Hypothesis is usually considered as the principal instrument in research. Its main function is to suggest new experiments and observations. In fact, many experiments are carried out with the deliberate object of testing hypotheses. Thus hypothesis testing enables us to make probability statements about population parameter(s). The hypothesis may not be proved absolutely, but in
practice it is accepted if it has withstood a critical testing.
A hypothesis may be defined as a proposition or a set of proposition set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide some investigation or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts. Quite often a research hypothesis is a predictive statement, capable of being tested by scientific methods, that relates an independent variable to some dependent variable.
