G - H

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• gender

  A category of “male” or “female” as defined and created by society; not the same as the biological sex of male or female. Sometimes “sex” and “gender” are both used to mean biological sex, but “gender” really means how a society teaches a person to look, act, and think, based on whether the person is biologically male or biologically female.
  

• generalizable

  Generalizable has both a standard and technical use in research methods. As in normal conversation, it can describe the extent to which the findings from a study of a sample can be generalized into conclusions about the total research population. However, it should be used in a more technical way, in terms of meaning how results from a sample can be generalized to a greater or lesser extent according to the outcome of statistical tests of significance.
  

• grey documents

  Grey documents is an umbrella heading for the paperwork which circulates around governmental and private organizations, such as committee minutes, internal discussion documents, planning papers and so forth. It is literature which is not 'published' in the conventional sense, but is usually available on request.
  

• grounded theory

  Grounded theory usually relates to qualitative research. The researcher starts by collecting evidence on a topic (or phenomenon), and then sees what theoretical propositions the evidence will support. This is described as an inductive process, or one in which the theory that arises is 'grounded' in the evidence.
  

• hard data

  Precise data, like dates of birth or income levels, which can reasonably be subjected to precise forms of analysis, such as statistical testing.
  

• hypothesis

  An idea that needs to be tested in an experiment; a hypothesis may or may not be true. For example, “The sun causes rain” and “The sun causes sunburn” are both hypotheses.