What is a "research question" and why is it important? In your answer, please include a discussion of the following terms: literature review, hypothesis, hypothesis testing

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

At the core of any valid research is the research question, or the research hypothesis.
Before researchers pose a research question or hypothesis, they must first have a clear understanding of the problem and a clear vision of their objective. For example, in the military study the research question was: What impact do long overseas deployments have on the families of soldiers? Because initial research hypotheses may involve many unknowns at the outset, researchers often need to refine their investigation by doing an exhaustive search of the existing research studies related to their topic of inquiry. This is referred to as a literature review. This process allows researchers to get a better grasp on the scope of the problem and all aspects related to the research topic. A hypothesis is a speculative statement about a variable or the relationship between variables in a study. In a sense, hypotheses are predictions about the variables that will be measured in the study. In the sequential research process, statistical hypotheses testing takes place at a later point in the investigation. A hypothesis is never accepted or confirmed! Based on the evidence gathered, a researcher can either reject a hypothesis or fail to reject a hypothesis.