Analyzing and Evaluating Research Questions and Hypotheses

Creswell points out that “[I]nvestigators place signposts to carry the reader through a plan for a study” (p. 129). If the introduction and purpose statement tell where you want to go, the research question or questions are the routes for getting there. In this Discussion, you will work with research questions and hypotheses and examine how they relate to the purpose statement.

This is the final Discussion working with Articles A and B. You will work with the same article that you worked with last week. As in the previous 3 weeks, the Respond requirement this week does not follow the usual guidelines. You will still respond to two colleagues, but one of those colleagues must have read Article A and one must have read Article B. As a result, you will need to familiarize yourself with the article that you were not assigned to in order to respond effectively.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review your assigned article—either Article A or Article B, as described above.
• Review Chapter 7 of the course text, Research Design.
• Review the book excerpt “A Typology of Research Purposes and Its Relationship to Mixed Methods,” originally assigned in Week 6.
• Review Discussion in Weeks 4, 5, and 6.
• For those students assigned to the qualitative article, critique the research questions (there will be no hypothesis).
• For those students assigned to the quantitative article, critique the research questions and testable hypothesis. Identify and describe the variables and describe what type of hypothesis it is according to Creswell’s criteria.
• Look to the Research Questions and Hypotheses Checklist for more guidance in analyzing and evaluating the research questions and hypotheses in your assigned article.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 3 a 3-paragraph evaluation of your assigned article according to the criteria below:

-For the qualitative article, the research questions.

-For the quantitative article, the research questions and testable hypotheses. Also identify the variables and the type of hypothesis that is present.