Scioly.org

The definition for the hypothesis in science provided by the Science Olympiad Wiki (http://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Experi ... Hypothesis) is incorrect and misleading. I tackle the issue in a post titled Teaching the Hypothesis (https://mrdrscienceteacher.wordpress.co ... ypothesis/).

A paper of mine on the topic is also being published in September in The American Biology Teacher. Here is an excerpt:

"Since returning to teaching high school biology after graduate school, I work to help my students hone the scientific reasoning strategies of abduction (ingenuity, or borrowing an idea from earlier studies), deduction, and induction. But with such an NOS focus in my classroom on these reasoning skills, I have become somewhat hypersensitive to moments when students get it wrong – for example, when students inappropriately marry a method with the tail end of a deductive statement (If I do X, then Y will happen) and call it a “hypothesis. [this kind of statement is merely a method followed by a prediction--there is no hypothesis here]

"Most commonly in scientific research, a hypothesis is a tentative, testable, and falsifiable statement that explains some observed phenomenon in nature. We more specifically call this kind of statement an explanatory hypothesis. However, as we will see, a hypothesis can also be a statement that describes an observed pattern in nature. We call this kind a generalizing hypothesis."

"In the sections that follow, I present evidence that students, teachers, textbooks, and even practicing scientists confuse predictions with hypotheses. I then discuss the ways the terms are defined and used in the logical practice of scientific reasoning. Finally, I provide some simple ideas for how we can improve the teaching of NOS in the classroom."

Yes, that section certainly should be revised. It (alike many other pages and sections on the wiki) is sadly not nearly as high-quality as one would hope. Thankfully, you (and anyone reading this post for that matter) can help improve the quality of information that is incorrect/misleading/subpar by editing and revising sections of the wiki such as this.

We are always looking for ways to improve the quality of the content of the wiki. Since the most active users on the site are students, information on the wiki is bound not to be 100% accurate, and so errors may occur. Thus, this can serve as a reminder that while the information is generally reliable, it is not 100% factual. See the general disclaimer for more information.

The crux of this issue runs deep. In the fields in which I'm formally trained, you will never come across the term "prediction". It's alien. Curiously...

pkstrode wrote:A paper of mine on the topic is also being published in September in The American Biology Teacher. Here is an excerpt:

"In the sections that follow, I present evidence that students, teachers, textbooks, and even practicing scientists confuse predictions with hypotheses.

...I only encountered it after formal biology training later. I'm still piecing together why that is, but the short of it is that this is not especially useful for many of us in the trenches because:
1. Many of us were trained to write predictive hypotheses.
2. Many of our students were trained to write predictive hypotheses.
3. Most critically in this context, not writing a predictive hypothesis is wrong. From the scoring explanation:

2. HYPOTHESIS
A statement predicting the relationship between the independent and dependent variables that
can be tested
The hypothesis must predict a relationship or trend

I don't know about anyone else, but I will keep encouraging my students to write predictive hypotheses (in 'if...then' form if they so choose). Anything else risks confusion and, more problematically, being marked wrong by their event supervisors for not following the scoring rubric.