Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon that is testable or falsifiable. In the scientific method, hypotheses are used to guide the design of experiments and to evaluate the results. For example, the hypothesis, "excessive knee valgus may be correlated with future knee pain and injury," has been the subject of several studies published over the last decade. Synonyms for the term hypothesis include conjecture, assumption, theory, and proposition. Related glossary terms include scientific method, null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, and statistical significance.