What are common errors to avoid when formulating your hypothesis?

When formulating a hypothesis, avoid vagueness, lack of testability, overgeneralization, bias, lack of clarity, failure to consider alternatives, irrelevance, complexity, neglecting variable definitions, and ignoring assumptions. Instead, be specific, testable, focused, unbiased, clear, open-minded, relevant, concise, precise about variables, and mindful of underlying assumptions.

A Choice between a cross sectional research and a longitudinal research must be considered in line with the proposed question under investigation. All requirements to carry an investigation to the end and conclusive evidence must be taken into consideration before the research is undertaken. Mixed longitudinal research must be analysed to make the difference between research methods and their findings clear or highlight their overlap that may give similar results or differences.

A way to reduce confirmation bias is to increase your self awareness. A great way to do this is to mentally step away from your testing hypothesis and come back to it multiple times. When you come back to your hypothesis, notice your thoughts I.e put awareness on them. Then repeat to yourself “open mind” three times. This will train your mind in a critical skill of reducing judgemental attitudes and therefore reducing confirmation bias.

Je vais ajouter : • Confondre corrélation et causalité : Une hypothèse ne doit pas supposer une relation de cause à effet sans preuve solide. La simple observation d'une corrélation n'est pas suffisante pour établir une causalité. • Formuler une hypothèse basée sur des préjugés ou des attentes : Laisser les biais personnels influencer la formulation de l'hypothèse peut conduire à des conclusions erronées. • Utiliser des termes ambigus : Les termes utilisés dans l'hypothèse doivent être clairement définis pour éviter toute confusion ou mauvaise interprétation.

Trends and foreseeability of future patterns of outcomes must be clearly expressed in the findings. Current conditions and circumstances may yield results as defined by those environments and not necessarily tacit evidence of the cause and effects.

The way to stay grounded in context is to draw all perspectives in the same direction (I.e. tying in each perspective to how it applies to your company / organisation and explaining the short, medium and long term impact that the hypothesis will have on the consumer and profitability of the company as well as the impact that it will also have on the employees. Looking at context from an all round perspective enables sustainable growth and gaps or problems can be identified quickly from many different sources (employee or consumer feedback for example) - enabling time to implement solutions quickly - without there being much impact to the organisation or the consumers due to interception of alternative methods if required.