experimental hypothesis

experimental hypothesis

the statement that there will be a statistically significant difference between the EXPERIMENTAL GROUP and the CONTROL GROUP, and that this difference will have been caused by the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE under investigation.

When an experiment is set up, or observational data collected, this is done in order to test a hypothesis, or theory, which has been developed from previous work. This is the experimental hypothesis, which states what the expected difference is between the groups if the theory is correct. The converse hypothesis, or NULL HYPOTHESIS, is also conventionally stated -that the predictions from the theory are incorrect. See also DEPENDENT VARIABLE, EXPERIMENTAL METHOD.