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PROBLEM FORMULATION Defining a Researchable Problem Research Methods College of Public and Community Service University of Massachusetts at Boston ©2011 William Holmes 1
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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 2
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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 3
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SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS: 1 Articles in Professional Journals Electronic Abstracts and Indexes Web Searches Books, Monographs, Government Reports 4
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SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS: 2 Professional Standards Legislation Regulations Journalistic Sources Advocacy Groups 5
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 1 Focused Empirical Clear Based on prior research or theory 6
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 2 Important to answer Does not use “should” Has intuitive appeal 7
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PROBLEM FORMULATION: TYPES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS Exploratory Descriptive Explanatory Predictive Evaluative 8
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EXPLORATORY QUESTIONS Clarifying Questions Clarifying Populations Clarifying Ideas Open-ended 9
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DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS Obtaining specific facts Obtaining facts to describe issue Summarizing population characteristics Examining non-causal relationships 10
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EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS: 1 Examines causal relationships Tests causal hypotheses Explains relationships Builds theories 11
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EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS: 2 12
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PREDICTION Predicts events Predicts characteristics Uses Theory and Description Develops predictive equations 13
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MIXED QUESTIONS Triangulation Multi-measures Multi-methods 14
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