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 In
developing conceptual models, risk assessors formulate what
the guidelines refer to as risk hypotheses, predicting the
relationships between stressors and assessment endpoints.
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Risk hypotheses, also called risk questions, may:
- Postulate what effect a stressor will have on an ecological
endpoint, or
- Suppose what caused observed effects.
These questions may be:
- Captured as written descriptions, and
- Illustrated in a diagram.
Risk questions include known information that sets the problem
in perspective and the proposed relationships that need evaluation.
The guidelines call risk questions "risk hypotheses."
However, this phrasing makes it dangerously easy to get caught up
in statistical testing, which is not the intended use for risk questions.
These two phrases are presently used interchangeably, but do not
have equivalent meaning.
Risk hypotheses, i.e. risk questions, represent relationships in
the conceptual model. They are not the same as statistical testing
of null and alternative hypotheses. However, they can be used to
generate questions appropriate for research. Predictions generated
from these questions can be tested in a variety of ways, including
standard statistical approaches.
Relevant
guidelines section(s): 3.4.0, 3.4.1, Text Boxes 3-12 and 3-13
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