Chapter 4 Research Problems, Research Questions, and Hypotheses

1. Chapter 4Research Problems, Research Questions, and Hypotheses

2. Basic Terminology Research problem An enigmatic, perplexing, or troubling condition Problem statement A statement articulating the research problem and indicating the need for a study

3. Basic Terminology (cont’d) Research questions The specific queries the researcher wants to answer in addressing the research problem Hypotheses The researcher’s predictions about relationships among variables

4. Basic Terminology (cont’d) Statement of purpose The researcher’s summary of the overall study goal Research aims or objectives The specific accomplishments to be achieved by conducting the study

5. Sources of Research Problems • Experience and clinical fieldwork • Nursing literature • Social issues • Theory • Ideas from external sources

6. Developing and Refining Research Problems • Selecting a broad topic area (e.g., patient compliance, caregiver stress) • Narrowing the topic—asking questions to help focus the inquiry Examples: • What is going on with…? • What factors contribute to….?

7. Evaluating Research Problems • Significance of the problem • Researchability of the problem • Feasibility of addressing the problem (e.g., time, resources, ethics, cooperation of others) • Interest to the researcher

8. Problem Statements: • Should identify the nature, context, and significance of problem being addressed • Should be broad enough to include central concerns • Should be narrow enough to serve as a guide to study design

9. Statement of Purpose—Quantitative Studies: • Identifies key study variables • Identifies possible relationships among variables • Indicates the population of interest • Suggests, through use of verbs, the nature of the inquiry (e.g., to test…, to compare…, to evaluate…)

10. Statement of Purpose—Qualitative Studies: • Identifies the central phenomenon • Indicates the research tradition (e.g., grounded theory, ethnography) • Indicates the group, community, or setting of interest • Suggests, through use of verbs, the nature of the inquiry (e.g., to describe…, to discover…, to explore…)

11. Research Questions: • Are sometimes direct rewordings of statements of purpose, worded as questions • Are sometimes used to clarify or lend specificity to the purpose statement • In quantitative studies, pose queries about the relationships among variables

12. Research Questions: (cont’d) • In qualitative studies, pose queries linked to the research tradition: • Grounded theory: process questions • Phenomenology: meaning questions • Ethnography: cultural description questions

13. A Hypothesis: • States a prediction • Must always involve at least two variables • Must suggest a predicted relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable • Must contain terms that indicate a relationship (e.g., more than, different from, associated with)

14. Simple Versus Complex Hypotheses Simple hypothesis Expresses a predicted relationship between one independent variable and one dependent variable Complex hypothesis States a predicted relationship between two or more independent variables and/or two or more dependent variables

15. Directional Versus Nondirectional Hypotheses Directional hypothesis Predicts the direction of a relationship Nondirectional hypothesis Predicts the existence of a relationship, not its direction

16. Research Versus Null Hypotheses Research hypothesis States the actual prediction of a relationship Statistical or null hypothesis Expresses the absence of a relationship (used only in statistical testing)