Ryan wants to study the level of personal happiness among his students. he devises a self-report questionnaire that measures how highly a student scores his or her life’s achievements. ryan believes that these scores are a good measure of personal happiness. in the context of empirical research, the scores on the questionnaire are representative of the of the study. a. operational definition
b. theory
c. independent variable
d. hypothesis

Hypothesis.

Explanation:

Empirical research is related to the gathering of information through experience, observation, or experiment. The main idea of empirical research is that all input must be empirical, that is to say that it is based on evidences. Having this in mind, empirical research takes us to hypothesis that can be veryfied by observation and experiments.

As Ryan devises a questionaire; one of the best way of gathering data in a research, he will somehow obtaine precise information that will lead him to get evidence of his/her students personal happiness level.

is that the whole question?