SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY AND HYPOTHESIS

 Scientific Inquiry and hypothesis

Scientific inquiry helps to think creatively. It helps us to think out of the box and improves our thinking skills. Scientific inquiry helps to understand the world more effectively.  It is very important in everyday life.

Scientific Inquiry

Scientific inquiry refers to the way that scientists study the world. Scientists study the natural world in diverse ways and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. The process of scientific inquiry consists of six main steps. The first step is questioning. We need to ask questions to understand the real problem. The second step is observation and investigation. The third and most important step is the hypothesis. We need to derive a hypothesis based on the observation and the investigation. The next step is an experiment. The fifth step is the analysis of data. We need to review the results, what happened during the experiment. The last step is communicating the results. At the end of the scientific inquiry, we need to communicate the conclusion.

  

Hypothesis

In philosophy, the hypothesis is a proposition made as a basis for reasoning. This is a proposition without any assumption of its truth. A good hypothesis is simple and it is close to the observable things. It should be testable, specific, and relevant to the problem.

Testing a hypothesis

Before testing the hypothesis first we need to understand the way that the hypothesis has arrived. After understanding it we can move onto the testing of the hypothesis. Sometimes hypothesis testing procedure is a quite direct approach. But in most cases, hypothesis testing is not straightforward. As the first step to test a hypothesis we need to gather data in a way designed to test the hypothesis. After gathering the relevant data we need to perform the relevant tests. These tests can be in many forms. Sometimes these tests can be in the form of statistical, it can be direct inspection or it can be experimental or non-experimental.. Form of these tests are dependent on the hypothesis that we are going to test. Finally, we need to decide whether the hypothesis is supporting the data or not.

   Experimental and nonexperimental tests

The experimental test is the type of test that uses a scientific approach towards manipulating one or more control variables and assessing their defects based on the dependent variable. Nonexperimental tests are tests that do not involve manipulating control variables. Experimental tests provide strong evidence of the changes in the independent variable. But the nonexperimental test does not provide strong evidence towards the independent variable that causes differences in a dependent variable.

Auxiliary hypothesis

Auxiliary hypotheses are the hypotheses that are assumed to be true. Auxiliary hypotheses are needed to derive the test implication. Auxiliary hypotheses are required in the application of significance testing. The primary function of the auxiliary hypothesis is to link or connect different assumptions.