From the course: Academic Research Foundations: Quantitative

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Understand the null hypothesis

Understand the null hypothesis - SPSS Statistics Tutorial

From the course: Academic Research Foundations: Quantitative

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Understand the null hypothesis

- There's a unique quirk to the hypothesis in most quantitative research studies. When we all learned about hypotheses in middle and high school, the purpose was to have an educated assessment of how a research question would unfold. When working with quantitative research, though, the focus is on what we call a null hypothesis. Or, a default statement that says there is no significant relationship between the variables and the study. The null hypothesis is important because a quantitative study is not about certainty, but about probability and significance. A null hypothesis does not make a resolute claim of no relationship. But, rather, says there's a lack of proof. That, we cannot statistically measure a significant relationship between the variables. There are a lot of negatives in these sentences which makes the null hypothesis a confusing element. So, let's unpack this. Research studies are about the collection and analysis of data. Measuring the significance of relationship…

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