• Shoplifting costs retail businesses and consumers billions of dollars annually. A national retail consortium want to conduct a study about shoplifting and recommend ways to control this problem. What would the problem statement and hypothesis be for this study?

 

Problem Statement: The issue of shoplifting pervades the retail business and costs both businesses and consumers billions of dollars annually. Statistics show (x, y, z) which is evidence of shoplifting being a costly problem for national retailers.

Hypothesis: Through the installation of visible cameras throughout a retail store and posting security guards at the front, our study believed that this would lead to a significant reduction in shoplifting rates.

Step-by-step explanation

The problem statement is basically stating your broad overview of why the problem is important. It's helpful to link it to a real world problem, which here, is that it costs a lot of money. A way to bolster your problem statement is to apply statistics and start citing previous research. For example, if you have a statistic that states just how much the U.S. loses in money per year to shoplifting, that would be a good citation.

The hypothesis is basically what you're predicting. I made up an intervention here but it can be whatever you want. The hypothesis is like a cause/effect. So think about what your research study is trying to implement and then state the effect you expect to see.