Thesis Statement and Hypotheses

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Thesis Statement

A good thesis statement is based on an argument, which can be denoted as a claim. At the core of every research report is your claim, the answer to your research question, along with multiple kinds of support for it. The first support is at least one reason, a sentence or two explaining why your readers should accept your claim. We can usually join a claim and a reason with “because”. A main claim is the sentence (or more) that your whole report supports (also known as “Thesis Statement”). If you wrote a report to prove that the world’s temperature is rising, the sentence stating that would be its main claim. Furthermore, a reason is a sentence supporting a claim, main or not.

In academic writing, supporting a “claim” with a “reason” is not enough, its obligatory to use “evidence”. At least in principle, evidence is something you and your readers can see, touch, taste, smell, or hear (or is accepted by everyone as just plain fact—the sun came up yesterday morning). It makes no sense to ask, Where could I go to see your reasons? It does make sense to ask, Where could I go to see your evidence?

Hence, for a good thesis statement, you have to construct your argument on a valid claim, backed by a reason which can be proved using evidence-this evidence you construct throughout your study using facts, literature, data analysis and experiments. It is also important to integrate a “Warrant” that represent a widely accepted fact, to support your reason. The figure below demonstrates constituents of a good thesis statement:

I “claim” that……because of these “reasons”…..which I base on this “evidence”.

I acknowledge these “questions”, “objections” and “alternatives” and I respond to them with these “arguments”. Furthermore, my claim and reason are connected by this “warrant”.

For a complex argument, each reason will be supported with subreasons that serve as the points of subsections of the report. So as you collect evidence, you can use your reasons (and subreasons) to organize that evidence in a form that anticipates the structure of your report. You can do this as a traditional outline, but at this stage you’ll probably find it more helpful to create a chartlike outline known as a “storyboard.” Put your main claim and each reason or subreason on its own card (or page). Then put all the evidence that supports an individual reason or subreason on its own card (or page). Finally arrange the cards on a table or wall to make their logical relationships visible, as in the figure to the right.

Given that your reviewers are on a lookout for flaws in your evidence, it is important to interpret them with precision and accuracy. As you know by now, the core of your argument is a claim backed by a reason based on evidence. You thicken that core by assembling more reasons, perhaps supporting each with yet more reasons, then laying down a base of evidence on which all those reasons rest. However, if you plan your argument only around claims, reasons, and evidence, your readers may think that your argument is flatfooted, even naive. You will seem less like an inquirer amiably engaging intelligent but feisty colleagues in conversation than like a lecturer droning at an empty room.

Since your readers will not be there as you draft your report, you have to imagine them asking questions, not just the predictable ones that readers ask about any argument, but also ones about yours in particular. It is when you can acknowledge and respond to that imagined questioning, to suggested alternatives and to outright objections, that your report not only speaks in your voice but also brings in the voice of others. That is how you most effectively establish a working relationship with readers.

They may question its intrinsic soundness: the clarity of your claim, the relevance of your reasons, and the quality of your evidence.
They may ask you to consider alternatives—a different way of framing the problem, evidence you have not considered, warrants that you might not have thought of.

Some objections that you may consider from the perspective of your reviewers are following (these may allow you to strengthen your thesis statement):

I would like to see a different kind of evidence. We need hard numbers, not anecdotes. (Alternatively, we want to hear about real people, not cold numbers.)
It is not accurate. The numbers do not add up.
It is not precise enough. What do you mean by “many”?
It is not current. There is research that is more recent on this.
It is not representative. You didn’t get data from . . .
It is not authoritative. Smith is no expert on this matter.
You need more evidence. One quotation does not establish a pattern.

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Research Questions and Hypotheses

Research questions and hypotheses are critical components of the dissertation or thesis. Teamed with a tightly drawn theoretical framework, the research questions or hypotheses become a “directional beam for the study.” In essence, the research questions or hypotheses should flow directly from the preceding theoretical framework and identify ques-tions that have not been addressed previously or remain unanswered in the literature. Your committee members should be able to understand how your theoretical framework has led to the research questions (and, subsequently, the research hypotheses, if you choose to use them).Your committee members should be able to learn a great deal about your study simply by reading the research questions or hypotheses. For example, committee members should be able to identify independent and dependent variables; whether the focus of the study is descriptive, relationship, or difference oriented; what types of analysis will be used to examine each research question or hypothesis; the sample size that will be needed to adequately test the research questions or hypotheses; what literature should be reviewed; and forecast elements of the results and discussion chapters. As mentioned previously, qualitative studies might be informed by a theoretical or epistemological framework, but formal hypotheses are not typically used to frame the study (Gall et al., 2007). Moreover, in some qualitative traditions, studies can be designed so that data are collected first, and a theory is derived from those data (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005;Glaser, 1978). We now turn to the types of research questions used in both the quantitative and qualitative traditions.

Research Questions:

Technically, a research question, in the quantitative tradition, explores the relationships between and among variables (Heppner & Heppner,2004; Heppner, Kivlighan, & Wampold, 1999). For example, a research question could be: Is there a relationship between teachers’ collective efficacy in a school and students’ academic achievement in that school? Drew(1980) identified three general categories of research questions: descriptive, relationship, and difference.

Descriptive Questions

Descriptive questions ask what some phenomena are like. With descriptive questions, researchers collect information from interviews, questionnaires, observation, or document analysis. Such questions can be either quantitative or qualitative in nature. Rarely do descriptive questions involve experimental research. An example of a descriptive question might be: What are the coping processes ethnic, racial minority students use in response to the stressors of acculturation when attending a pre-dominantly White college or university? Such a question could be examined using either a quantitative or qualitative methodology.

Relationship Questions

Relationship questions examine the degree to which two or more variables are related to each other. The essential feature is some kind of correlation between two variables.

Difference Questions

Difference questions examine whether differences exist between or within individual groups or participants. The essential feature in difference questions is some type of comparison. Such questions can be either quantitative or qualitative in nature.

Specifying Research Hypotheses

Research questions ask about relationships among variables. Hypotheses are more precise. They speculate about the nature of these relationships. Research hypotheses predict an expected relationship between variables. The following examples illustrate the point.

First, each research question and research hypothesis clearly and concisely describe a relationship between variables.
Second, each research question and hypothesis is testable; that is, it can be measured empirically.
Third, carefully drafted hypotheses are more precise statements than research questions.
Moreover, research hypotheses can be grouped into the same three categories as research questions: descriptive, relationship and difference hypotheses.

Some dissertations and theses are exploratory in nature. Exploratory studies are based on little, if any, theory or previous research. Forexploratory studies, it is not always possible to formulate hypotheses, because theoretical support for the hypotheses cannot be provided. You should state hypotheses only for those problem statements for which you can provide a rationale from your theoretical framework. Furthermore, qualitative research studies might be informed by a theory, but formal hypotheses are not typically used to frame the study. However, in qualitative research framed within grounded theory methodology, hypotheses may be the outcome of the study rather than used to frame the study at the outset (Gall et al., 2007).Write hypotheses in the present tense and as positive assertions. Avoid using the words significant or significance in a research question or hypothesis. The terms significant and significance usually refer to tests of statistical significance. Most empirical studies include these tests; therefore, reference to them in hypotheses is not necessary. Your committee members will assume that the issue of statistical significance will be handled in the results chapter of a quantitative dissertation or thesis.

Qualitative studies usually do not contain hypotheses derived from theory or previous research. Nevertheless, if your study is qualitative, you need to state a research question at the outset of your study, even if the question is quite general. Qualitative researchers typically “follow the data.” That means that during the course of their interviews they may shift directions based on initial respondents’ replies, change the nature of the questions for subsequent respondents, and as a result, they might modify their initial research question. In quantitative research, however, the specific research design, including hypotheses or research questions, is very seldom modified during the course of the study. Some dissertations contain both research questions and research hypotheses. In this case, researchers use research questions as more general investigatory themes, which are then followed by specific research hypotheses that make predictions in a testable form. Two dissertation examples from our students in which both research questions and research hypotheses (or null hypotheses) were used follow.

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14 essential tips and guidelines for crafting Research Hypotheses

A research hypothesis should name the independent and dependent variables and indicate the type of relationship expected between them
A hypothesis should name the exposure prior to the outcome
The comparison group should be stated
When your study is limited to a particular population, reference to the population should be made in the hypothesis
Hypotheses should be as concise as possible and use measureable terms
Avoid making precise statistical predictions in a hypothesis
A hypothesis should indicate what will actually be studied—not the possible implications of the study or value judgments of the author
When a number of related hypotheses are to be stated, consider presenting them in a numbered or lettered list
Because most hypotheses deal with the behavior of groups, plural forms should usually be used
Avoid using the words significant or significance in a hypothesis
Avoid using the word prove in a hypothesis
Avoid using two different terms to refer to the same variable in a hypothesis
Remove any unnecessary words
Hypotheses may be written as research questions—but use caution

Some Examples of good hypotheses:

Among elderly adults, there will be an inverse relationship between their acid blocker use and their vitamin B12 levels.
There will be a positive relationship between diagnosis of diabetes and depression.
Children who watch less television will participate in more physical activity than those who watch more television.
Children exposed to formaldehyde will have an increased risk of asthma as compared to those not exposed to formaldehyde. Dose of formaldehyde exposure will be positively associated with asthma risk.
Among patients, there will be a positive relationship between income level and performance on a cardiovascular risk factor awareness test.
Females taking the alcohol awareness course will

1. Be less likely to engage in binge drinking

2. Be more committed to alcohol abstinence

3. Obtain a higher grade point average

as compared to those not taking the course.

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