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How to Determine a Testable Research Problem

Developing research problems and testing hypotheses is one of the bedrocks of scientific inquiry. Determining if an idea or hypothesis is testable or not is key because testing a theory is one of the most direct ways of analyzing its validity. Consequently, research questions and theories that are impossible to test have little value; for example, the research question "Do undetectable objects exist?" is untestable, which means there is no way to answer the question.

Instructions

- 1
  Formulate an answer or hypothesis to your question. In order to determine if a research question is testable, you need to have an answer that you are examining. If your question does not have testable hypotheses, the question itself is not testable. For example, if your question is "Does color affect how fast a rabbit runs," one hypothesis is "White rabbits run faster than gray ones."
- 2
  Use your hypothesis to generate predictions. Using the above example, one prediction of the above rabbit hypothesis is "A white rabbit will always beat a gray rabbit in a race."
- 3
  Set up ways to test the predictions from your hypothesis. For example, to test the prediction from Step 2, you could have a white and gray rabbit on a straight racetrack and see how fast they run from an unpleasant stimulus, such as a loud noise. Even if you do not actually carry out the activity to test your hypothesis, the ability to test predictions made by a hypothesis makes it testable and, by association, the research question.

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