Most commonly, hypotheses take three formats:
- a question, "Does temperature affect fermentation?"
- a conditional statement, "Temperature may affect fermentation."
- an If, then statement, "If fermentation rate is related to temperature, then increasing the temperature will increase gas production.
The third type is more structured and I'll refer to it as a "formalized" hypothesis.
A caution is necessary at this point.
Beware! Not all "if-then" statements are
hypotheses. For example, "If you warm yeast, then more gas will be produced."
This is a simple prediction, not a hypothesis! The problem with this statement is
that there is no proposition to test. What is related to what? Is temperature a
variable? Is yeast a variable? I s gas production a variable?
Research models limit variables to two. The structure of a formalized hypothesis
is useful because it makes the student focus on two variables that may be related.
Source: http://www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/filson/formathypo.php
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