Informative Hypotheses : Theory and Practice for Behavioral and Social Scientists

This detailed book discusses the evaluation of behavioral and social science hypotheses that are more informative than traditional null and alternative hypotheses. Requiring a minimal prerequisite knowledge of multivariate statistics, such as regression and ANOVA, it provides relevant information for those doing active research in the social and behavioral sciences. Informative Hypotheses: Theory and Practice for Behavioral and Social Scientists considers Bayesian and classical approaches and pays considerable attention to sample size determination. Software is available for all functions discussed in the book.

When scientists formulate their theories, expectations, and hypotheses, they often use statements like: ``I expect mean A to be bigger than means B and C"; ``I expect that the relation between Y and both X1 and X2 is positive"; and ``I expect the relation between Y and X1 to be stronger than the relation between Y and X2". Stated otherwise, they formulate their expectations in terms of inequality constraints among the parameters in which they are interested, that is, they formulate Informative Hypotheses.

There is currently a sound theoretical foundation for the evaluation of informative hypotheses using Bayes factors, p-values and the generalized order restricted information criterion. Furthermore, software that is often free is available to enable researchers to evaluate the informative hypotheses using their own data. The road is open to challenge the dominance of the null hypothesis for contemporary research in behavioral, social, and other sciences.