the research does not get involved. The study’s outcomes can not be part of the criteria, but some reviews set eligibility in such a way to get a specific outcome.  You have all the freedom on this step, and you can always set criteria based on your convenience.

Step4: Develop a research protocol 

Before developing a research protocol, it is better to know what a research protocol is. A research protocol is creating a document containing the outline of your research, what questions will be answered, the description of your objectives search strategy, and the eligibility criteria you are looking forward to adopting in your review. Even if you have looked for a systematic review methodology example off the internet, you can share those methodologies in your protocol. If you face trouble setting the methods, you can learn from the systematic review methodology example

Step5: Conduct literature search

You have given yourself the map to research in the previous step; it is time to follow the lines. You must identify the studies to read the relevant and precise data. The more you read on your research, the harder it would get for you to control. You can expect yourself to get a large number of data depending on the scope of your topic, so you must know about the several techniques to conduct a quality literature search;

• Databased search
• Identifying the search terms
• A thorough reading of specialized journals.
• You may coordinate with the respective experts that are working in the field.
• Make sure to read the grey literature related to your topic.

Step6: Select studies per protocol

This step instead calls for teamwork to ignore biasness. Upon conducting the literature search, you have now access to a good amount of information. So, now it is time to analyze the data and check if that information is eligible enough to be included in your research. For this step, you may divide the among the two or three participants and then start studying the literature with the following techniques;

• Study the abstracts first as they are the nectar of the whole research, so you can fathom if that particular research is proper for you or not.
• It would be best if you make the final decision on study inclusion.
• Try to get the full text of your relevant studies so you can examine them to determine eligibility.
• Once you are done with it, you should keep track of why you have omitted some studies, just for future reference.

Step7: Appraise studies per protocol

Ensure to check and balance if the studies you have selected for your research are based upon the research protocol you have made earlier. This step is to ensure that the conclusion of the studies is not biased.

Step8: Extract data

Now that you have selected the relevant studies, it is time to extract the data from those particular studies. At least two of the members of your research team should be bound to extract the data from those studies independently; they should now be making notes about the methodologies, hypothesis, discussion and results of relevant search studies. The data should be in the right, balanced amount as extracting too much and too little data can lead to oversight of essential results.

Step9: Access the quality of evidence and present results

This step is to analyze the pieces of evidence to interpret the results.  By accessing the quality of your studies, you give strength to the evidence provided in your systematic review. You can even set specific criteria for the quality assessment of your review.  It can have the following attributes;

• How much it supports the objective of your research?
• Calculate the ratio of biasness in your result.
• How much generalizability does your research solutions have?
• What is the quality of reporting?

Dos and Don’ts

Contents Of An Annotated Bibliography

Annotated bibliography begins with references, followed by their description. Annotated bibliography is always numbered and arranged in alphabetical order. Annotated bibliography should include the following content:

• Proper citation.
• Background of the authors.
• Outline the main argument, audience and scope of the text.
• Summarize the main argument.
• Clarify the methodology of the research.
• Conclude what has been presented in the research.
• Discuss how the citation is relevant for your work.

How To Write An Annotated Bibliography

Writing an annotated bibliography becomes easier if you organize your sources properly. Organizing references and keeping track of your citations is very important. Here’s a step by step guide for writing annotated bibliography.

Step1: Analysis of Sources

Proving your source’s credibility is important therefore you have to consider your author’s qualifications, to understand the author’s reliability. Moreover the credibility of the journal also holds importance. An unknown journal will not be credible and would not be a good enough source to cite. Using weak citations will not only impact your research’s authenticity but also your grade. One of the best dissertation writers of UK advised that your source should be recent, a very old source loses its credibility and becomes obsolete therefore keep in mind that all the sources you cite are from the past 5 years unless you are required to cite older sources.

Step2: Create Your Annotations

Annotations can be of four different types, here are the following:

Step3: Annotated Bibliography Format 

Writing style of annotations can change according to the citation format that you are required to follow in your assignment. Here are three common formatting styles and how to write annotated bibliography in each.

APA

APA Style demands reference entry and annotation to be double spaced and left aligned. The annotation follows the reference in the next line. Citations are automatically formatted in APA citation generator when you download the bibliography.

MLA

In MLA style, the reference and the annotation are both double-spaced and left-aligned.
The annotation itself is indented 1 inch. If there are two or more paragraphs in the annotation, the first line of each paragraph is indented an additional half-inch, but not if there is only one paragraph.
Your citations will be properly formatted if you are using MLA Citation generator.

Chicago

In Chicago style, the entry should be single-spaced and have a hanging indent. The annotation should be indented, double-spaced, and left-aligned.

Comparison Between Formats

Dos and Don’ts

Now that we have clarified what annotations are here’s a dos and don’ts checklist for further help.

Step1: Research Background

The background informs the supervisor why the topic of your research is important.

The introduction of your research paper must start with the research background. Constructing the background research will not only help you understand the topic, but will also help your professors learn about the research problem and justify importance of your research.

How to write the research background?

While writing your research background, you must touch upon the important concepts related to your research topic. This will help create the right impression on your evaluators and they will know that you have thoroughly investigated the research problem and have understood all the aspects of your topic.

Step2: Research Problem

The problem your research aims to solve must be clearly defined – though the background section and the portion in which you convince your professors of the significance of your research will touch on the research problem, this portion will present the problem statement.

The problem statement tells the evaluator why you are conducting this research and what purpose it will serve.

How to write a problem statement?

You must write your research problem in a clear and concise manner that will help your evaluators understand the purpose of your choosing a particular research topic and also give them the idea about what they should expect from your research.

If you want to persuade your professors to read other parts of your research paper (which by all means, you should, because you put a lot of effort into your research) you have to present the research problem in a convincing manner.

Problem statement holds the core importance in your dissertation because it lets the reader know the following key things:

• The direction your investigation is going to proceed in.
• The areas that your study will cover.

Here is what a problem statement looks like…

Non-profit organization X has been focused on retaining its existing support base, but lacks understanding of how best to target potential new donors. To be able to continue its work, the organization requires research into more effective fundraising strategies.

Step3: Aims and Objectives 

Once you are done with the research problem, you have to tell how you are going to solve the problem. That, you are going to do, by listing the aims and objectives of your research.

Aims and objectives are the statements that inform your supervisor of the results that your research is going to yield.

How to write the aims and objectives?

You have to derive the aims and objectives from your topic, research question or hypothesis. These are in fact, an extension of your research questions.

The statements you use to convey aims and objectives of your research should clearly communicate to the supervisors, your research intentions and also help them understand how you plan to answer the research question.

Here is an example of an objective statement derived from a research question…

Consider this research question: What is the impact of price on the demand of luxury goods?

Now, an objective statement derived from research question will look like: To study the impact of price on the demand of luxury goods.

Before moving on to the next portion, there are a few things you need to keep in mind about the aims and objectives:

• Usually these statements start with phrases like, ‘to determine’, ‘to investigate’, ‘to assess’, ‘to critically assess’, ‘to understand’, ‘to evaluate’ etc.
• The statements you use to communicate the aims and objectives must be brief, concise and relevant.
• In the conclusion of your research, you will have to refer back to this section to determine whether you were able to meet these aims and objectives or not.

Now that you have covered the aims and objectives of your research, it’s time to learn about the significance of research.

Step4: Significance of the Research

Your introduction chapter must also include a section in which you justify how your research is going to add value to the scientific literature.

The purpose of this portion is to convince your supervisor that the research topic is worth investigating on and that the results of this investigation will actually be beneficial.

How to write the significance section?

Your significance section must include the following points:

• How this research helps solve a problem
• Fills a gap in the existing literature related to your research topic
• Builds on the research that has already been done.

Scope of the study

This heading informs the reader exactly what aspects of the problem will be covered in your research, what population will be targeted and why. Here is what must be included in this section:

• The geographical area you are going to cover
• The time period your research covers
• Your target population.
• What specific aspects of the problem your dissertation addresses

Step5: Outline of the Dissertation

Your introduction may also include an outline for your whole research paper. An outline, as the name implies, should have the main headings of the chapters to come.

The outline enlists the headings included in each chapter.

Here is an example of dissertation outline…

Chapter 1: Introduction

• Intro
• Issue & Its Background
• Issue Statement
• Research Purpose & Questions
• Significance
• Glossary of Terms (optional)
• Limitations & Assumptions
• Concluding paragraph

Chapter 2: Literature Review

• Intro
• Description of literature search
• Framework
• Review of Literature

Chapter 3: Methodology (Qualitative/Quantitative/Mixed)

• Intro
• Research Design
• Research Hypotheses & Question
• Setting/Sample & Population
• Participants/Instrumentation
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Concluding section

Chapter 4: Findings

• Intro
• Findings
• Conclusion

Chapter 5: Discussion and Suggestions for Further Research

• Intro
• Findings Summary
• Conclusions
• Discussion
• Suggestions for Further Investigation
• Final Conclusion Part

Things to be careful of and things to avoid

Now you know how to write a dissertation introduction. And that leads us to the next thing – which is to learn about some common mistakes that students tend to make while writing the introduction of their dissertation.

The take aways

• Learned what a dissertation introduction is and why it is important to get right.
• Learned how to write the five portions of the introduction in five easy steps.
• Learned the things that should be avoided while writing the introduction chapter.

Now you know how to write a good dissertation introduction, close this tab and nail the introduction, so you can quickly move on the next chapter, which is the literature review.

Aims & Objectives 

The essential thing to discuss in your abstract is the aims and objectives of your research. In the first paragraph of your abstract, make sure you state the problems of your research and how your research aims to respond to those problems.

You may use words like investigating, search, analyze, and test, etc. Because these are the alternative words that tell about the directions your research is headed to.

The speech must be in past or present tenses, and not at all in future tenses as you have conducted the research.

Methods 

This section where you give information about the methods used in your research is supposed to be the shortest. After discussing the aims and objectives, you will now discuss the approach and methods you have used to justify your arguments or to find the solutions of your research problems.

Try to discuss the methods in less than five lines, make it as uncomplicated as you could. Make sure the tenses you used to explain the methodology of your research are in the past form, only as you have applied those methods in your research, already.

Results

To be honest, this is my favorite content in the abstract. In this section, you will discuss the response of your audience or what reasons you have found behind your problem statement. You may only discuss the main result that supports your conclusion the best. You can skip sharing about the whole results of your research BECAUSE by sharing about the whole results, you will overflow information in your abstract. You should only discuss the key results or arguments of your research.
The speech used, to discuss the results of your research can be in past and present tenses, and not at all in future tenses as you have conducted research that had to lead you to your desired results.
You may use the words like outcomes, effects, causes or analyzed, and figured, etc.
For example; this research has analyzed that one of the main reason undergraduate still manage to find employment is that they have mastered a skill that they cash out.

Conclusion

At long last, you will share the answers to your questions or solutions to your problems.
You will conclude the whole research for your reader in a way that they get familiar with the purpose of your whole research. Conclusions can be written in the present future tenses. It is the case of a rarity if you write your conclusion in past tenses.

That was really all the basic things to consider when writing an abstract.

BUT wait, there is more to it.

Bonus tips to write an abstract!

Other than the above contents of an abstract, there are some more tips as well that can help you in writing a quality abstract.

Inspire from other abstracts

Just like we learn from other’s mistakes, we can learn a lot from other successes as well. Read the other abstracts available online that may or may not relate to your research topic. The ultimate purpose to do this is to acknowledge yourself with all the edges of an abstract.

Quality of words over quantity of words

An abstract should be clear and concise. The selection of sentences must be qualitative and not quantitative. Be as straightforward as you could. Ignore double contextual sentences as much as you can.

Take care of the formatting

The formatting is the tricky part when writing an abstract. Therefore, make sure you format your abstract correctly. Otherwise, your reader would lose its interest in your research in a blink.

Citations for the abstract is not required

The abstract is 100% original work. It is self-maintained, thus it does not need any citation.

Let’s Look At The Proper Example Of An Abstract!

Topic: The reasons why Nigeria ranks amongst the countries with highest infant mortality rate

DO’s And Don’ts!!

Mosaic Plagiarism

Also known as patchwork plagiarism, this is when ideas and phrases are copied from someone else’s work without citation.

Auto Plagiarism

This is when the author reuses their work without acknowledgment.

Incorrect Citation

It is important to keep track of your references. Incorrect citation  is when you give credit of one author to another. This is mostly unintentional; it can be as simple as mixing up names of two authors or referring to an inauthentic source. However it is crucial to keep track of each reference and check their credibility to avoid any such mistakes.

Global Plagiarism

This is when you submit an entire paper written by someone else, hiring others to write for you or submitting another person’s paper is Global Plagiarism.

Here are some free plagiarism detectors you can use:

• Small SEO tools
• Copyleaks
• Prepostseo
• PaperRater
• DupliChecker

Tips and tricks:
We have learned what plagiarism is, gone through plagiarism examples but how to avoid it? Here’s your answer:

DO’s And Don’ts!!

What is Literature Review?

“A literature review is the critical analysis of the previously researched data on a respective topic”

Literature review is when you are critically reviewing the previously gathered data that compliments your topic the most. From the literature review, you will identify the problem or a gap you are going to research upon, and what would be the basis of your dissertation. The data must be authentic and relevant as it holds a 30% weightage of your whole dissertation.

Step1: Go through the relevant data

First thing first, when you search on a topic, make sure the data you get, highly compliments your research. For example, if you are researching the topic above, you would have to study the mortality rate in Nigeria, specifically and not of any other country. You can even search with the relevant keywords. SEARCH IN YOUR DOMAIN! It will help you in sticking to the relevant data.

Step2: Parameters to select the sources

Sources add value to your research. There are few smart ways to judge the authenticity of your sources because if your literature review lacks authenticity, you are back to square one of haunted research. Look at the given ways to judge your resources;

• If you are taking help from the previously done researches, read the abstract first. It will aware you about the importance and originality of that research.
• Skim through the bibliography to judge how up-to-date and relevant the data is.
• Keep track of the citation count on google scholar, the higher the count, the authentic the data is.

Step3: Identify themes, debates and gaps

In this step, you must have the access to the most authentic and relevant data. Now, the question is WHAT COULD BE THE STRATEGY TO STUDY THAT DATA?  The answer is you have to critically read the data, brainstorm yourself, and make a list of pointers to critically evaluate the data.

Step4: Give structure to your literature review

This is the step to STRATEGIZE! Now it is time to strategize on what you will emphasize more in your research from the data you have found. By doing so, you will crown the best and suitable structure to your research. There are few techniques to structure your literature review;

Chronological

When you write your literature in a timely manner, like from older to new, or new to older.

Thematic

When you want to write your literature review that revolved around specific or several key themes. For example, if you want to give a thematic approach to this research for infant mortality then, you will have to make portions for the country’s health care department, or the trends of family planning, or the cities that have the highest rate among the country and why. You are setting the theme for your research here.

Methodological

When you decide on what methodology you should have to carry out your research, either it is going to be qualitative, quantitative, or a hybrid methodology that includes both methods. Decide which method choose the best in your research, but a recommended one is always quantitative as numbers are easier to conclude.

Theoretical

Where you are vaguely discussing your arguments to support and oppose certain theories.

Step5: Critical reading and analysis of your ideas

Now that you have brainstormed through your literature, it is time to critically read and analyze those ideas. Trust the doctor, it is easier to find about the grey areas right now than finding it later when you have written down the whole literature review. Preventive measures are better than regret and agonies.

These steps require the ultimate concentration of students, that is why more students lean on to take the help from literature review writing service UK based, and no doubt they do them exceptionally well!

How would you write your literature review?

This will adopt the simple and basic method to write any academic content. It’s the same, old and effective recipe with just some modified research techniques. Your literature review must contain;

Introduction

In this section, you will inform the reader about the problem statement of your research. Also, highlight the research gap you have identified. And you know what could be the best way to put forth a great introduction?
It is when you specify how many times this research has been conducted on this topic. It gives a UNIQUE READING POINT to your dissertation. You may discuss the objectives of your research in this section as well.

Body

This is going to be the essence of your literature review. Make sure you use well-structured paragraphs in your main body. For that, set the subheadings for each information like the theme, methodology, the discussion points, or the relevant data from which you identified the research gap.

Conclusion

This is the nectar of your whole take on literature review writing. And if you have made this far without taking any help from the writers of dissertation literature review UK based, trust me you are going to love writing this. In conclusion of your literature review, you are going to highlight your research gap which is the problem statement of your research. And not only this, you will get a chance to express your own opinion – nothing is greater than having the freedom of speech!

DO’s And Don’ts!!

This chart is basically what we had discussed in the whole guide above. Please, keep these in mind if you want to learn about the art of writing a literature review.

Why is there a need to write a dissertation proposal?

“To propose for your research topic, and how will you defend your viewpoints in your research”

We write dissertation proposal to give strong justifications to our research. Make sure you put in every little detail. You need to be confident in your dissertation proposal. If you are not, it will reflect in your whole dissertation. It is mandatory to write dissertation proposal because it answers the following questions;

• What research gap will your work fill?
• How will it affect the society or domain of the study?

Your dissertation proposal writing should be able to advocate for itself.

The contents of a dissertation proposal

Let’s get into the contents of your dissertation proposal. The format for a dissertation proposal differs from university to university. Therefore you need to follow the set of rules that must be provided to you by your professors.
But generally, there are main four contents that dissertation proposals usually have. They are as follows:

Introduction

Your dissertation is your baby, it deserves the proper introduction. It should give the initial overview of your work. An introductory section of your proposal must include the following elements;

• Give a detailed and descriptive title for your research.
• Explain what is the scope of your research? The main benefits of doing this research.
• Give a short background of your research that helped you in identifying the research gap of your research.
• Also, explain ‘’what, why, and how’’ of your research which we have discussed earlier in our guide.

Literature Review

“A literature review is extracted from all the articles, newspapers, books, previous dissertations, published researches, magazines and internet websites that were written on past researches”

All these written material will help provide information on your research. Work is created upon work and these past papers are only going to aid your dissertation. Why do you need literature review and how can you get them?

Why

• Let’s look into a marketing dissertation proposal example. The amount of time and funding it will take a student of marketing to conduct a new research on BTL marketing will be reduced if he/she looks into previous researches done.
• Another example is the research proposal methodology example. Methodology dilemma can be solved. When you look into previous researches, you identify the methods used to conduct the research. You evaluate if the method were helpful to research. If not, what type will you use now?

How

• Investigate for the best and closest researches done to yours
• Organize the researches according to use to your work
• Understand each research with the keenest eye.

Methodology and design

Your proposal will consist of the technical strategies that you will follow. Therefore, you should have complete knowledge of the research designs. There are five research designs:

• Descriptive Research Design
• Co-relational Research Design
• Diagnostic Research Design
• Experimental Research Design
• Explanatory Research Design

The questions that you will answer in this section will be:

• What research methodology will you use, will it be Quantitative or Qualitative?
• How do you plan on collecting your data? What method of data collection will you follow?
• What type of questions would you be considering. Will they be open-ended or close-ended?
• Will there be one on one interviews?
• What will your analyzing strategy be?

Bibliographic List or Reference List

Before we want to get into the bottom of how can we write a bibliographic and reference list. Let’s understand a basic and minor difference between these two terms;

Bibliography Vs Reference!

Reference is when you have given the due credits to all the scholarly authors whose work and words you have used in your dissertation.

VS.

And the Bibliography is basically a list of all those references under one heading.

Now, there are certain ways and methods to style your citations:

• Harvard referencing (Parenthetical referencing)
• Chicago referencing
• Vancouver System
• APA style
• MLA style & few more

To enlighten yourself on each referencing style you can take help from dissertation, and you can get the detailed guide on how you can write your references or even get your references done.

How long should a dissertation proposal be?

In most universities a standard for a Masters level dissertation proposal consists of 3000 words and a PHD level dissertation proposal can be comprised of 5000 to 7000 words.

BUT! As long as you cover all the elements of dissertation proposal properly, you should have no trouble in setting limits to your proposal. Remember that scheme QUALITY OVER QUANITTY.

Congratulations!
You have made it to the end! Let’s just quickly sum up all the things we have discussed above;

Do’s & Don’ts of a dissertation research proposal

Types of Research Hypothesis

Your understanding of hypothesis isn’t complete if you don’t know about these seven types of hypothesis:

Simple Hypothesis

This type of hypothesis makes an assumption about the relationship between a single dependent variable and a single independent variable. Consider this Research Hypothesis Example to better understand a simple hypothesis

Complex Hypothesis

It predicts the relationship between two or more independent and dependent variables.

Two or more independent and dependent variables are involved in a complex hypothesis and it predicts the relationship between them

Directional Hypothesis

Directional hypothesis specifies the direction of the relationship between variables and that direction is determined by theory. The example under the heading of simple hypothesis is also the perfect example of a directional hypothesis.

Non-directional Hypothesis

As the name suggests, a non-directional hypothesis does not predict the nature (or direction) of the relationship between variables.

Associative and Causal Hypothesis

When the variables in your study are interdependent – a change in one variable causes a change in the other, then you have to go for an associative hypothesis.

On the other hand, if the variables in your study have independent – dependent relationship, you have to go for a causal hypothesis.

Null Hypothesis

This hypothesis statement states the lack of relationship between the variables in discussion.

Alternative Hypothesis

This hypothesis states that there is a relationship between variables that are being researched on, in a given study. The alternative hypothesis to the above mentioned null hypothesis would be:

How to Formulate an Effective Research Hypothesis?

Now, you have pretty much understood the different types of hypotheses, it’s the best time to get practical and learn how to write a hypothesis. It’s easy…

A Good Hypothesis Should Be constructed using the following process:

Ask a question!

Before writing a hypothesis, you must have a question in mind – a question that is specific, focused, clear and researchable within the limitations of your research project. An example of such a question could be: Do students who spend more time studying get better grades?

Now, after asking the question, you look for answers and do some preliminary research, but before that, you must also know what a good research question looks like and how a hypothesis can be formed from it.

Examples of Research Questions:

Consider the following research Question and Hypothesis Examples to understand the concept better

Here’s another example:

Do some preliminary research!

Your hypothesis will be based on what’s already known about the topic and based on the available literature, your hypothesis will provide the answer to your research question.

That is what your preliminary research is going to be – you will look for theories to form the hypothesis that you are going to test through research. For example; a theory suggests that there is a relationship between two or more variables,

Try to write the hypothesis as an if-then statement!

You can write your hypothesis in the form of a simple if-then statement that predicts the relationship between the variables in your study. The first portion of the statement will state the independent variable and the second portion will state the dependent variable.

Define the variables!

You need to have clearly defined dependent and independent variables.

Independent variables by definition are the variables that you tweak or manipulate in order to test their impact on the dependent variable, and they are isolated from the other variables of the study.

Dependent variables are those that are dependent on the other factors – they are effected or impacted by a change in independent variable.

Examples of Independent and Dependent Variables in a Hypothesis:

By the way, both these examples have directional hypotheses. But you know that already, right?

Consider your research philosophy

A Hypothesis in Quantitative Research can be tested using statistical tools and quantitative data analysis. While a research with qualitative philosophy is not designed for hypothesis testing and hence the data collected from the qualitative methods cannot be statically tested.

In other words, (to some extent) there is no Hypothesis in Qualitative Research, because the purpose of the research is exploratory.

Importance of a Testable Hypothesis

Scientific research cannot be conducted if your hypothesis is not testable – that is how important it is for a hypothesis to be testable.

Now, the next and the most important question is; what qualifies a hypothesis to be called testable? Here are a few things that make a hypothesis testable.

If your hypothesis meets these conditions, it is testable and you can use it in your research.

Dos and Don’ts of a Research Hypothesis

Before we get to the conclusion, here is a summary of what you have to do and avoid while writing a research hypothesis.

Checklist!

Before you close the tab, share this blog with your friends who might be in need of some Dissertation Hypothesis Help, and let’s see if you got what you came for?

• Learned what a hypothesis is and why it is importance in a research.
• Learned about the different types of hypotheses.
• Learned how to write a perfect hypothesis (step-by-step).
• And now you are perfectly equipped to write your research hypothesis.

Good luck with your research!