Research questions and

hypotheses
TCPB 124
Week 2

Dr Osama Al-Mahdi

Textbook: Fraenkel, J. and Wallen, N. (2006). How to design and evaluate research in
education. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Fraenkel & Wallen (2006) notes retrieved from http://www.tusculum.edu/faculty/

home/mnarkawicz/html/534notes.doc
 Quantitative research
• Quantitative (numbers)
• Facts/feelings separate
• World is single reality
• Researcher removed
• Established research design
• Experiment prototype
• Generalization emphasized
 Qualitative research
• Natural settings is direct source of data
• Data collected in the form of words or
pictures
• Concerned with how things occur
• Inductive data analysis – not based on
hypotheses
• “how people make sense of their lives”.
 Research questions
• Research problem must be feasible, clear, significant,
and ethical
• The research question is one of the first methodological
steps the investigator has to take when undertaking a
research. The research question must be accurately and
clearly defined.
• Choosing a research question is the central element of
both quantitative and qualitative research and in some
cases it may precede construction of the conceptual
framework of study. In all cases, it makes the theoretical
assumptions in the framework more explicit, most of all it
indicates what the researcher wants to know most and
first. (Wikipedia)
 Research questions
• RQ should be feasible (can be
investigated with available resources)
• RQ should be clear (specifically define
terms used…operational needed, but
give both)
• RQ should be significant (worth
investigating; how does it contribute to
field and who can use info)
 Qualitative research questions
• In qualitative research inquiries state research
questions, not objectives or hypotheses.
• The central question is statement of the question
being examined in its most general form. The
central question can be followed by several sub
questions in order to narrow the focus of the
study but leave open the questioning.
• The questions become “working guidelines”
rather than “truths” to be proven. (Thomas,
1993: 35).
 Qualitative research questions
• The research questions usually begin with
the words “what” or “how”.
• Use exploratory verbs that convey the
language of emerging design of research
(e.g. discover, seek to understand, explore
the process). Does not often use words
with directional orientation such as “affect”,
“influence”, “impact”, “cause”, and “relate”.
 Qualitative research questions
• Open-ended and expected to evolve and
to change during the study. Unlike the
quantitative research questions which
usually remain fixed throughout the study.
 Examples of qualitative research
questions
• One of the research questions which
guided Al-Mahdi’s (2009) study was:

How do the participant teachers and parents

perceive home-school relationships?

Through the different stages of the data

analysis process this broad question were
divided into groups of sub-questions.
 The sub-questions:
1. What are the available means of communication between home and
school?
2. Are parents and teachers satisfied with the current level of
communication?
3. What kind of difficulties might influence the home-school
communication process?
4. What efforts were made to overcome these difficulties and to support
home-school communication?
5. Are there any variations among parents in terms of their
communication with school? If so, how did they vary, and why?
6. How do the participant parents and teachers define their roles in
supporting their children’s learning?
Quantitative research questions
• In quantitative research investigators use
research questions and hypotheses to
specifically focus the purpose of the study.
• Hypotheses are predictions the researcher
holds about the relationship among
variables. Testing the hypotheses use
statistical procedures in which the
investigator draws inferences about the
population from the study sample.
 Hypotheses
Are predictions about possible outcome of a study; sometimes several
hypotheses from one RQ
RQ: Will athletes have a higher GPA that non-athletes?
H: Athletes will have higher GPAs that non-athletes

Advantages to stating a hypothesis as well as RQ

Clarifies/focuses research to make prediction based on previous
research/theory
Multiple supporting tests to confirm hypothesis strengthens it

Disadvantages
Can lead to bias in methods (conscious or un) to try to support
hypothesis
Sometimes miss other important info due to focus on hypothesis (peer
review/replication is a check on this)
 Directional v. non-directional
hypothesis
• Directional v. non-directional
• Directional says which group will score
higher/do better
• Non directional just indicates there will
be a difference, but not who will score
higher/do better
• Directional more risky, so be
careful/tentative in using directional ones
 Examples of quantitative questions
• How do students rate on critical thinking skills? (a
descriptive question focused on the independent
variable)
• What are the students’ grades in science classes? (a
descriptive question focused on the dependent
variable)
• What are the students’ prior grades in science? (a
descriptive question focused on the mediating variable,
prior grades)
• What is the educational attainment of the parents of
the students? (a descriptive question focused on the
mediating variable, educational attainment of parents)
(Opfer, 2008 University of Cambridge website)