The hypothesis, also called a research hypothesis, is a suggested explanation for a phenomenal relationship among two or more variables. The relationship may or may not exist, which is the object of performing research. It's up to the researcher to systematically include or exclude internal and external factors that may or may not contribute to explanations for the phenomena.
Secondary to the research hypothesis, in which a third alternative is provided, there's also a null hypothesis to rule out. The null hypothesis acknowledges that researchers may not find a relationship among two or more variables. If a relationship is found during the methods analysis, the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the research hypotheses.
The researcher's role is to design, collect and organize data. She must formulate and define the research problem and systematically analyze data. The more precisely she defines a problem, the more her scope is tailored to drawing conclusions and inferences while reflecting on real world reactions under similar circumstances. She is responsible for maintaining participant privacy, ethical conduct, humane research practices and accurately reporting results.
In research, the design is similar to gathering ingredients so a recipe will turn out well. If an ingredient is missing, the recipe may not produce the desired result. When research design is flawed, variables may not influence one another in a cause-and-effect manner. To prevent flawed design, researchers select participants and variables carefully while performing analysis using statistical methods.