It has been said that the quality of a research problem defines your success. So here I want to make my contribution with twenty questions to ask yourself when trying to come up with your problem statement. Ten are on the research problem itself and ten on writing up the research problem statement. Make some notes as you answer them and by the end, you should be ready to put it together!
10 on the research problem
- Will my problem be truly compelling to a wider community of people or am I just a bit curious about it?
- Can my research problem generate a range of explanatory perspectives/ theories, is it something that reasonable people can debate over?
- Can my research problem be supported by the resources that are available to me? (e.g. Library).
- Does my research problem pass the “so what?” test?
- Will my research problem open the way for further research?
- Can my research problem be investigated through the collection of data?
- Am I personally capable/ able to collect the data needed to address my research problem?
- Does my research problem stay within the boundaries of what is acceptable to my supervisor(s) department?
- Do I actually care about my research problem; will I stay motivated?
- Does my research problem pass the ‘RIPES’ test: focussed, relevant, achievable, doable interesting, significant?
10 on the research problem statement
- Does my problem statement start broad and then narrow to the specific research question(s)?
- Does my problem statement give sufficient background/ context?
- Have I stated where and when the problem arises? Whether there are geographic limitations to the problem.
- Have I included who is affected by the problem?
- Have I summarised what is already known about the problem?
- Is there a brief summary of the attempts already made to solve this problem, either practically or academically?
- Does my problem statement answer the question: What is the problem that the research will address?
- Have I addressed a gap in the knowledge about my research problem?
- Does my problem statement clarify (briefly) what the expected outcomes are from the proposed research endeavour?
- Does my problem statement conclude by summarizing both the problem and the solution?
So there are your 20 questions. Not all will help you but even if just one of them does it could make a real difference to your PhD journey.
Hopefully, this will help you devise your research problem and research problem statement but if you would like some more assistance with it or any other parts of your dissertation or thesis then why not get in touch.
