Deliverables: One MS Word that must include an APA-formatted cover sheet.

Step One - Part A: Identifying the Variables

Review Chapter 17, Healthcare Data Analytics in the Oachs textbook for definitions of variables.

An independent variable is the one that can be intentionally changed to observe its effect on the dependent variable. An example of an independent variable may be age (effect of age on person's weight) or a drug (levels of insulin on a person's blood sugar).

A dependent variable is believed to change based on the change in independent variable. For example, weight might be a dependent variable that changes with person's age or various levels of insulin may affect a person's blood sugar levels.

For this assignment, use the "Barriers to Accepting Health Information Technologies" research title to identify independent and dependent variables that would be investigated in the research survey that you will create. You should select one independent variable and one dependent variable.

Consider what types of relationships may occur between these variables. You will later create survey questions to investigate these relationships.

Note that for this assignment, you should select one variable that represents a "barrier" and one variable that represents "accepting health information technology."

Step One - Part B: Formulate The Hypothesis

Hypothesis is something, an opinion or prediction, that can either be supported or refuted through a scientific inquiry. For example, the age has significant effect on a person's weight or has no effect; increasing the insulin levels decreases the blood sugar or has no effect.

After you have selected a research problem or topic and have identified independent and dependent variables, and have considered relationship between these variables, you will make a statement of what you predict that relationship will be.

For example, based on the literature, I believe that weight increases with age. Now I can convert this statement into a hypothesis. The null hypothesis, denoted H0, is what a researcher would actually test. A null hypothesis is always going to support a status quo or indicate that there is no difference or no relationship which means the age is not related to age; the alternative hypothesis denoted as

H1 is the age is significantly related to age either positively or negatively.

Here are some generalized ways of presenting your null (H0) and alternative (H1) hypotheses. If you are comparing categorical data,

H0: Variable A is independent of Variable B

H1: Variable A is dependent of variable B

If you are testing against a set value,

H0: = value

H1: ≠ value (or) H1: > value (or) H1: < value

If you are testing whether there is a relationship between two variables,

Null (H0): There is no statistically significant relationship between variable A and variable B.

Alternative (H1): There is a statistically significant relationship between variable A and variable B.

For this assignment, use your predicted relationship between the independent and dependent variables that you identified in step one to create a null and alternative hypothesis.