research hypothesis

n. In statistics, the hypothesis that there is a difference between the means of different groups in an analysis of variance, implying that there is a relationship between levels of the independent variable and the dependent variable which is accepted when the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the different groups not due to chance is rejected. This is used as an alternative to the null hypothesis so that when the null hypothesis can be statistically rejected, it is not unreasonable to believe that there has been an effect produced by the independent variable on the dependent variable. Also called the alternative hypothesis.