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Article: Identifying and Assessing the Null Hypothesis.
- Article from:
- Health Services Research
- Article date:
- February 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Health Research and Educational Trust. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Most research studies develop an implicit or explicit model, derive one or more hypotheses, and then use statistical tests to support or reject the hypotheses. In many instances, the investigator tests the relatively simple hypothesis that a variable has no effect and then focuses on the statistically significant results. This is not necessarily the correct approach, at least from the perspective of editors and a readership interested in policy-relevant findings.
Several issues are worth considering before undertaking the analysis and interpreting the data. First, what really is the null hypothesis? I believe that most people are, to some extent, implicit ...