Research Topic and Problem Formulation

Dr. Jacob Omolo

Lecture Two
Research Topic and Problem Formulation-Issues
1. Research Topic

2. Topic Selection

3. Components of a Research Topic

4. Factors considered in selecting a research Topic

5. Sources of Research Problem
6. Steps in the formulation of a research problem

7. Defining the research problem – Statement of the Research

Problem

Research Topic
• There are basically two types of research problems
– That whose aim is to increase our knowledge
– That whose aim is to make our life better
• Research topic emanates from:
– a detailed and insightful analysis of a research problem – the
detailed and insightful analysis is seen as one of the ways
through which a solution could be contributed to the
 problem – The analysis might involve experiences gained
from literature review
• Generally, a research topic should reflect three
components:
1. Dependent variable-problem variable
2. Independent variable-variable of significance
3. Scope–geographical, time

Research Problem
• Problems in research are unresolved questions
that call for an investigation
• Formulating a research problem requires
considerable preliminary work, knowledge, and
a logical analysis of the problem.
 • It entails asking a previously unanswered
question(s) for which an answer(s) is sought.
• It also entails stating clearly:
– the research objectives and hypotheses –
defining precisely all key terms and concepts
– describing the research procedures to be
applied.
Sources of Research Problem
1. Personal experiences: Own observations, questions or hunches
for which no satisfactory explanation exists may suggest
research questions.
2. Previous research: From previous research one may identify
gaps, which appear to justify additional research.
3. Current social and political issues: Contemporary issues, debates,
concerns or movements may lead to a research. The attempt
may be to gain more knowledge about recent changes.
4. Related literature: Reading textbooks and articles on an area of
interest gives the reader an insight into various issues that could
be studied or replicated.
5. Deductions from theory: Existing theories can suggest research
problems. A research may arise in an attempt to challenge what
existing theories postulates.

Sources of Research Problem

6. Practical situations: Your day-to-day work may suggest
the need for a research to unravel or manage a new
situation.
7. Research themes given by funding agencies such as
UNDP, OSSREA, Association of African Universities, GTZ,
The World Bank, The IMF, USAID, among others.
 8. Researcher’s interest: Carefully observing existing
practices in one’s area of interest at work, at home, at
workshops, seminars among others.
9. Declarations (such as world declaration on the Rights of
Children), conferences (such as NEPAD, AU), workshops
and seminars
10. Advanced graduate courses taught in Universities.
Factors to Consider in selecting a research area/Topic
1. Interest
• This is the most important consideration in selecting a research
problem.
• A research endeavour is time-consuming, and involves hard work
and possibly unforeseen problems. If one selects a topic which
does not greatly interest him/her, it becomes extremely difficult
to sustain the required motivation, and hence its completion.
2. Magnitude
• One should have sufficient knowledge about the research problem
to be able to visualize the work involved in completing the
proposed study.
• Narrow the topic down to something manageable, specific and
clear.
• The topic chosen must be one that be can managed within the
time and resources at your disposal.
Choosing a research Area/topic…
3. Measurement of concepts
• Where a study involve use of concepts, one must make sure he/she is
clear about its indicators and their measurement.
Example
• In a study to measure the effectiveness of a health promotion
programme, one must be clear as to:
– the measurement of effectiveness
 – indicators of effectiveness
– determinants of effectiveness
• A researcher should not use concepts in a research problem he/she is
not sure how to measure

4. Level of expertise
• The researcher must have an adequate level of expertise for the task
proposed
• NB: Although one will learn during the study and may receive help
from research supervisors and others, the researcher will have to do
most of the work by self.

Choosing a research Area/topic…

5. Relevance
• Select a topic that is of relevance to you as a professional.
• The study need to add to the existing body of knowledge, bridge
current gaps or be useful in policy formulation. This will help you
to sustain interest in the study.
 6. Availability of data
• If your topic entails collection of information from secondary
sources (office records, client records, census or other
alreadypublished reports, etc) ensure that these data are
available in the required format before finalizing on the topic,
7. Ethical issues • Consider also the ethical issues involved in the
type of study e.g. how the study population would be 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’.
Steps in the formulation of a research problem
Steps 1: Identify a broad field or subject area of interest
One should ask: “What is it that really interests me as a professional”?
• It is a good idea to think about the field in which you would like to
work after graduation or in which you are currently working.
For example
 if you are studying microeconomics, you might be interested in
researching on consumer behaviour
 If one works in the Human Resource department, he/she may
want to research on aspects that are relevant to that department.

The following should also be noted

• Avoid a topic calling for a background knowledge that you do not
have.
• Choose an area where it is possible to get enough material to
ensure thorough coverage.
• The topic must be that which addresses a felt need. That is, the
topic can be justified on social, scientific or policy grounds.
Step 2: Dissect the broad area into subareas
The broad area mentioned in step 1 e.g. consumer behavior,
has many aspects.
 The broad area should be narrowed down to a specific
problem.
This will call for critical reading and inquiry into the problem
area by:
– Reading relevant literature,
– Talking to those who might use the findings
– Consulting/brainstorming with those who have research
and training experiences, or specialized knowledge of the
research area.
Dissecting the broad area helps one to clarify the problem so
that the research can focus on a few questions

Example
Broad Area: Domestic violence (DV)
Examples of Subareas in Domestic Violence (DV)
• Extent of DV in a community
• Types of DV
• Impact of DV on children
• Services available to victims of DV
• Effectiveness of the services offered to victims of
DV
• Profile of families in which DV occurs
• Profile of the victims of DV
Step 3: Select a sub area of the most interest to
you.
It is neither advisable nor feasible to study all subareas.
Out of the listed subareas, one will select issues/ subarea for which
he or she is passionate
 One way to decide what interests you most is to start with the
process of elimination - deleting all those subareas in which one
is not very interested.
 Towards the end of the process, it will become very difficult to
delete anything further.
 Therefore the elimination procedure continues until one is left
with something that is manageable considering:
– the time available for the study
– level of expertise and
– other resources needed to undertake the study.

NB: The selected subarea forms the topic of study

Step 4: Raise research questions.
 At this step the researcher asks: ‘What is it that I
want to find out about in this subarea?
Therefore, within the chosen subarea, one lists
whatever questions for which answers are being
sought.
If the questions thought of are too many to be
manageable, the researcher will again go through
a process of elimination, to focus study on
particular issues in the subarea
Step 5: Formulate objectives.
 The researcher formulates the main objectives and sub
objectives for the study.
 The objectives grow out of the research questions. The main
difference between objectives and research questions is in the
way they are written.
 Research objectives are the research questions transformed
into behavioural aims by using action-oriented words such as
‘to establish’ ‘to find out’, ‘to determine’, ‘to ascertain’, ‘to
examine’, ‘ to measure’, ‘to explore’, etc.
 Objectives are therefore the goals you set out to attain in your study. They
inform a reader of what you want to achieve through the study, and should
therefore be worded clearly and specifically.

 Objectives should be stated under two headings:

(i) Main objectives
(ii) Sub objectives or specific objectives

Research Objectives
The main objective is an overall statement of the thrust of the
study. It can also be thought of as 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. –
They should be:
Numbered using roman numbers.
worded clearly and unambiguously.

NB: Each sub-objective contains only one aspect of the study.

Wording of Research Objectives…
 The way the main and sub-objectives are worded determines how your research
is classified and the type of research design to be adopted
 the objectives should be expressed in such a way that the wording clearly,
completely and specifically communicates to the readers the research intention.
There is no place for ambiguity, non-specificity or incompleteness
 If your study is primarily descriptive, the main objective should clearly describe
the major focus of the study, even mentioning the organisation and its location
unless these are to be kept confidential
Example: “to describe the types of treatment programmes provided
by …[name of the organisation] to alcoholics in … [name of the
place]…or to find the opinion of the community about the health
services provided by …[name of the health centre/department] in
…[name of the place]…).
NB: Identification of the organisation and its location is important as
the services may be peculiar to the place and the organisation and
may not represent the services provided by others to similar
populations.
Research Objectives…
If your study is correlational in nature, the wording of the main
objective should also include the main variables being
correlated Examples
 to ascertain the impact of migration on family roles
  to compare the effectiveness of different teaching methods on the
comprehension of students
If the overall thrust of your study is to test a hypothesis, the
wording of main objectives, in addition to the above, should
indicate the direction of the relationship being tested
Examples.
to ascertain if an increase in youth unemployment will increase
the incidence of street crime to demonstrate that provision
of maternal and child health services to the Maasai people in
Loitoktok will reduce infant mortality
Step 6: Assess your objectives.

• In this step, the researcher examines the

objectives to ascertain the feasibility of
 achieving them through the research
endeavour.
The objectives are assessed by considering the
Time
Resources (financial and human)
Technical expertise at the researcher’s disposal.
Step 7: Double-check.
 Involves going back and giving final consideration to whether or not one
is sufficiently interested in the study, and have adequate resources to
undertake it.
 The question to ask is:
“Am I really enthusiastic about this study?’, and
“Do I really have enough resources to undertake it?’
 If the answer to one of them is ‘no’, then a re-assessment of the
objectives is required.
 NB:
• So far the focus has been on the basis of your study, the research
problem.
• But every study has a second element, the study population, from whom
the required information to find answers to your research questions is
obtained.
• As you narrow the research problem, similarly you need to decide very
specifically who constitutes your study population, in order to select the
appropriate respondents.
DEFINING THE RESEARCH PROBLEM - STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH
PROBLEM
 This provides a clear description of the problem that is to be investigated
through research.
 It should clearly show the knowledge gap that the research intends to
close.
 The questions that subsequently guide the research process are also
included.
 A good statement of the problem should: (background, problem, gap)
  Convey the specific research problem, usually in a few
paragraphs, indicating its importance and context.
 Indicate the kind of researches that has been done, key
issues and findings, and should identify knowledge gaps or
an unsolved question, which appears to justify additional
research.
 Be clearly written and be able to capture the reader’s
interest. Be able to advance knowledge or be of interest
to society.
 It should indicate the scope of the study and be objectively
researchable.
 Give the purpose of the research (broad objective of the
study)
Formats for writing Statement of the research problem
1. The topic is broken down into logical statements by suggesting or enumerating
reasons why a particular topic is chosen. The reasons can be restated into
action-oriented statements which are then put together to provide a clear
perspective of the problem to be investigated, ensuring that the knowledge gap
is clearly defined
Illustration: Suppose the Identified topic is : “youth unemployment in Kenya”.
 To guide writing the problem statement, the reasons for choosing the topic can be
enumerated as
– Per cent of youths in the total population
– Per cent of youth unemployment in the country
– Effects of youth unemployment in Kenya
– Production impact of youth unemployment
– Need for mitigation measures
 These reasons can then be restated into action-oriented expressions as follows
– Youths comprise a large proportion of Kenya’s population
– The 2009 census report revealed that 35 % of the youths in Kenya were unemployed
– The high rate of unemployment has led to massive rural – urban migrations as many
believe jobs are only available in the urban areas
– Continued lack of employment among the youths imply low national output, high
dependency, rising crimes and despair
– There is need to understand the reasons for the high unemployment rates among
youth in Kenya, to help in the design of effective strategies to reduce it

Formats for writing Statement of the research problem…

1. Another technique to be used especially in policyoriented
research is to state a problem using A BUT B statement
 – where A represents a goal or current situation,
– BUT indicates that the goal has not been met or that there is
some limitation on the current situation
– B indicates the obstacles that are in the way.

Examples of A BUT B statements

1. The government of Kenya has over the years stressed the
importance of reducing youth unemployment, BUT the
rate of youth unemployment still remains high at 35% .
2. There is need to prevent defoliation of large areas of tree
species y by insect x in region b, BUT, there are no
effective and economical control measures for this insect.
Statement of research purpose
Statement of research purpose conveys the focus of
the study and should be spelt out in clear, direct and
unambiguous manner.
It is usually expressed in a declarative manner, starting
with the phrase: The purpose of the study is …., followed
by neutral verbs such as, to investigate, to examine, to
compare, to explore, to find out, to inquire, to determine,
among others.
The statement of purpose also suggests the design of the
study by indicating the target population, the variables,
and possible relationships among the variables.