Nursing Research Q53
Which research hypothesis is most testable?
A. There is a relationship between meditation and anxiety disorders.
B. Patients with anxiety disorders who learn meditation techniques have less anxiety than those who do not.
C. Teaching one meditation technique to patients with anxiety disorders will be better than teaching multiple techniques.
D. The ability to meditate causes lower anxiety in patients with anxiety disorder than those who do not meditate.
Correct Answer: D. The ability to meditate causes lower anxiety in patients with anxiety disorder than those who do not meditate.
This hypothesis meets the criteria of testability. Hypotheses are testable explanations of a problem, phenomenon, or observation. While there is no single way to develop a hypothesis, a useful hypothesis will use deductive reasoning to make predictions that can be experimentally assessed. If results contradict the predictions, then the hypothesis under examination is incorrect or incomplete and must be revised or abandoned.
Option A: Hypothesis testing is an act in statistics whereby an analyst tests an assumption regarding a population parameter. The methodology employed by the analyst depends on the nature of the data used and the reason for the analysis.
Option B: The null hypothesis is usually a hypothesis of equality between population parameters; e.g. a null hypothesis may state that the population mean return is equal to zero. The alternative hypothesis is effectively the opposite of a null hypothesis (e.g., the population mean return is not equal to zero). Thus, they are mutually exclusive, and only one can be true. However, one of the two hypotheses will always be true.
Option C: Statistical analysts test a hypothesis by measuring and examining a random sample of the population being analyzed. All analysts use a random population sample to test two different hypotheses: the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis.