The Research Problem
The Research Problem
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What is a research problem?
Research questions
Characteristics of good research questions
Research question often investigate
relationships
Interactive Model of Research Design
• Purpose
-- What are the ultimate goals of the study?
-- What practices will it influence?
-- Why do you want to conduct it?
-- Why should we care about the results?
-- Why is this study worth doing?
Interactive Model of Research Design
• Conceptual Context
-- What do you think is going on with the phenomena
you plan to study?
-- What theories, findings, and conceptual
frameworks relating to these phenomena will guide or
inform your study?
-- What literature, preliminary research and personal
experience will you draw from?
-- Theory– How is it developed?
Your own experience
Existing theory and research
Results from a pilot study or preliminary research
Thought experiments conducted by you and others
• Research Methods
-- What will you actually do in conducting this study?
-- What approaches and techniques will you use to
collect and analyze your data?
-- How do your approaches and techniques constitute
an integrated strategy?
• Validity
-- How might you be wrong?
-- How will you deal with explanations and validity
threats to potential conclusions?
-- What challenges might take place concerning your
ideas and beliefs?
-- Why should we believe your results?
What is a Research Problem?
Definition
• A problem that someone would like to
research.
• A research problem is the focus of a
research investigation
• Research Questions
-- What specifically do you want to understand by
doing this study?
-- What do you know about the phenomena you are
studying that you want to learn?
-- What questions will your research attempt to
answer?
-- How are these questions related to one another?
From Topics to Questions
• Topic
-- An interest in a general area of inquiry that you
would like to explore
-- What would you like to learn more about?
-- What kind of research base might it have?
-- Does my topic have a possible support base?
• Research Question
-- Add these words to your topic: conflict, describe, contribute,
develop
-- Do these words help frame a question?
-- Are these other words that might help? Who, what, where,
when, how?
-- What don’t you know or understand about your topic?
-- Are these parts, gaps, discrepancies or questions about your
topic?
From Questions to Research Questions
and/or Problems
• Research problems need to be resolved
• Research questions need to answered
• Questions you need to ask of yourself
-- What is it about your topic that needs to be resolved,
changed, improved, or to fill a curiosity?
-- What will be the problem or question that will become the
entire focus of your study?
Research Problem
• Posed as a question.
• Problems should be measurable, testable
or operational.
• There is some sore of information that can
be collected in an attempt to answer the
question.
Characteristics of good research problems
• Feasible – can be investigated without an
undue amount of time, energy, or money.
• Clear – unambiguous.
• Ethical – no damage or harm to anyone.
• Often investigate relationships – the term
“relationship” as used in research, refers
to a connection or association between
two or more characteristics or qualities.
Defining terms in research
• A constitutive definition – uses additional
terms to clarity meaning.
• An operational definition – describes how
examples of a term are to be measured or
identified.
Key terms to define in a research study
• Terms necessary to ensure that research
problem is sharply focused.
• Terms that individuals outside the field of
study may not understand.
• Terms that have multiple meanings.
• Terms that are essential to understanding
what the study is about.
• Terms to provide precision in
specifications for instruments to be
developed or located.
• Once the problem or question has been determined
here are further consideration that need to be resolve
before research an begin.
• Is my research question or problem feasible in terms
of time, money, energy?
• Is my research problem or question clear?
• Clarity
-- How will I define the terms?
Using the operational definition of the word
-- How is the term used in the literature?
-- How is the term going to be used in my study?
-- Define by specifying the action or operation in which
the term is going to be used.
• Is the study going to be significant?
-- Is it worth my time, money, energy?
-- Will the results add to the knowledge base?
-- Will the results of my study improve professional practice?
-- Is it timely?
-- Dose it relate to a practical problem?
-- Dose it relate to a wide population?
-- Dose it relate to an influential or critical population?
-- Dose it fill a research gap?
-- Dose it permit generalization to broader principles or social interaction
or general theory?
-- Dose it sharpen the definition of an important concept or relationship?
• Significance of the study continued
-- Does the study have many implications for a wide range of practical
problems?
-- Will my study create or improve an instrument for observing and
analyzing data?
-- Will it provide for the possibility for a fruitful exploration with know
techniques?
• Is the study ethical?
Will the study cause physical or mental harm to human beings, the nature
and/or social environment?
Do I have the human subjects from and the participant consent forms
completed for my study and ach of the participants?