I am currently working on a project for which I came up with the following hypotheses - this is a study on differences between two areas, so I'm using the Mann-Whitney U-test:
1. There is more content in A than B
2. There is no difference in content between A and B
The results have shown that thee is more content in B than in A, therefore BOTH of my hypotheses have been disproved and I have not experienced this situation before.
I'm fairly new to scientific study and analysis, so I'm not sure how to write this up. Was I too specific with my initial hypothesis by choosing one over the other, and should I simply re-word it to say "There is a difference in content"? Or should I add a second hypothesis to say there is more content in B than A and just discuss which hypothesis the outcome supported?
Alternatively, should I just write that the results disproved both hypotheses and showed the opposite of the original hypothesis?
What is the most acceptable when it comes to writing up a scientific report?
This project for a 3rd year Open University course, but it's not a supervised project and my tutor has said he is unable to give me specific advice, which is why I'm asking here.
Thank you in advance for responses!
Instead of making your hypothesis claim A to have more than B. You can make it the two groups are different or not. In that situation the result, if supports your claim, then you can conclude the groups differ otherwise you can conclude they are not different.
It's not that you were too specific in your hypothesis, it's that your hypothesis (and null hypothesis) together didn't encapsulate all the possibilities. You either need to change the hypothesis as Muhammad Mumtaz Khan has recommended or, if that's not possible, write up the fact that your hypothesis was incomplete for the situation and recommend a future study with a more complete set of hypotheses.
You have stated an overly limited version of your null hypothesis, which should be that B is either greater than or equal to A.
In essence, your results are "significant in the wrong direction," but from a null hypothesis point of view, that kind of result is just one more way of saying that you could not reject the null hypothesis.
From my personal point of view, that is an overly limited perspective, and it is indeed important to report that your result was the opposite of what you predicted. In particular, if you were relying on prior theory from your research area, then your colleagues should be interested in results that go against the expected predictions.
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