Supporting Effective Research Skills: Identifying a Research Problem

Research skills are an important part of success for students and employees across disciplines, as research skills help us solve problems as they arise in our workplace. Last week I discussed evaluating and crediting sources used in research. This week, let's look at identifying research problems to define one's research. This skill is vital to developing research studies, because the research problem is what drives the research questions you will examine and creates a high-level framework for what you will study in your research. 

A research study is designed around the research problem that you identify. The research problem might be an issue, gap, challenge, contradiction, or difficulty that you want to learn more about. A research problem typically aims to examine problems that can be solved or changed, or problems of theory that will expand our collective knowledge of the subject under study. A well-defined research problem will create boundaries on the research study, to keep it focused and manageable. The research problem ensures you are contributing something new and relevant to the discipline. 

Identify a Broad Problem Area

To get started, you'll want to identify a broad problem area such as the issues, challenges, inefficiencies, or complications that are going on in your discipline, workplace or community. You can observe what’s going on around you and read industry trade magazines or journals to learn about challenges faced in your industry. These types of problem areas will typically lead you to research problems that can be solved or changed. Alternatively, you can examine the academic literature in peer reviewed journals within your discipline where authors of research reports will include their recommendations for future research. You can select one of those recommendations and use that to develop your research problem for study. These type of problem areas often lead to research into theoretical underpinnings in the discipline.

Learn More: Review Related Literature

Once you've selected a broad problem area, you need to learn more about it in order to evaluate the problem and ensure it's suitable for your research study. Continue reading credible sources to learn more about who is affected by the problem, how long the problem has been going on, what other research has occurred about the problem, and what solutions might have been tried. The additional information you learn will help narrow your topic to determine your focus on who, what, where, and when. You will identify aspects of the problem area that are in and out of scope for your current research effort. You may identify possible benefits if the problem is solved or consequences if it is not, an aspect of relevance for your research problem and research study.

Write the Problem Statement

Now that you've narrowed down your problem area and learned more about it, you are ready to write the problem statement. It should introduce your problem and its importance, place the problem in an appropriate and particular context with parameters for what will be studied, and give an indication of how the study will be conducted and its results reported. Most importantly, the problem statement should be written in a way that helps your readers and colleagues know how this study is relevant, answering the "so what?" question that will inevitably come. 

Explain "So What"

Imagine you're an IT manager in an educational institution and you're aiming to study the inefficiencies you've observed in the delivery of online and remote learning resources to students and teachers who were suddenly subjected to stay-at-home orders in response to the global pandemic. Your leaders will want to understand why this needs to be studied. You say "there were inefficiencies in how our technology resources were delivered" and their response is "so what?" How will you respond? If you've crafted your research problem effectively, the response to the "so what?" question will be self evident! Sacred Heart University's Library has good advice for crafting the problem statement effectively in this regard. 

Colleagues, how do you teach students and others to identify a problem statement for their research?

Additional Resources 

Identifying a research problem and writing a research problem statement:

Kebritchi, M. (2017, February 9). How to identify an appropriate research problem. University of Phoenix Research Hub.

McCombes, S. (2019, April 15). How to define your research problem. Scribbr.

Sacred Heart University Library. (n.d.). Organizing academic research papers: The research problem/question.

USC Libraries. (n.d.). Research guides: Choosing a research problem.