Are there suggestions you can offer on clarifying the hypothesis?

The most challenging part of defining a hypothesis is finding empirical work that supports your prediction. I always been intrigued by mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. There is much debate regarding schizophrenia, recovery and whether an individual can recover from the disorder. In a recent study in Poland researchers attempted to explore definitions of recovery among polish service user with lived experience of schizophrenia to hear recommendations regarding elements associated with personal recovery (Nowak et al., 2017). Recovery remains to be a commonly deliberated notion when researching schizophrenia. Moreover, the treatment polices regarding this mental illness are deliberated just as much as the topic of recovery. The goal of my proposed study is to observe the behavior of individuals scheduled to be released from mental health facilities diagnosed with schizophrenia to highlight factors in the remission or recovery from the disease.

It is estimated that over three million people in the United States of America are diagnosed with schizophrenia and there is much debate regarding schizophrenia, recovery and whether an individual can recover from the disorder. Recovery is a widely discussed concept in the field of research, treatment, and public policy regarding serious mental illness, and mainly schizophrenia (Giusti et al., 2015). For my proposed study I would ask the following research question: Are patients who experience long-term care in mental health facilities less likely to exhibit symptoms and/or behaviors associated with the disease when compared to patients of shorter programs? My null hypothesis would be: Patients who experience long term care in mental health facilities exhibit the symptoms and/or behaviors associated with schizophrenia at the same rates of patients of shorter programs. The alternative hypothesis for the study would be: Are patients who experience long-term care in mental health facilities less likely to exhibit symptoms and/or behaviors associated with the disease when compared to patients of shorter programs because of extensive treatment?

The alternative hypothesis of “Patients who experience long-term care in mental health facilities less likely to exhibit symptoms and/or behaviors associated with the disease when compared to patients of shorter programs because of extensive treatment” is directional due to the fact that the prediction being made is a positive change.

When it comes to type 1 and type 2 errors regarding the proposed research, a type 1 error would be a false positive. An example of this would be that during the study it was observed that individuals who experienced long term care were less likely to show symptoms of schizophrenia due to some anomaly (i.e. Hawthorne effect) in the observation when in fact there was no significant different between the two groups essentially discarding the null hypothesis. While the type 2 error would be the acceptance of the null hypothesis that is false. To mitigate this in my study I would use naturalistic observation to properly observe the participants in a setting where they would be expected to be seen by other people and ensure the researchers did not have direct contact with the participants.