Hypothesis, Theories, Laws, Scientific Statements , Justification, acceptance, verification, falsification, peer review

1. Research
Methodology
Hypothesis,
Theories and Laws

2. Hello!
Prepared by
Rajakrishnan M
Assistant Professor in Commerce CA
Dr. N.G.P. Arts and Science College
Coimbatore
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3. Hypothesis
Let’s start…
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4. “
”
A research hypothesis is a
statement of expectation or
prediction that will be tested by
research.
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5. “
”
Hypotheses propose a relationship between two or
more variables. An independent variable is
something the researcher changes or controls. A
dependent variable is something the researcher
observes and measures.
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6. Examples
● “Students who receive counselling will show a
greater increase in creativity than students not
receiving counselling”
● “the automobile A is performing as well as
automobile B.”
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7. Types
Null Hypothesis Ho
Alternative Hypothesis Ha
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8. ● A theory in the natural sciences is
more “powerful” and abstract
than a hypothesis.
● It provides generalizations about
relationships between variables in
the form of an interrelated,
coherent set of ideas that have
been supported by considerable
empirical investigation.
Theories
● Another way of expressing this is
that a theory is a hypothesis that
has been tested (supported by
considerable empirical
evidence/not falsified) and
generalized so that it can be
useful in explaining, predicting
and controlling phenomena.
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9. Criteria for “Good” Theories
Power of explanation
● the sources of the data
employed,
● the specificity of the theory,
and
● its generalizability—its ability
to connect a wide range of
phenomena.
Irrelevant details are left out
and relevant details are
included
● To give a simple example of what is
meant by “relevant” and “irrelevant”
here, in ancient times people found
out that they could create fire by
rubbing pieces of dry wood
together.
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10. Criteria for “Good” Theories
Parsimony
● an explanation of a situation
or thing is created with the
fewest assumptions.
● The Law of Parsimony
advocates choosing the
simplest scientific
explanation that fits the
evidence.
Predictive accuracy
● By this I mean that a theory: (a)
avoids making predictions that do
not hold true,
● and (b) survives critical tests that
could have shown it to be false.
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11. Testability/falsification
This is the criterion that the
better a theory enables
predictions to be made that
can lead to a demonstration
that the theory is not correct,
the better is the theory.
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Criteria for “Good” Theories

12. Consistency with pre-existing
knowledge—even if the theory
may show that an earlier theory
was wrong
Certainly the ability of a theory to be accepted by
one’s peers depends to a great extent on its being in
harmony with what is already accepted as legitimate
(true) scientific knowledge.
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Criteria for “Good” Theories

13. Laws
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Laws can be said to be theories that:
o have been subject to extensive testing,
o have been found to apply over a wide
range of time and space and to be
correct in every possible situation—or at
least are judged to have an extremely
low likelihood of being found to be
incorrect,
o appear to be in coherence with existing
knowledge, and are widely accepted by
the scientific community.
In other words, laws are
well established
generalizations about
regularities between
phenomena (objects,
events, relationships) in
the physical world in the
form of an interrelated,
coherent set of ideas.

14. SCIENTIFIC STATEMENTS
Jurisdiction and Acceptance
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15. “
”
we considered natural science to be
“a special way of looking at the
universe—a rational approach to
discovering, generating, testing, and
sharing true and reliable knowledge
about physical reality.”
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In order to provide such
knowledge, science must
have means and methods
for justifying its
statements—its facts,
hypotheses, theories and
laws.
Scientific knowledge is
distinguished from belief, no
matter how true or strongly
felt that belief may be, by its
processes of justification and
by its being accepted as
such by the scientific
community.

17. 17
Verification (Deductive and
Inductive Reasoning in Science)
Verification deals with the confirmation (or disconfirmation)
of a statement via its being tested. But many scientific
statements cannot be tested via direct observation.

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Deduction
The underlying idea of deduction is very simple: one deduces a
statement from other, given statements.
If the given statements, the premises, are true and the reasoning is
valid, so are the conclusions of a valid deductive argument;
deduction is truth preserving.

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Induction
Induction is radically different from deduction. It deals with
drawing conclusions from data/observations and is the primary
logical method upon which science is based.
A fundamental presupposition that underlies induction is that the
universe is ordered and governed by general laws.

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Falsification
Falsification is the paradoxical idea
that a statement cannot be scientific
if it does not admit consideration of
the possibility of its being false.

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Falsification
The reasoning is that for a statement
to be falsifiable (and therefore
scientific), it must be possible to make
an observation which would refute the
statement—that would show it to be
false.

22. Acceptance
Justification, no matter whether via verification
and/or falsification is only part of what is required
in order for a scientific statement to be accepted
by the scientific community.

23. Peer Review
Over and above the perspectives on justification
and acceptance provided so far, it is also
necessary to consider the influence of one’s
peers, the community of scientists.

24. Peer Review
Since scientific knowledge is, at least in principle,
public property, scientific statements are
evaluated by others, not just by one’s self
meaning that the statements must be found to
survive critical study and testing by others.

25. Reference
● Research Methodology by C.R.Kothari
● Research Methodology by P. Pruzan
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26. Thanks!
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