Qualitative hypotheses

Hypotheses are not common in qualitative research. This can be largely attributed to many qualitative methods not being optimal or suitable for hypothesis-testing, and the epistemological curiosity in qualitative research often lacking interest in testing. Nonetheless, qualitative researchers, too, do often enter research projects with expectations, which are similar to hypotheses. These expectations can be useful to disclose and reflect on before a study is carried out. In this essay, I discuss qualitative hypotheses (QHs) as a means to disclose such expectations without testing them. In particular, QHs are presented as a tool that can be useful with recently proliferated reporting formats, such as a preregistration and registered reports, which involve a pre-analytic phase of written reflection.

This concise essay is an encyclopaedic entry on qualitative hypotheses (QHs), which are tools for researchers to disclose their expectations without testing them. As such, the essay provides an efficient outline of QHs and aims to serve as a practical source that can help researchers decide whether using QHs is beneficial for them or not.