ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUPPORT | DEPARTMENT OF STUDENT SERVICES | RYERSON UNIVERSITY
1
The Research Question and Hypothesis
What is a
research
question?
This is the question that you are trying to answer when you do research on a
topic or write a research report.
Should a research
question be
general or
specific?
It should be as specific as possible. In some cases, you may make two or more
research questions to cover a complex topic.
What is an
example of a
research
question?
For example, if you are studying the effects of sleep on reflexes, you might
formulate the following research question:
What are the effects of sleep on reflexes?
A similar question might be:
Does sleep have an effect on reflexes?
Or:
Is maximum reflex efficiency achieved after eight hours of sleep?
The goal of your research is to find the answer to the research question.
What is a
hypothesis?
A hypothesis is a statement that can be proved or disproved. A research
question can be made into a hypothesis by changing it into a statement. For
example, the third research question above can be made into the hypothesis:
Maximum reflex efficiency is achieved after eight hours of sleep.
What is a null
hypothesis?
A null hypothesis (abbreviated H0) is a hypothesis to be disproved. The
hypothesis above can be turned into a working null hypothesis simply by
adding “not”.
Maximum reflex efficiency is not achieved after eight hours of sleep.
Another null hypothesis is:
Sleep does not have an effect on reflexes.
