E-mail me
The Problem Statement
"The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance." - Confucius
Researchable problems fit the requirements of the scientific method. There are two levels of researchable problems:
- 1. problems that aim to increase knowledge
2. problems that strive to make life better
A research problem is not:
- - something that serves to educate you personally or for sself-enlightenment
- something whose sole purpose is to compare 2 sets of data
- something that finds a coefficient of correlation between 2 sets of data (just a statistics question, no thought required)
- something that results in a yes/no answer
Things to keep in mind when creating the problem statement:
- formulate a problem that is carefully phrased and represents the single goal of the total research effort
- don't "do"" research, think
- consider how you will gather facts to resolve the problem
- thinking on the part of the researcher is required; interpretation of data
Steps in Creating the Problem Statement
1. Take your list of 10 topics and narrow the list down to 3 topics, which you would seriously consider using for your proposal.
2. Write problem statements for each topic. Most problem statements are stated in the form of a question. Make sure that you:
- use a complete grammatical sentence
- clearly state the problem
- say precisely what you mean
- think, consider, and estimate the scope of the problem and how far you want to go with your research
- edit your writing
3. Submit the statements to be edited by your peers and your teacher. After peer editing, edit your problem statements.
4. Decide which problem best suits you.
5. Now you have your Problem Statement! Keep in mind that whatever changes you make to your Problem Statement after this point will probably impact all the other pieces of your research proposal, and you will have to edit those as well. Now, you're ready to move on to the Subproblems.
Example
This is the problem statement I ended up using for my own research proposal:
"How has the popularity of Japanese animation in the U.S. from 1999-2000 affected the content of pre-teen cartoons (aimed at children aged 10-14) produced in 2000-01 in the U.S.?
This page is created and maintained by Jennifer Tam. Copyright 2001.