Select topic, Research problem, research question and hypothesis

1. Select topic, Research problem, research question and hypothesis

2. What is research • research is a systematic and methodical process of inquiry and investigation that increases knowledge and/or solves a particular problem (Sekaran, 1992; 4). • The purpose of research, to review and synthesise existing knowledge, to investigate existing situations or problems, to provide solutions to a problem, to explore and analyse more general issues, to construct or create a new procedure or system, to explain a new phenomenon or to generate new knowledge. • Research purpose has three main classifications exploratory, descriptive and causal or predictive (Sarantakos, 1993; 31-35).

3. Exploratory research is conducted into an issue or problem where there are few or no earlier studies to refer to. The focus is on gaining insights and familiarity for later investigation. • descriptive research describes phenomena as they exist. Here data is often quantitative and statistics applied. It is used to identify and obtain information on a particular problem or issue. • causal or predictive research seeks to explain what is happening in a particular situation. It aims to generalise from an analysis by predicting certain phenomena on the basis of hypothesized general relationships.

4. Outcomes are classified as either basic, often referred to as pure, and applied. That is whether the research contributes to the base of knowledge or resolves a particular problem. • Research logic is either deductive or inductive, whether the research proceeds from the general to specific or vice versa.

5. Research starts with a broad area of interest, the initial problem that the researcher wishes to study. Eg. how to use computers to improve the performance of students in mathematics. But this initial interest is too broad to study in any single research project • Then narrow the question down. This might involve formulating a hypothesis or a focus question. Eg. hypothesize that a particular method of computer instruction in math will improve the ability of elementary school students in a specific district. The researcher is engaged in direct measurement or observation of the question of interest.

7. Ways to select topic • Personal experience • Curiosity based on something in the media • The state of knowledge in the field—basic research is driven by new research findings and theories. As theoretical explanation expanded, certain issues need to be answered for the field to move forward. • Solving a problem—applied research topics often begin with a problem that needs a solution.

8. Social premiums—means that some topics are “hot” or offer an opportunity. Eg you read that a lot of money to do research on certain area. • Personal values—some people are committed to a set of religious, political, or social values. Eg. You are committed to racial equality and may suggest racial discrimination as topic • Everyday life—topics can be found in everyday life in old sayings, novels, songs, statistics, and what others say. Eg. You heard people say about home court advantage is very important in basketball. Thus “home court advantage” as a topic for research.

9. The Problem Statement in the Research Paper • The First Substantial Step • provide the context for the research study and typically generates questions which the research hopes to answer. • In order to move forward with a research project, you will generally spend some time considering the problem.

10. The problem statement should "hook" the reader and establish a persuasive context for what follows. • You need to be able to clearly answer the question: "what is the problem"? and "why is this problem worth my attention"? At the same time, the problem statement limits scope by focusing on some variables and not others. It also provides an opportunity for you to demonstrate why these variables are important.

11. Problem Importance • Clearly indicate why your problem is an important one by answering questions such as: • Is the problem of current interest? Is it relevant? • Is the problem likely to continue into the future? • Will more information about the problem have practical application? • Will more information about the problem have theoretical importance?

12. How large is the population affected by the problem? • How important, influential, or popular is this population? • Would this study substantially revise or extend existing knowledge? • Would this study create or improve an instrument of some utility?

13. Would research findings lead to some useful change in best practice? • Is there evidence or authoritative opinion from others to support the need for this research? • The problem statement should indicate that major variables can be measured in some meaningful way. If you can identify likely objections to the study, identify and respond to them here.

14. The problem statement should close with a question. • the question contains two variables, a measurable relationship, and some indication of population. • The purpose of the literature search that follows is to answer the research problem question. If the literature cannot answer the question, the research is needed to do so. • Eg. "What is the relationship between the grade point average of UTK juniors and their use of the library"? The information needed is (1) grade point average and (2) some measure of library use

15. A bad example might be: "What is the best way to teach bibliographic instruction"? This is insufficient because: • What are the variables? • What will be measured? • What relationships will be examined? • What is the population? • The title and the problem statement question are often nearly identical. For example, in the good example above, the title of this research project would be something like this: "Library Circulation Use by University of Tennessee Juniors and Their Grade Point Average"

16. Sources of problem

20. What is a research question? • question that you are trying to answer when you do research on a topic or write a research report. • Eg. if you are studying the effects of sleep on reflexes, you might formulate the following research question: • What are the effects of sleep on reflexes?  • A similar question might be: • Does sleep have an effect on reflexes? • Or: • Is maximum reflex efficiency achieved after eight hours of sleep? • The goal of your research is to find the answer to the research question.

21. Remember, Research Questions should guide your research. • You can have more than 1 Research Question in a study • Example: What is the lived experience of a Doctoral Student? • What is their life like • What challenges do they face • How do they overcome challenges • What are characteristics of a Doctoral Student

22. Should a research question be general or specific? • It should be as specific as possible. In some cases, you may make two or more research questions to cover a complex topic.

23. Technique narrowing a topic into a research question • Examine the literature: • Replicate previous research project exactly or slight variation • Explore unexpected findings discovered in previous research • Follow suggestion given by author at the end of article • Extend an existing explanation/theory to anew topic or setting • Specify the intervening process and consider linking relation

24. Talk over ideas with others • Ask people who are knowledgeable • Ask people who hold different opinion • Apply to a specific context • Focus the topic to specific historical/time period • Narrow the topic to specific society or geographic unit • Consider subgroup/categories of people/unit and whether they are differences among them • Define aim of the study • Will the research question be for exploratory or descriptive study • Will the study involve applied or basic research

25. What is a hypothesis? • A hypothesis is a statement that can be proved or disproved. A research question can be made into a hypothesis by changing it into a statement. For example, the third research question above can be made into the hypothesis: • Maximum reflex efficiency is achieved after eight hours of sleep.

26. What is a null hypothesis? • A null hypothesis (abbreviated H0) is a hypothesis to be disproved. The hypothesis above can be turned into a working null hypothesis simply by adding “not”.  • Maximum reflex efficiency is not achieved after eight hours of sleep.  • Another null hypothesis is:  • Sleep does not have an effect on reflexes.

27. Null hypotheses are used in the sciences. In the scientific method, a null hypothesis is formulated, and then a scientific investigation is conducted to try to disprove the null hypothesis. • Eg.we might begin with the null hypothesis: • Sleep does not affect reflexes. • If we can disprove this, we find that sleep does have an effect. We might then go to the next null hypothesis: • Different amounts of sleep have the same effect on reflexes.  • If we can disprove this, we can go to:  • Maximum reflex efficiency is not achieved after eight hours of sleep. • And so on. At each stage in the investigation, we conduct experiments designed to try to disprove the hull hypothesis.

28. What is the relationship between the null hypothesis and the thesis statement of a research report? • A generalized form of the final hypothesis (not the null hypothesis) can be used as a thesis statement. For example, if our final proved hypothesis is:   • Maximum reflex efficiency is achieved after eight hours of sleep • we might generalize this to a thesis statement such as: • This investigation demonstrated that sleep has an effect on reflex efficiency and that, in fact, maximum reflex efficiency is achieved after a specific period of sleep. 

29. Deductive reasoning • Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. • Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. We might begin with thinking up a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. • We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data -- a confirmation (or not) of our original theories.

30. Deductive Thinking

31. Inductive reasoning • Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. • Informally, we sometimes call this a "bottom up" approach. • In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories.

32. Inductive Thinking

33. These two methods of reasoning have a very different "feel" to them when you're conducting research. • Inductive reasoning, by its very nature, is more open-ended and exploratory, especially at the beginning. • Deductive reasoning is more narrow in nature and is concerned with testing or confirming hypotheses. Even though a particular study may look like it's purely deductive (e.g., an experiment designed to test the hypothesized effects of some treatment on some outcome), most social research involves both inductive and deductive reasoning processes at some time in the project. • In fact, we could assemble the two graphs above into a single circular one that continually cycles from theories down to observations and back up again to theories. Even in the most constrained experiment, the researchers may observe patterns in the data that lead them to develop new theories.

34. Comments?