Dissertation Assistance: Are you a harker? AVOID this mistake.

Have you heard of harking? Harking stands for hypothesizing after results are known. Put another way, most researchers believe they must present positive findings, so they reformulate their hypotheses after they run statistical tests, so they appear right in what they thought would happen. Many even run new tests and discard negative ones to completely remodel their research; bias means important findings are discarded. There’s a reason: publication bias. Researchers know publishers are more likely to accept positive findings. Unethical but not uncommon. See the following article.

What are 3 ways to avoid harking:

• Develop a plan before starting and stick to it. Report any findings, even if you do not get the results you want. You still need to explain what happened and why, and negative findings are just as important.
• Be upfront if you decide to run a new test and why. You need to justify why you think some other test was used, and this result should not be the main finding but a springboard to future research.
• Qualitative research acts like they do not have a hypothesis, but they have a hidden hypothesis. Harking in qualitative research is much more prevalent. One way to prevent the post hoc remodeling is to present negative findings and weight the themes.

If your dissertation does not turn out the exact way you wanted, be honest and happy! Let the research guide your results, not your whims and biases.

Dr. David Coker is a prolific author, researcher, and experienced research methodologist. He is the CEO of DissertationPro, which offers comprehensive services to complete your dissertation. Contact him for a FREE consultation for all your dissertation needs. Besides teaching K-12 and graduate school, he regularly consults and peer reviews research articles nationally and internationally. He can be reached on LinkedIn as well.

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