What is hypothesis statement in marketing research?

Answer 1

HYPOTHESIS IN MARKETING RESEARCH - VIEWING IT DIFFERENTLY

Article Summary:Hypothesis is a tentative statement about the probable solution to a problem of research study well in advance prior to conducting the research study

(c) V S RANGARAJAN

HYPOTHESIS IN MARKETING RESEARCH - VIEWING IT DIFFERENTLY

I) INTRODUCTION

Hypothesis is a tentative statement about the probable solution to a problem of research study well in advance prior to conducting the research study

The statement prepared by the Researcher must have logic / evidence / supporting information substantiating the Hypothesis statement arrived

Research studies are expected to have number of data which need to be analyzed using statistical tools ultimately to arrive at research findings. Hence it becomes inevitable for the Researcher to establish one main Hypothesis and many sub Hypothesis to support the main Hypothesis

The research conducted without using the required / adequate statistical analysis at each and stage of the research process may lead the Researcher in the wrong direction making the research a futile exercise. Hence the Researcher needs to use statistical analysis in all he stages of research like Defining the population, Hypothesis formulation and Statistical data analysis, etc

If the research work does not have statistical analysis of data the Researcher need not consider establishing the Hypothesis

The author wants to present the facts of the Hypothesis in a different manner than usual and hence the following explanation on the topic

II) CLASSIFICATION OF HYPOTHESIS

Hypothesis could be classified on two different ways

1) Stage of the research in the entire research process

2) level of importance and nature of problem on hand and

Type 1

Hypothesis if developed based on the Stage of the research in the entire research process

a) Main Hypothesis

b) Sub Hypothesis

a) Main Hypothesis

As soon as the research problem is taken the Researcher conducts Literature study, Exploratory study, etc to become familiar with the problem thoroughly and to formulate Hypothesis.

The Main Hypothesis refers to the Primary objective of the study which is arrived from the need of the study

Example

A Researcher wants to conduct research on the Reasons for decline in sales of company manufacturing andselling cars of X brand.

From the experts / dealer opinion survey the researcher has found out that the sales decline is because of Customer dissatisfaction.

Based on the above Exploratory research the Researcher has formulated the Main Hypothesis as the customer dissatisfaction is the reason for sales decline in the car company

The Researcher to confirm that only the Customer dissatisfaction is the reason for the sales decline he proceeds with the following research work

'Study on Customer satisfaction level on the X brand cars among its customers

After developing the Main Hypothesis he develops many Sub Hypothesis to support the Main Hypothesis

b)Sub Hypothesis

The Researcher prepares questionnaire keeping the Secondary objectives in mind the answers for the questions provide information to test the Hypothesis

Thus the Researcher develops many Sub Hypothesis to find answers for the Secondary objectives established with relevance to Primary objective

- Duration of holding the car purchased by the owners is very less

- Number of complaints reported by the customers are high, etc

The Sub Hypothesis will be either accepted or rejected based on the Statistical analysis conducted like percentage analysis, trend analysis, etc

Consolidating the Sub Hypothesis the Researcher arrives at a conclusion whether to accept or reject the Main Hypothesis stated

Type 2

The level of importance and nature of problem on hand for research plays an important role in developing Hypothesis

Hypothesis classified based on the level of importance and the nature of the problem on hand are,

a) No Hypothesis research

b) Tentative Hypothesis

c) Well defined Hypothesis

a) No Hypothesis research

When the research problem is of the nature like estimation, finding averages, etc the researcher cannot or may not formulate Hypothesis

That is if the Researcher is proposing to use only simple Statistical tools like percentages, mean, mode, median, etc to arrive at findings the Researcher may not be interested in establishing the Hypothesis

example

When the Researcher wants to find out the quantity of water that the students of a particular college drink daily, where no secondary data is available with the college authorities in any form, the Researcher has to proceed the research wok without any Hypothesis.

One option that exists for him to formulate Hypothesis is to conduct a small sample survey with the students of the college and thus arrive at a Hypothesis. Here the Hypothesis formulated is in no way going to help the Researcher and hence he need not waste his time and energy in establishing the Hypothesis, he can as well proceed without Hypothesis

Since developing Main Hypothesis itself is considered as a wasteful exercise there is no question of developing Sub Hypothesis here in these type of research studies

b) Tentative Hypothesis Research

Tentative Hypothesis is the statement made by the Researcher without taking much effort in arriving at the Hypothesis and also without possessing much supportive information in formulating the Hypothesis.

When the magnitude of the problem is not serious or when the problem is from a very general area, the Researcher may not be interested in spending money, effort and time in conducting exploratory research to come out the supporting information on the Hypothesis the Researcher formulates Hypothesis on a tentative manner from the data which he obtained easily and is termed as the Tentative Hypothesis.

This is like the person instead of proceeding in total darkness without direction proceeding with a torch light which may be sufficient as long as his speed is very minimal. This is like from no direction situation ( No Hypothesis research condition ) to some direction situation

Since the research work involves only one or two simple statistical tools the Researcher will be put to the necessity of developing one or few Sub Hypothesis

c) Well defined working Hypothesis

On the other hand when the research is conducted in not a popular / specialized subject area the results of which is going to be used for taking a major important decision the Researcher need to formulate a well defined workingHypothesis with necessary supporting information collected in a well defined manner with clarity using Exploratory research

Similarly when the nature of the problem is complex the necessity of using more number of Statistical tools inevitable and hence becomes very important for the Researcher in formulating the Well defined Hypothesis to proceed with the research process

First the Researcher arrives at the Main Hypothesis keeping the Primary objective in mind and develops many more Sub Hypothesis as and when he proceeds with statistical analysis of the data the findings of which will be combined to arrive at the findings for the Primary objective

III) CONCLUSION

For research study there will be only one Main Hypothesis and many Sub Hypothesis depending on the number of secondary objectives. More the number of secondary objectives more will be the Sub Hypothesis and vice versa. Similarly more of statistical tools used more will be the Sub Hypothesis.