3 The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process

The Problem: The Heart

of the Research Process

PART TWO Focusing Your Research Efforts

The problem or question is the axis around which the whole research

effort revolves. The statement of the problem must first be expressed with

the utmost precision; it should then be divided into more manageable

subproblems. Such an approach clarifies the goals and directions of the

entire research effort.

The heart of every research project is the problem. It is paramount to the success of the research

effort. To see the problem with unwavering clarity and to state it in precise and unmistakable

terms is the first requirement in the research process.

Finding Research Projects

Problems in need of research are everywhere. To get an idea of typical research projects for doc-

toral dissertations, go to the reference room at your university library, open any volume of

Dissertation Abstracts International—most university libraries also have these abstracts in an

online database—and look at the dissertation abstracts in your academic discipline. To get an

online sample of recent published research studies in your area of interest, go to Google Scholar

at www.scholar.google.com; type a topic in the search box and then click on some of the titles

that pique your curiosity.

Some research projects are intended to enhance basic knowledge about the physical, biological,

psychological, or social world or to shed light on historical, cultural, or aesthetic phenomena. For

example, a psychologist might study the nature of people’s cognitive processes, and an ornithologist

might study the mating habits of a particular species of birds. Such projects, which can advance

human beings’ theoretical conceptualizations about a particular topic, are known as basic research.

Other research projects are intended to address issues that have immediate relevance to cur-

rent practices, procedures, and policies. For example, a nursing educator might compare the

effectiveness of different strategies for training future nurses, and an agronomist might study the

effects of various fertilizers on the growth of sunflowers. Such projects, which can inform human

decision making about practical problems, are known as applied research. Occasionally

applied research involves addressing questions in one’s immediate work environment, with the

goal of solving an ongoing problem in that environment; such research is known as action research

(e.g., Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Mills, 2007).

Keep in mind, however, that the line between basic research and applied research is, at best,

a blurry one. Answering questions about basic theoretical issues can often inform current prac-

tice in the everyday world; for example, by studying the mating habits of a particular species of

birds, an ornithologist might lead the way in saving that species from extinction. Similarly,

answering questions about practical problems may enhance theoretical understandings of partic-

ular phenomena; for example, the nursing educator who finds that one approach to training

To identify and define important

terms included in this chapter, go

to the Activities and Applications

section in Chapter 3 of

MyEducationalResearchLab,

located at www.myeducationlab.

com. Complete Activity 1:

Defining Key Terms.

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Chapter 3 The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process 45

nurses is more effective than another may enhance psychologists’ understanding of how, in

general, people learn new skills.

Regardless of whether you conduct basic or applied research, a research project is likely to

take a significant amount of your time and energy, so whatever problem you study should be

worth that time and energy. As you begin the process of identifying a suitable research problem

to tackle, keep two criteria in mind. First, your problem should address an important question,

such that the answer can actually “make a difference” in some way. And second, it should

advance the frontiers of knowledge, perhaps by leading to new ways of thinking, suggesting

possible applications, or paving the way for further research in the field. To accomplish both of

these ends, your research project must involve not only the collection of data but also the

interpretation of those data.

Some problems are not suitable for research because they lack the “interpretation of data”

requirement; they do not elicit a mental struggle on the part of the researcher to force the data

to reveal their meaning. Following are four situations to avoid when considering a problem for

research purposes:

1. Research projects should not be a ruse for achieving self-enlightenment. All of us have large holes

in our education, and filling them is perhaps the greatest joy of learning. But self-enlightenment

is not the purpose of research. Gathering information to know more about a certain area of

knowledge is entirely different from looking at a body of data to discern how it contributes to

the solution of the problem.

A student once submitted the following as the statement of a research problem:

The problem of this research is to learn more about the way in which the Panama

Canal was built.

For this student, the information-finding effort would provide the satisfaction of having gained

more knowledge about a particular topic, but it would not have led to new knowledge.

2. A problem whose sole purpose is to compare two sets of data is not a suitable research problem.

Take

this proposed problem for research:

This research project will compare the increase in the number of women employed

over 100 years—from 1870 to 1970—with the employment of men over the same

time span.

A simple table completes the project (Historical Statistics, 1975).

The “research” project involves nothing more than a quick trip to the library to reveal what is

already known.

3. Calculating a correlation coefficient between two sets of data to show a relationship between them is not

acceptable as a problem for research. Why? Because the basic requirement for research is ignored: a

human mind struggling with data. What we see here is a proposal to perform a statistical operation

that a computer can do infinitely faster and more accurately than a person can. A correlation coeffi-

cient is nothing more than a statistic that expresses how closely two characteristics or other variables

are associated with each other. It tells us nothing about why the association exists.

Some novice researchers think that their work is done when they collect data and, by using a

simple statistical procedure, find that two variables are closely related. In fact, their work is not

done at this point; it has only begun. For example, many researchers have found a correlation

between the IQ scores of children and those of their parents. In and of itself, this fact has very lit-

tle usefulness. It does, however, suggest a problem for research: What is the cause of the relation-

ship between children’s and parents’ intelligence test scores? Is it genetic? Is it environmental?

Is it a combination of both genetics and environment?

1870 1970

Women employed

13,970,000 72,744,000

Men employed

12,506,000 85,903,000

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46 Part II Focusing Your Research Efforts

4. Problems that result in a yes or no answer are not suitable problems for research. Why? For the same

reason that merely finding a correlation coefficient is unsatisfactory. Both situations simply skim the

surface of the phenomenon under investigation, without exploring the mechanisms underlying it.

“Is homework beneficial to children?” That is no problem for research, certainly not in the

form in which it is stated. The researchable issue is not whether homework is beneficial, but

wherein the benefit of homework, if there is one, lies. Which components of homework are ben-

eficial? Which ones are counterproductive? If we knew the answers to these questions, then

teachers could structure homework assignments with more purpose and greater intelligence—

and thereby promote the learning of children—more effectively than they do now.

There is so much to learn and so many important questions being generated each day that

we should look for significant problems and not dwell on those that will make little, if any, con-

tribution. Peter Medawar (1979), a Nobel laureate who investigated causes of the human body’s

rejection of organs and tissues transplanted from other human beings, gave wise advice to the

young scientist when asked about conducting research:

It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important

discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling

answers. It is not enough that a problem should be “interesting”—almost any problem is interest-

ing if it is studied in sufficient depth. (p. 13)

Good research, then, begins with identifying a good question to ask—ideally a question

that no one has ever thought to ask before. In our minds, researchers who contribute the most to

our understanding of the physical, biological, psychological, and social worlds are those who

pose questions that lead us into entirely new lines of inquiry. To illustrate, let’s return to that

correlation between the IQ scores of children and those of their parents. For many years, psy-

chologists bickered about the relative influences of heredity and environment on intelligence

and other human characteristics. They now know not only that heredity and environment both

influence virtually every aspect of human functioning but also that they influence each other’s influ-

ences (for a good, down-to-earth discussion of this point, see Lippa, 2002). Rather than ask the

question “How much do heredity and environment each influence human behavior?” a more

fruitful question—one that’s fairly new on the scene—is “How do heredity and environment

interact in their influences on behavior?”

PRACTICAL APPLICATION Identifying and Describing

the Research Problem

How can the beginning researcher formulate an important and useful research problem? Here we

offer guidelines both for identifying a particular problem and for describing it in precise terms.

GUIDELINES Finding a Legitimate Problem

As a general rule, appropriate research projects don’t fall out of trees and hit you on the head.

You must be sufficiently knowledgeable about your topic of interest to know what projects

might make important contributions to the field. Following are several strategies that are often

helpful for novice and expert researchers alike.

1. Look around you. In many disciplines, questions that need answers—phenomena that need

explanation—are everywhere. For example, let’s look back to the early 17th century, when

Galileo was trying to make sense of a variety of earthly and celestial phenomena. For example,

why did large bodies of water (but not small ones) rise and fall in the form of tides twice a day?

Why did sunspots consistently move across the sun’s surface from right to left, gradually disap-

pear, and then, about 2 weeks later, reappear on the right edge? Furthermore, why did sunspots

usually move in an upward or downward path as they traversed the sun’s surface, while only

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Practical Research: Planning and Design,

Ninth Edition, by Paul D. Leedy and Jeanne Ellis Ormrod. Published by Merrill.

Chapter 3 The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process 47

occasionally moving in a direct, horizontal fashion? Galileo correctly deduced that the various

“paths” of sunspots could be explained by the facts that both the earth and sun were spinning on

tilted axes and that (contrary to popular opinion at the time) the earth revolved around the sun

rather than vice versa. Galileo was less successful in explaining tides, attributing them to the

natural “sloshing” that would take place as the earth moved through space rather than to the

moon’s gravitational pull (Sobel, 2000).

We do not mean to suggest that novice researchers should take on such monumental questions

as the nature of the solar system or oceanic tides. But smaller problems suitable for research exist

everywhere. Perhaps you might see them in your professional practice or in everyday events.

Continually ask yourself questions about what you see and hear: Why does such-and-such

happen? What makes such-and-such tick? and so on.

2. Read the literature. One essential strategy is to find out what things are already known

about your topic of interest; little can be gained by reinventing the wheel. In addition to telling

you what is already known, the existing literature is likely to tell you what is not known in the

area—in other words, what still needs to be done. For instance, your research project might

■ Address the suggestions for future research that another researcher has identified

■ Replicate a research project in a different setting or with a different population

■ Consider how various subpopulations might behave differently in the same situation

■ Apply an existing perspective or theory to a new situation

■ Explore unexpected or contradictory findings in previous studies

■ Challenge research findings that seem to contradict what you know or believe to be true

(Neuman, 1994)

Reading the literature has other advantages as well. It gives you a theoretical base on which

to generate hypotheses and build a rationale for your study. It provides potential research

methodologies and methods of measurement. And it can help you interpret your results and

relate them to what is already known in the field. (We address strategies for finding and review-

ing related literature in Chapter 4.)

3. Attend professional conferences. Many researchers have great success finding new research

projects at national or regional conferences in their discipline. By scanning the conference pro-

gram and attending sessions of interest, they can learn “what’s hot and what’s not” in their field.

Furthermore, conferences are a place where novice researchers can make contacts with experts in

their field—where they can ask questions, share ideas, and exchange e-mail addresses with more

experienced and knowledgeable individuals.

Some beginning researchers, including many students, are reluctant to approach well-

known scholars at conferences, for fear that these scholars don’t have the time or patience to talk

with novices. Quite the opposite is true: Most experienced researchers are happy to talk with

people who are just starting out. In fact, they may feel flattered that you are familiar with their

work and that you would like to extend or apply it in some way.

4. Seek the advice of experts. Another simple yet highly effective strategy for identifying a

research problem is simply to ask an expert: What needs to be done? What burning questions

are still out there? What previous research findings seemingly don’t make sense? Your professors

will almost certainly be able to answer each of these questions, as will other scholars you may

meet at conferences or elsewhere.

5. Choose a topic that intrigues and motivates you. As you read the professional literature, attend

conferences, and talk with experts, you will uncover a number of potential research problems.

At this point, you need to pick just one of them, and your selection should be based on what you

personally want to learn more about. Remember, the project you’re about to undertake will take

you many months, quite possibly a couple of years or even longer. So it should be something that

you believe is worth your time and effort—even better, one you are truly passionate about. Peter

Leavenworth, at the time a doctoral student in history, explained the importance of choosing an

interesting dissertation topic this way: “You’re going to be married to it, so you might as

well enjoy it.”

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48 Part II Focusing Your Research Efforts

As noted earlier, the heart of any research project is the problem. At every step in the process,

successful researchers ask themselves: What am I doing? For what purpose am I doing it? Such

questions can help focus your efforts toward achieving your ultimate purpose for gathering data:

to resolve the problem.

Researchers get off to a strong start when they begin with an unmistakably clear statement

of the problem. After identifying a research problem, therefore, you must articulate it in such a

way that it is carefully phrased and represents the single goal of the total research effort. Following are

some general guidelines to help you do just that:

1. State the problem clearly and completely. Your problem should be so clearly stated that anyone

who reads English can read and understand it. If the problem is not stated with such clarity, then

you are merely deceiving yourself that you know what the problem is. Such self-deception will

cause you difficulty later on.

You can state your problem clearly only when you also state it completely. At a minimum,

you should describe it in one or more grammatically complete sentences. As examples of what not to

do, following are some meaningless half-statements—verbal fragments that only hint at the

problem. Ask yourself whether you understand exactly what each student researcher plans to do.

From a student in sociology:

Welfare on children’s attitudes.

From a student in music:

Palestrina and the motet.

From a student in economics:

Busing of schoolchildren.

From a student in social work:

Retirement plans of adults.

Unfortunately, all four statements lack clarity. It is imperative to think in terms of specific,

researchable goals expressed in complete sentences. We take the preceding fragments and

develop each of them into one or more complete sentences that describe a researchable problem.

Welfare on children’s attitudes becomes:

What effect does welfare assistance to parents have on the attitudes of their

children toward work?

Palestrina and the motet becomes:

This study will analyze the motets of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?–1594)

written between 1575 and 1580 to discover their distinctive contrapuntal

GUIDELINES Stating the Research Problem

6. Choose a topic that others will find interesting and worthy of attention. Ideally, your work

should not end with a thesis, dissertation, or other unpublished research report. If your research

adds an important piece to what human beings know and understand about the world, then

you will, we hope, want to share your findings with a larger audience. In other words, you will

want to describe what you have done at a regional or national conference, publish an article in

a professional journal, or both (we’ll talk more about doing such things in Chapter 12).

Conference coordinators and journal editors are often quite selective about the papers they

accept for presentation or publication, and they are most likely to choose those papers that will

have broad appeal.

Future employers, too, may make judgments about you, at least in part, based on the topic

you have chosen for a thesis or dissertation. Your résumé or curriculum vitae will be more apt to

attract their attention if, in your research, you are pursuing an issue of broad scientific or social

concern or, more generally, a hot topic in your field.

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Practical Research: Planning and Design,

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Chapter 3 The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process 49

characteristics and will contrast them with the motets of his contemporary William

Byrd (1542?–1623) written between 1592 and 1597. During the periods studied, each

composer was between 50 and 55 years of age.

Busing of schoolchildren becomes:

What factors must be evaluated and what are the relative weights of those several

factors in constructing a formula for estimating the cost of busing children in a

midwestern metropolitan school system?

Retirement plans for adults becomes:

How do retirement plans for adults compare with the actual realization, in retire-

ment, of those plans in terms of self-satisfaction and self-adjustment? What does an

analysis of the difference between anticipation and realization reveal for a more

intelligent approach to planning?

Notice that, in the full statement of each of these problems, the areas studied are carefully

limited so that the study is of manageable size. The author of the Palestrina–Byrd study care-

fully limited the motets that would be studied to those written when each composer was

between 50 and 55 years of age. A glance at the listing of Palestrina’s works in Grove’s Dictionary

of Music and Musicians demonstrates how impractical it would be for a student to undertake a

study of all the Palestrina motets. He wrote 392 of them!

2. Think through the feasibility of the project that the problem implies. Students sometimes rush

into a problem without thinking through its implications. It’s great to have ideas. It’s much bet-

ter to have practical ideas. Before your enthusiasm overtakes you, consider the following research

proposal submitted by John:

This study proposes to study the science programs in the secondary schools in the

United States for the purpose of . . .

Let’s think about that. The United States has more than 24,000 public and private second-

ary schools. These schools, north to south, extend from Alaska to the tip of Florida; east to west,

from Maine to Hawaii. Certain practical questions immediately surface. How does John intend

to contact each of these schools? By personal visit? Being very optimistic, he might be able to

visit two schools per day—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That would amount to

more than 12,000 visitation days. The number of school days in the average school year is 180,

so it would take more than 66 years for John to gather the data. Furthermore, the financial out-

lay for the project would be exorbitant; if we conservatively estimated $125 for daily meals,

lodging, and travel, John would be spending $1.5 million just to collect the data!

“But,” John explains, “I plan to gather the data by mail with a questionnaire.” Fine! Each

letter to the 24,000 schools, with an enclosed questionnaire and a return postage-paid envelope,

would probably cost at least a dollar just for the postage. Thus, the total postage cost for letters

to all the schools would be at least $24,000. And we mustn’t overlook the fact that John would

need a second and perhaps a third mailing. A 50% return on the first mailing would be consid-

ered a good return. But, for the nonreturnees, a follow-up mailing would be needed, at a cost of

another $12,000. That would bring the mailing bill to approximately $36,000. And we haven’t

even figured in the cost of envelopes, stationery, photocopying, and data analysis. All in all, we

are talking about a project that would cost well over $40,000.

Obviously, John did not intend to send surveys to every school in the United States, yet that

is what he wrote that he would do.

3. Say precisely what you mean. When you state your research problem, you should say exactly

what you mean. You cannot assume that others will be able to read your mind. People will

always take your words at their face value: You mean what you say. That’s it.

Your failure to be careful with your words can have grave results for your status as a scholar

and a researcher. In the academic community, a basic rule prevails: Absolute honesty and integrity

are assumed in every statement a scholar makes.

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50 Part II Focusing Your Research Efforts

Look again at John’s problem statement. We could assume that John means to fulfill pre-

cisely what he has stated (although we would doubt it, given the time and expense involved).

Had he intended to survey only some schools, then he should have said so plainly:

This study proposes to survey the science programs

in selected secondary schools

throughout the United States

Or, perhaps he could have limited his study to a specific geographical area or to schools serving

certain kinds of students. Such an approach would give the problem constraints that the original

statement lacked and would communicate to others what John intended to do—what he realis-

tically could commit to doing. Furthermore, it would have preserved his reputation as a

researcher of integrity and precision.

Ultimately, an imprecisely stated research problem can lead others to have reservations

about the quality of the overall research project. If a researcher cannot be meticulous and precise

in stating the nature of the problem, others might question whether such a researcher is likely to

be any more meticulous and precise in gathering and interpreting the data. Such uncertainty

and misgivings are very serious indeed, for they reflect on the basic integrity of the whole

research effort.

We have discussed some common difficulties in the statement of the problem, including

statements that are unclear or incomplete and statements that suggest impractical or impossible

projects. Here’s another difficulty: Occasionally, a researcher talks about the problem but never

actually states what the problem is. Under the excuse that the problem needs an introduction or

needs to be seen against a background, the researcher launches into a generalized discussion,

continually obscuring the problem, never clearly articulating it. Take, for example, the follow-

ing paragraph that appeared under the heading “Statement of the Problem”:

The upsurge of interest in reading and learning disabilities found among both

children and adults has focused the attention of educators, psychologists, and

linguists on the language syndrome. In order to understand how language is

learned, it is necessary to understand what language is. Language acquisition is

a normal developmental aspect of every individual, but it has not been studied

in sufficient depth. To provide us with the necessary background information to

understand the anomaly of language deficiency implies a knowledge of the

developmental process of language as these relate to the individual from infancy

to maturity. Grammar, also an aspect of language learning, is acquired through

pragmatic language usage. Phonology, syntax, and semantics are all intimately

involved in the study of any language disability.

Can you find a statement of problem here? Several problems are suggested, but none is articulated

with sufficient clarity that we might put a finger on it and say, “There, that is the problem.”

Earlier in this chapter, we invited you to go to Dissertation Abstracts International to see how

the world of research and the real world of everyday living are intertwined. Now return to those

abstracts and notice with what directness the problems are set forth. The problem should be

stated in the very first words of an abstract: “The purpose of this study is to. . .” No mistaking it,

no background buildup necessary—just a straightforward plunge into the business at hand. All

research problems should be stated with the same clarity.

4. State the problem in a way that reflects an open mind about its solution. In our own research

methods classes, we have occasionally seen research proposals in which the authors state that

they intend to prove that such-and-such a fact is true. For example, a student once proposed the

following research project:

In this study, I will prove that obese adults experience greater psychological

distress than adults with a healthy body mass index.

This is not a research question; it is a presumed—and quite presumptuous!—answer to a research

question. If this student already knew the answer to her question, why was she proposing to

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Practical Research: Planning and Design,

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Chapter 3 The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process 51

study it? Furthermore, as we noted in Chapter 1, it is quite difficult to prove something defini-

tively, beyond the shadow of a doubt. We can certainly obtain data consistent with what we

believe to be true, but in the world of research we can rarely say with one hundred percent cer-

tainty that it is true.

Good researchers try to keep open minds about what they might find. Perhaps they will find

the result they hope to find, perhaps not. Any hypothesis should be stated as exactly that—a

hypothesis—rather than as a foregone conclusion. As we will see shortly, hypotheses certainly do

have their place in a research proposal. However, they should not be part of the problem statement.

Let’s rewrite the preceding research problem, this time omitting any expectation of results

that the research effort might yield:

In this study, I will investigate the possible relationship between body mass

index and psychological stress, as well as more specific psychological factors

(e.g., depression, anxiety) that might underlie such a relationship.

Such a statement clearly communicates that the researcher is open-minded about what she may

or may not find.

5. Edit your work. You can avoid the difficulties we have been discussing by carefully editing

your words. Editing is sharpening a thought to a gemlike point and eliminating useless verbiage.

Choose your words precisely. Doing so will clarify your writing.

The sentences in the preceding paragraph began as a mishmash of foggy thought and jum-

bled verbiage. The original version of the paragraph contained 71 words. These were edited

down to 37 words. This is a reduction of about 50% and a great improvement in readability.

Figure 3.1 shows the original version and the way it was edited. The three lines under the c in

choose means that the first letter should be capitalized. When we discuss editing in more detail in

Chapter 6, we’ll present some of the common editing marks and what they mean.

Notice the directness of the edited copy. We eliminated unnecessarily wordy phrases—

“relating to the statement of the problem,” “a process whereby the writer attempts to bring

what is said straight to the point”—replacing the verbosity with seven words: “sharpening a

thought to a gemlike point.”

Editing almost invariably improves your thinking and your prose. Many students think

that any words that approximate a thought are adequate to convey it to others. This is not so.

Approximation is never precision.

The thought’s the thing. It is clearest when it is clothed in simple words, concrete nouns,

and active, expressive verbs. Every student would do well to study how the great writers and

poets set their thoughts into words. These masters have much to say by way of illustration to

those who have trouble putting their own thoughts on paper.

The following checklist can help you formulate a research problem that is clear, precise, and

accurate.

We have been discussing several common difficulties

relating to the statement of the problem. These can be

improved or remedied through a careful editing of your

words. Editing is a process whereby the writer attempts

to bring what is said straight to the point. Editing also

eliminates many meaningless expressions. We should

therefore, choose our words carefully. By editing the words

we have written our expression will take on new life.

by carefully

sharpening a thought

a gemlike

and eliminating useless verbiage

your precisely Doing so

clarify your writing

You can avoid the difficulties

FIGURE 3.1

Editing to clarify your

writing: An example

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52 Part II Focusing Your Research Efforts

Dividing the Research Problem Into Subproblems

Most research problems are too large or too complex to be solved without subdividing them.

The strategy, therefore, is to divide and conquer. Almost every problem can be broken down into

smaller units. From a research standpoint, these units are easier to address and resolve.

CHECKLIST

Evaluating the Research Problem

1. Write a clear statement of a problem for research.

2. Review your written statement and ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the problem stated in a complete, grammatical sentence?

• Is it clear how the area of study will be limited or focused?

• Is it clear that you have an open mind about results that the research effort

might yield?

3. On the basis of your answers to the questions in item 2, edit your written statement.

4. Look at your edited statement and reflect on the following questions:

• Does the answer to this problem have the potential for providing important

and useful answers and information?

• Will the result be more than a simple exercise in gathering information,

answering a yes/no question, or making a simple comparison?

• Is the problem focused enough to be accomplished with a reasonable

expenditure of time, money, and effort?

5. Looking at the statement once more, consider this: Is the problem really what you

want to investigate?

6. Show other research students your work. Ask them to consider the questions listed

in items 2 and 4 and then to give you their comments. With your compiled

feedback, edit and rewrite your problem statement once again:

✔

ISBN: 0-558-65200-X

Practical Research: Planning and Design,

Ninth Edition, by Paul D. Leedy and Jeanne Ellis Ormrod. Published by Merrill.