Archive for the ‘Group Discussion’ Category
Is hypothesis-driven research the only type of research?
A researcher at a talk I attended made the statement that hypothesis-driven research is the only valid type of research. His point was that taking the time to form a hypothesis served to focus the researcher on the key parts of experimental design.
Generally, I do not agree with absolutes (see what I did there), and this one is no exception. I think valuable research-that is discovery of something new- can be accomplished without a clear hypothesis at the outset. It is difficult, and regularly operating without a hypothesis can lead to ambiguous results, but I think real hypothesis-lacking research is possible.
