Developing Your Research Question

When you were in elementary school the most difficult task many of you may have faced was deciding what experiment to do for the Science Fair! In this week’s Discussion you are asked to formulate a research question and then convert that question into statistical language including the null and alternative hypotheses.

For this Discussion please complete the following:

1. Develop a Research Question: In your area of interest, think about a research question that could be answered using a hypothesis test for a mean (see Live Binder video for examples). Write down this research question and explain what your research is trying to investigate.
2. State the Hypotheses: Using your research question, create the null hypothesis that will be tested and the alternative hypothesis. Be sure to use the symbols Ho for the null hypothesis and Ha for the alternative hypothesis.
3. One-tailed or Two-tailed: Based on your research question indicate whether you would conduct a one-tailed or two-tailed test. If you would conduct a one-tailed test indicate which direction the test would be.
4. Expected Conclusion: Think of a hypothetical p-value (must be between 0 and 1) and provide your expected decision and conclusion from your test of hypothesis based on this p-value.