PROBLEM FORMULATION
Defining a Researchable Problem
Research Methods
College of Public and Community Service
University of Massachusetts at Boston
©2011 William Holmes
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PROBLEM FORMULATION:
SOURCES OF IDEAS
 News Stories
 Personal Experiences
 Review of Research
• Electronic Databases
• Library Indexes
• Web pages
• Internet Libraries – NCJRS,
NLM…
 Authorities
• Opinion Leaders
• Funding Sources
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PROBLEM FORMULATION:
FOCUSING (DEFINING) THE PROBLEM
• Ways of Defining Problem
– Formal (nominal), defining with
words
– Example (epistemic), defining by
example
– Procedural (operational), defining
a method to recognize examples
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SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS: 1
• Articles in Professional
Journals
• Electronic Abstracts and
Indexes
• Web Searches
• Books, Monographs,
Government Reports
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SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS: 2
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Professional Standards
Legislation
Regulations
Journalistic Sources
Advocacy Groups
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 1
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Focused
Empirical
Clear
Based on prior
research or theory
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 2
• Important to answer
• Does not use
“should”
• Has intuitive appeal
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PROBLEM FORMULATION:
TYPES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS
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Exploratory
Descriptive
Explanatory
Predictive
Evaluative
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EXPLORATORY QUESTIONS
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Clarifying Questions
Clarifying Populations
Clarifying Ideas
Open-ended
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DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS
• Obtaining specific facts
• Obtaining facts to describe
issue
• Summarizing population
characteristics
• Examining non-causal
relationships
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EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS: 1
• Examines causal
relationships
• Tests causal
hypotheses
• Explains relationships
• Builds theories
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EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS: 2
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PREDICTION
• Predicts events
• Predicts characteristics
• Uses Theory and
Description
• Develops predictive
equations
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MIXED QUESTIONS
• Triangulation
• Multi-measures
• Multi-methods
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