If a researcher is developing hypotheses about violence and television exposure, the researcher needs to have violence and television exposure defined for the study. Criteria for good hypotheses 1. Compatible with current knowledge. The null hypothesis asserts that the statistical differences or relationships being analyzed are due to chance or random error. The null hypothesis is the logical alternative to the research hypothesis.
Researchers usually talk in terms of accepting or rejecting the null.
Even though the research hypothesis is the one stated, in a report of the results, the researcher will either accept or reject the null. So if the null is rejected, the research hypothesis would be accepted. This is where SPSS and testing for statistical significance come into play. The first step in determining if something is statistical significant is to set a probability level. This is also called a significance level.