A.F. Zakirova¹
Dr.Hab., Professor I.V. Manzheley^1
1Tyumen State University, Tyumen

Keywords: research methodology, hypothesis, hypothesizing, argumentation, theoretical metaphor.

Background. Based on a practical experience of membership in and expert services to a dissertation council in charge of the relevant research education issues, we have identified a few quality assurance problems in the methodological provisions for the Specialty 13.00.04 “Theory and practice of physical education, athletic training, health improvement and adaptive physical education” [2]. The problems appear to be particularly critical for the research education hypotheses. An imperfect hypothesis may be basically recognized by its content usually decorated by wording like “if more attention is paid to...”, “if additional practices are included in the training process...”, “if special conditions are created for the training process” etc.  An analyst of the problems faced by the national physical culture and sports sector should be careful in applying and avoid such commonplaces and take persistent efforts to master more efficient toolkits to develop and advance own research ideas.

Objective of the study was to analyze the hypothesizing process in the research education studies with concern to the physical culture and sports issues.

Study results and discussion. A research hypothesis development (hypothesizing) procedure may be described as the multistage process of analyzing and synthesizing projecting-and-reflexive activity that integrates the relevant logical and gnoseological grounds and the values-and-senses-centred interpretations of the available theoretical material using the relevant rational and intuitive construction mechanisms [4].

Hypothesis as a form of knowledge structured in the research education process is improved on the way from a shapeless guess to a theoretically grounded assumption on regularities of the subject educational phenomena. When first approaching a research issue, the researcher will normally formulate, based on the factual and empirical data, a descriptive operational hypothesis. The level of reasoning for the primary provisions is usually low enough, since the operational hypothesis is intended to describe rather than explain the key facts and offers a guiding assumption on the key elements of the subject, with the expected outcome being presented in very general outlines.

At further stages of the study, when the author has many times tested and clarified the study data going deeper into the relevant theory with every step, he/ she will come to the point when an assumption on the cause-and-effect relations and settled developmental logics of the subject educational phenomena may be formulated and the operational hypothesis may be tested by experiments followed by its phased evolution into an explanatory hypothesis. Having completed the required tests and experiments, the researcher may think over and generalize the test data to further modify the hypothesis so that it has a chance to evolve to the prognostic hypothesis that develops the relevant transformational functionality.

In addition to the traditional requirements to a research hypothesis (that should be grounded, contentious, simple, logical/ non-contradictory and verifiable), we believe it would be beneficial to offer the following conditions:

• Research hypothesis formation process should be designed in a going-through continuous manner i.e. every stage of the research process will make its contribution to the process;
• The hypothesizing process will be duly timed with no haste tolerated as it often results in  premature, conceptually deficient and largely decorative “dummy hypotheses” being produced; and
•  In the research process, the hypothesis will be semantically enriched, and the enrichment process may be stimulated based on due knowledge of the heuristic essence of the hypothesis.

Every scientific hypothesizing process is specific in the sense that it combines analysis and synthesis, prospects with retrospectives, and cognition with reflexion. When analyzing the multidimensional structure of a research education hypothesis, the analyst should, as reasonably recommended by B.S. Bibler, comprehend the contradictory and divided human activity as a unity of opposite elements including its logical and gnoseological aspects, values and senses, specific and common, importance and goals of the activity, rational explanations and intuitive apprehensions of the subject under the study, strict formalism and deliberate fantasy [1]. It should be noted in this context that the traditional separation of intuitive apprehension from rational cognition; and the logical-gnoseological aspects from the value aspect of the hypothesis formulation process is rather relative. Actual practice will merge these notions into an organic unity. Let us consider hereunder the interaction of the two opposite albeit organically united aspects of a research study, i.e. the logical-gnoseological aspect versus the values and senses; and the intellectual basics versus the affective basics of the hypothesizing process.

The logical-gnoseological aspect of the hypothesizing process is largely based on a rational foundation and designed to straighten out and put into system the available notions of educational phenomena and facts. It is important for the researcher in the process to think through the logical structure for the research data being systemically shaped into a verbal hypothesis. General logic of the hypothesizing process implies a consistent analysis of the subject for the study followed by its presentation based on a systemically structured approach. At the same time, the system elements will be analyzed with the key (system-forming) element and the most critical relations of the knowledge elements being identified. In this process, it is always helpful for the researcher to list the key theoretical notions to build up the hypothesis on. The data inflow in content of the hypothesis may be logically and effectively structured based on a clear demonstration of the causes and effects, unity and constituents, gender and species. We should also mention the quite popular structure of an educational hypothesis that is designed to spell out the notions of the educational process goals, concepts, content, methods, tools and forms. In view of the practical content of the physical education, adaptive physical education and athletic training processes, a hypothesizing structure that spells out the assumption on the transformation process nature, content, development, anticipated outcomes and progress assessment criteria may be quite productive.

Let us take for the case study a hypothesis from the dissertation study by S.N. Chernyakova, as follows:

“The bachelor’s physical education competency building process will be effective when:

• The educational establishment creates, as required by the idea of ecological and psychological approach, an elective physical education environment duly supplied with the facilitating informational and educational resources and practice-centred micro-environments giving every opportunity for the students’ physical training and sporting needs being satisfied;
• The educational material is spirally structured on a modular basis as required by the universal physical education competence system, with the relevant academic progress rating system being applied;
• The education and development process is designed to offer a choice of physical education routes to the bachelors (including elective courses; advanced education services; mass sports; physical culture and health improvement events etc.) with due tutorial support, physical education and sport portfolio, informational support and integration of the academic and off-class activities;
• The process goals are duly specified by the bachelors based on the personal senses and values to drive the physical culture and sport activities, knowledge acquisition, experience accumulation and reflexions in the academic elective education process in the context of the relevant physical education and sporting ideals, values, traditions and symbols; and
• The physical education competency building process is considered successful when the bachelor shows progress in physicality and motivations for the practices, growing physical education and sporting knowledge, skills and activities [6].

It should be emphasized that it is the clear structure of a research hypothesis that provides a basis for its independence. It is also important that the hypothesis should be innovative, topical and show the authors’ individual approach to the constructive methods and means designed to improve the education/ development/ training process. In addition, a fully-fledged hypothesis will provide a well-structured system of substantiations for the hypothetic provisions.

The logical-gnoseological aspect of the hypothesizing process implies the argumentation being based on the cause-and-effect relations of the phenomena subject to the study. Beginner analysts need to be careful to avoid common logical errors in the evidentiary system applied, including such typical errors as “fundraising appeal” (i.e. hopes for additional investments into the training process as a miracle cure that should guarantee its success); “enforcement appeal” (i.e. the idea of compulsion and/ or prohibition); or different logical errors of premature generalizing process based on poor arrays of scientific facts (i.e. the poorly grounded generalizing and/ or short-sample-related errors).

It should be also noted that to have the operational hypothesis duly substantiated and its explanatory functionality mobilized, the researcher should give a high priority to the theoretical basis of the study, i.e. the fundamental concepts, theories, systems, methods and the relevant well-grounded regularities and principles, otherwise the author’s assumption will remain an idealistic guess that has no chance to evolve to a theoretically grounded hypothesis.

Striving to mobilize the values and semantic resource of the hypothesis, the researcher should make resort to a variety of special practical procedures and techniques to stimulate the creative component of the research including the action to: find contradictions in the ways to address and interpret the key theoretical notions by analysts of different theoretical schools, sectors and related research fields to develop own vision and version that may form a basis for the author’s hypothesis; study the history of the subject from the viewpoint of the conflict of the relevant interpretative versions and make an attempt to find a balanced methodological position that can make it possible to develop and substantiate own concept via staged theoretical analysis supported by tests and experimental studies; and expand the scope and contexts of the research activity to have the subject considered in a variety of system relationships and new contexts (i.e. having the study data duly thought through and verbalized in the context of new data inflows, including biographical data, time-, place- and situation-specific data etc.).

Heuristic nature of the hypothesizing process manifests itself when the research activity goes beyond the linear logics, with the process being particularly productive when the hypothesizing is based on a metaphoric modelling system. In this context, a “zigzag” research methodology may be recommended as a highly efficient toolkit designed to employ a variety of heuristic research metaphors and involve free associations to consider the subject (including the “elective physical education environment”, “kinesiological space”, “combat fitness status” etc.). A starting point/ source for the non-standard hypothesis may be found when the researcher refers to the known dialect method of “splitting the unity into opposites to comprehend its conflicting parts”. This method is particularly beneficial in the cases when the nature of the subject educational phenomenon is still unclear for the analyst and the intentional “splitting” of the key notions may help move forward. One more efficient heuristic methodology implies a broad variety of hypothetical versions on the subject being intensively aired and canvassed (under extreme conditions, in teams or individually) followed by their detailed consideration and selection. It is not unusual also that a promising hypothesis may be found by a few micro-hypothesis on the subject being integrated.

Conclusion. Therefore, a mature and constructive hypothesis must meet certain requirements including: verification/ check-up ability; stable and necessary relations that may evolve to regularities; unconventional, nontrivial, uncommon nature (and, hence, disputable, i.e. needed to be defended); general/ wide applicability i.e. application to a variety of phenomena other than the ones it was designed to address, without necessarily visible correlations of the both sets of phenomena; simplicity; and clarity. As a result of a research work the hypothesis is applied for, it may be either verified and then potentially evolve to an element of some new theory, or remain a poorly grounded assumption or trivial pseudo-hypothesis.

The study was performed with financial support from the Russian Research Foundation assigned for the “Practice-oriented educator’s activity formation in the multilevel academic education system” Project (Registration Code NIOKR 114071440036)

References

1. Bibler V.S. Ot naukoucheniya - k logike kultury: Dva filosofskikh vvedeniya v dvadtsat pervy vek [From science learning to logic of culture: Two philosophical introduction to the twenty-first century]. Moscow: Politizdat publ., 1990, 413 p.
2. Zagvyazinskiy V.I., Manzheley I.V. Obshchaya panorama pedagogicheskogo issledovaniya po problemam fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta [All-round approach to pedagogical research on physical culture and sports issues]. Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury, 2016, no. 3, pp. 3-5.
3. Zakirova A.F. Ponyatiynaya baza sovremennoy pedagogiki [Conceptual framework of modern pedagogics]. Pedagogika, 2001, no. 7, pp. 7-12.
4. Zakirova A.F. Evristicheskaya priroda nauchno-pedagogicheskogo gipotezirovaniya [Heuristic nature of scientific pedagogical hypothesizing]. Obrazovanie i nauka, 2010, no. 10, pp. 12-30.
5. Moskvin V.P. Argumentativnaya ritorika: teoreticheskiy kurs dlya filologov [Argumentative rhetoric: philologist's theoretical course]. 2nd ed., rev. and sup. Rostov-on/D: Fenix publ, 2008, 637 p.
6. Chernyakova S.N. Formirovanie fizkul'turnoy kompetentnosti bakalavrov v informatsionno-obrazovatel'noy srede vuza. Avtoref. dis. kand. ped. nauk [Formation of athletic competency of bachelors in university information-educational environment. PhD diss. abstract]. Tyumen, 2016, 24  p.

Corresponding author: a.fagalovna@mail.ru

Abstract

The study considers a hypothesizing process in the research education studies with concern to physical culture and sports issues. Authors describe types of hypotheses, linguistic instruments of their presentation and the key requirements to a constructive research hypothesis; outline the logical-gnoseological and values-and-senses-centred hypothesizing plans; and offer practical procedures and techniques to encourage research creativity. The authors come to conclusion that a mature and constructive hypothesis must meet certain requirements including: verification/ check-up ability; stable and necessary relations that may evolve to regularities; unconventional, nontrivial, uncommon nature (and, hence, disputable, i.e. needed to be defended); general/ wide applicability i.e. application to a variety of phenomena other than the ones it was designed to address, without necessarily visible correlations of the both sets of phenomena; simplicity; and clarity. As a result of a research work the hypothesis is applied for, it may be either verified and then potentially evolve to an element of some new theory, or remain a poorly grounded assumption or trivial pseudo-hypothesis.