CIR 201: Research Methods

and Technical Writing

Lecturer: Dr. Oteyo Obare

Formulating a Research Problem

The research problem

• Broadly speaking, any question that you want answered and any
assumption or assertion that you want to challenge or investigate can
become a research problem or a research topic for your study.
• However, it is important to remember that not all questions can be
transformed into research problems and some may prove to be
extremely difficult to study.
• It is essential for the problem you formulate to be able to withstand
scrutiny in terms of the procedures required to be undertaken. Hence
you should spend considerable time in thinking it through.
The importance of formulating a research problem

• The formulation of a research problem is the first and most important step
of the research process. It is like the identification of a destination before
undertaking a journey.
• In the absence of a destination, it is impossible to identify the shortest – or
indeed any – route. Similarly, in the absence of a clear research problem, a
clear and economical plan is impossible.
• To use another analogy, a research problem is like the foundation of a
building. The type and design of the building are dependent upon the
foundation. If the foundation is well designed and strong you can expect the
building to be also.
• The research problem serves as the foundation of a research study: if it is
well formulated, you can expect a good study to follow.
The importance of formulating a research problem

• A research problem may take a number of forms, from the very simple to
the very complex.
• The way you formulate a problem determines almost every step that
follows: the type of study design that can be used; the type of sampling
strategy that can be employed; the research instrument that can be used or
developed; and the type of analysis that can be undertaken.
• The formulation of a problem is like the ‘input’ to a study, and the ‘output’ –
the quality of the contents of the research report and the validity of the
associations or causation established – is entirely dependent upon it.
• Hence the famous saying about computers, ‘garbage in, garbage out’, is
equally applicable to a research problem.
Sources of research problems

• Most research revolves around four Ps:

• people;
• problems;
• programmes;
• phenomena.
• In fact, a closer look at any academic or occupational field will show that most
research revolves around these four Ps. The emphasis on a particular ‘P’ may vary
from study to study but generally, in practice, most research studies are based
upon at least a combination of two Ps.
• You may select a group of individuals (a group of individuals – or a community as
such – ‘people’), to examine the existence of certain issues or problems relating to
their lives, to ascertain their attitude towards an issue (‘problem’), to establish the
existence of a regularity (‘phenomenon’) or to evaluate the effectiveness of an
intervention (‘programme’).
Sources of research problems
• Your focus may be the study of an issue, an association or a phenomenon; for
example, the relationship between technology and unemployment, which is done
on the basis of information collected from individuals, groups, communities or
organizations.
• The emphasis in these studies is on exploring, discovering or establishing
associations or causation. Similarly, you can study different aspects of a
programme: its effectiveness, its structure, the need for it, consumers’ satisfaction
with it, and so on.
• In order to ascertain these you collect information from people.
• Every research study has two aspects: the people provide you with the ‘study
population’, whereas the other three Ps furnish the ‘subject areas’. Your study
population – individuals, groups and communities – is the people from whom the
information is collected.
• Your subject area is a problem, programme and phenomenon about which the
information is collected.
Considerations in selecting a research problem

• When selecting a research problem/topic there are a number of considerations to keep in

mind which will help to ensure that your study will be manageable and that you remain
motivated.
• These considerations are:
• Interest – Interest should be the most important consideration in selecting a research
problem. A research endeavour is usually time consuming, and involves hard work and
possibly unforeseen problems.
• If you select a topic which does not greatly interest you, it could become extremely
difficult to sustain the required motivation and put in enough time and energy to complete
it.
• Magnitude – You should have sufficient knowledge about the research process to be able
to visualise the work involved in completing the proposed study.
• Narrow the topic down to something manageable, specific and clear. It is extremely
important to select a topic that you can manage within the time and with the resources at
your disposal.
Considerations in selecting a research problem

• Measurement of concepts – If you are using a concept in your study (in

quantitative studies), make sure you are clear about its indicators and their
measurement.
• For example, if you plan to measure the effectiveness of a health promotion
programme, you must be clear as to what determines effectiveness and how it will
be measured. Do not use concepts in your research problem that you are not sure
how to measure.
• This does not mean you cannot develop a measurement procedure as the study
progresses. While most of the developmental work will be done during your study,
it is imperative that you are reasonably clear about the measurement of these
concepts at this stage.
• Level of expertise – Make sure you have an adequate level of expertise for the
task you are proposing. Allow for the fact that you will learn during the study and
may receive help from your research supervisor and others, but remember that you
need to do most of the work yourself.
Considerations in selecting a research problem

• Relevance – Select a topic that is of relevance to you as a professional. Ensure

that your study adds to the existing body of knowledge, bridges current gaps or is
useful in policy formulation.
• This will help you to sustain interest in the study.
• Availability of data – If your topic entails collection of information from
secondary sources (office records, client records, census or other already-
published reports, etc.) make sure that this data is available and in the format you
want before finalising your topic.
• Ethical issues – Another important consideration in formulating a research
problem is the ethical issues involved. In the course of conducting a research
study, the study population may be adversely affected by some of the questions
(directly or indirectly); deprived of an intervention; expected to share sensitive and
private information; or expected to be simply experimental ‘guinea pigs’. How
ethical issues can affect the study population and how ethical problems can be
overcome should be thoroughly examined at the problem-formulation stage.
Steps in formulating a research problem

• Identify a broad field or subject area of interest to you.

• Dissect the broad area into subareas.
• Select what is of most interest to you.
• Raise research questions.
• Formulate objectives.
• Assess your objectives.
• Double-check.
The formulation of research objectives

• Objectives are the goals you set out to attain in your study. Since these
objectives inform a reader of what you want to achieve through the study, it
is extremely important to word them clearly and specifically.
• Objectives should be listed under two headings:
• Main objectives;
• Sub objectives.
• The main objective is an overall statement of the thrust of your study. It is
also a statement of the main associations and relationships that you seek to
discover or establish.
• The sub objectives are the specific aspects of the topic that you want to
investigate within the main framework of your study.
The formulation of research objectives

• Sub objectives should be numerically listed. They should be worded clearly

and unambiguously.
• Make sure that each sub objective contains only one aspect of the study. Use
action-oriented words or verbs when writing your objectives.
• The objectives should start with words such as ‘to determine’, ‘to find out’,
‘to ascertain’, ‘to measure’ ‘to explore’, and ‘to design’.
• The way the main objectives and sub objectives are worded determines how
your research is classified (e.g. descriptive, correlational or experimental).
• In other words, the wording of your objectives determines the type of
research design you need to adopt to achieve them.
Establishing operational definitions

• In defining the problem you may use certain words or items that are difficult to
measure and/or the understanding of which may vary from respondent to
respondent. In a research study it is important to develop, define or establish a set
of rules, indicators or yardsticks in order to establish clearly the meaning of such
words/items.
• When you define concepts that you plan to use either in your research problem
and/or in identifying the study population in a measurable form, they are called
working definitions or operational definitions.
• You must understand that these working definitions that you develop are only for
the purpose of your study and could be quite different to legal definitions, or those
used by others.
• As the understanding of concepts can vary significantly from person to person,
your working definitions will inform your readers what exactly you mean by the
concepts that you have used in your study.
Establishing operational definitions

• In a research study you need to define these clearly in order to avoid

ambiguity and confusion.
• This is achieved through the process of developing
operational/working definitions.