3 Testing and Evaluating Hypotheses
This chapter covers
- Conducting appropriate research to inform your hypothesis
- Choosing and implementing methods for gathering information
- Choosing and implementing a research design for your analysis
- Using testing and evaluation methods in different research programs
Now that you know what to expect at each step of an end-to-end analytics project, let’s zoom in on the process of operationalizing questions, developing hypotheses, and choosing an appropriate method for evaluating your hypothesis.
This may seem like a lot of focus for what’s ultimately a few sentences in your final deliverable, but the skills you learn here will support you in synthesizing results and presenting the right analytic approach for your final deliverable.
Figure 3.1 Many frustrating situations can be avoided by aligning on the question, hypothesis, and expected deliverable.
The overarching topics in this chapter are usually covered in undergraduate and graduate courses in the sciences, with titles such as Research Methods or Experimental Design. The methods we will cover primarily draw from these curricula; however, we will take a less traditional approach to cover each topic by focusing on probabilistic methods of thinking about our hypotheses and how to evaluate them. As in previous chapters, we will focus on a range of applied examples in a business or organization outside of those typically covered in academic coursework.