No Line Is Concocted Except This One By Prof Dr Sohail Ansari
Material for critical analysis For SBBU
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the
master calls a butterfly.Richard Bach
A Holy book starts with the lines ‘No line of
this book is concocted as God has pledged to guard its content against any
interpolation’.
A logical twist: Except
these lines Holy book may not be.
What Makes a Good Research Statement?
A good problem statement begins by introducing the broad area in which your
research is centered, gradually leading the reader to the more specific issues
you are investigating. The
statement need not be lengthy, but a good research problem should incorporate the following features:
Compelling Topic
Simple curiosity is not a good enough reason to pursue a research study because it does not indicate significance. The problem that you choose to explore must be important to you, your readers, and to a the larger academic and/or social community that could be impacted by the results of your study. The problem chosen must be one that motivates you to address it.
SupportsMultiplePerspectives
The problem must be phrased in a way that avoids dichotomies and instead supports the generation and exploration of multiple perspectives. A general rule of thumb in the social sciences is that a good research problem is one that would generate a variety of viewpoints from a composite audience made up of reasonable people.
a broadly accurate guide or principle, based on
practice rather than theory.
"a useful rule of thumb is that about ten hours will be
needed to analyse each hour of recorded data"
made up of several parts or elements.
"this soup is one of those composite dishes which you
gradually build up
Researchability
(A research problem is a definite or clear expression [statement] about an area of concern, a condition to be improved upon, a difficulty to be eliminated, or a troubling question that exists in scholarly literature, in theory, or within existing practice that points to a need for meaningful understanding and deliberate investigation. A research problem does not state how to do something, offer a vague or broad proposition, or present a value question.)
(A research problem is a definite or clear expression [statement] about an area of concern, a condition to be improved upon, a difficulty to be eliminated, or a troubling question that exists in scholarly literature, in theory, or within existing practice that points to a need for meaningful understanding and deliberate investigation. A research problem does not state how to do something, offer a vague or broad proposition, or present a value question.)
This isn't a real word
but it represents an important aspect of creating a good research statement. It
seems a bit obvious, but you don't want to find yourself in the midst of investigating a complex research
project and realize that you don't have enough prior research to draw from for
your analysis. There's nothing
inherently wrong with original research, but you must choose research problems that can be supported, in some
way, by the resources available to you. If you are not sure if something is researchable, don't assume that it isn't if you don't find information right
away--seek help from a librarian!
NOTE: Do not confuse a research problem with a research topic. A topic is something to read and obtain information about, whereas a problem is something to be solved or framed as a
question raised for inquiry,
consideration, or solution, or explained as a source of perplexity,
distress, or vexation.
Asking
Analytical Questions about the Research Problem
Research problems in the social and behavioral sciences are often analyzed around critical questions that must be investigated. These questions can be explicitly listed in
the introduction [i.e., "This study addresses three research questions about women's
psychological recovery from domestic abuse in
multi-generational home settings..."], or, the questions are implied in the text as specific areas of study related to the research
problem. Explicitly listing your research
questions at the end of your introduction can help in designing a clear roadmap of what you plan to
address in your study, whereas, implicitly integrating them into the text of the introduction allows
you to create a more compelling narrative around the key issues under
investigation. Either approach is appropriate.
The number of questions you attempt to address should be based on the complexity of the problem you are
investigating and what areas of inquiry
you find most critical to study. Practical considerations, such as, the length of the paper you are writing or the availability of resources to
analyze the issue can also factor in how many questions to ask. In general,
however, there should be no more than four research
questions underpinning a single
research problem.
Given
this, well-developed analytical questions can focus on any of the following:
- Highlights a genuine dilemma, area of ambiguity, or point of confusion about a topic open to interpretation by your readers;
- Yields an answer that is unexpected and not obvious
rather than inevitable and self-evident;
- Provokes
meaningful thought or discussion;
- Raises the visibility of
the key ideas or concepts that may be understudied
or hidden;
- Suggests the need for complex analysis
or argument rather than a basic description
or summary; and,
- Offers a specific path of inquiry
that avoids eliciting generalizations about the problem.
NOTE: Questions of how and why about a research problem often require
more analysis than questions about who, what, where, and when. You should still ask yourself these latter questions, however. Thinking
introspectively about the who, what,
where, and when of a research problem can help ensure that you have thoroughly
considered all aspects of the problem under investigation.
Definition of behavioral
science. :a branch of science (such as psychology, sociology, or anthropology) that
deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior in society.
In contrast, social sciences provide a perceptive framework to study the processes
of a social system
through impacts of social organisation
on structural adjustment of the individual and of groups. They typically
include fields like sociology, economics, public health, anthropology,
demography and political science.
having or showing
keenness of insight, understanding, or intuition:
a perceptive analysis of the problems
involved.
Mistakes
to Avoid
Beware of circular
reasoning! Do not state that the research problem
as simply the absence of the
thing you are suggesting. For example, if you
propose the following, "The problem in this community is that there is no
hospital," this only leads to a research problem where:
- The need is for a hospital
- The objective is to create a hospital
- The method is to plan for building a
hospital, and
- The evaluation is to measure if there
is a hospital or not.
This is an example of a research problem that fails the "So
What?" test. In this example, the problem does not reveal the relevance of
why you are investigating the fact
there is no hospital in the community [e.g., there's a hospital in the
community ten miles away]; it does
not elucidate the significance of why one should study the fact there is no
hospital in the community [e.g., that hospital in the community ten miles away has no emergency room]; the research problem does not offer an intellectual pathway towards adding new knowledge or
clarifying prior knowledge [e.g., the county in which there is no
hospital already conducted a study about the need for a hospital]; and,
the problem does not offer meaningful outcomes that lead to recommendations that can be generalized
for other situations or that
could suggest areas for further research [e.g., the challenges of building a new hospital serves as a case study for other communities].
What is the difference between
a research question and a research problem?
As George Perry mentions, these can mean the same thing — a way
of being specific about what you want to research. In various contexts (a thesis
paper vs a grant application), different terms or definitions might
apply.
For what its worth, in my experience:
For what its worth, in my experience:
a) A research problem statement is a short (a paragraph or two)
description of a specific research
area or issue that you intend to address, with an explanation of why that area/issue needs to be
addressed, why addressing this area/issue is of
importance, and what overall benefit (i.e, to society as a whole or to other researchers) addressing
the issue may provide.
b) You then narrow down the research problem to
one or more specific questions
that are concrete and can be answered by experiment/review of data/literature review, etc.
I think other terms that are similar would
be: statement of purpose/specific aims; research statement/research question.
George Perry provided a good answer.
The research question poses the direction of your study as a
general question to be answered by your research. It helps you
as a researcher focus on a particular
aspect of the overall body of knowledge
that you will frame through your literature
review.
A research problem is a way of
framing the question as a series of prosaic statements;
that is, the statement of the problem may provide some background and a logical flow toward the direction
of study.
In a standard dissertation template
consistent with APA Manual standard, you would be required to have both the research question and research problem in separate
sections. My approach was to use the problem statement to frame
the research question, and then to state the question fairly simply by
referring to the previous discussion.
After a lot of
thought, I don’t believe there is any difference beyond semantics. I’d be
curious if others think differently.
the
meaning of a word, phrase, or text.
plural
noun: semantics
A research question can be a
philosophical generalization of formal or intuitive ideas that you wish to
pose, in an area of research.
Example from my own work:
“I know that carbon nanotubes
distribute a pool of electrons at each end, once the tube is formed…
Q1 Is it something if can measure
?
Q2 What solutions could I put the
tube in and expect an electrical current?
You see a generalization to the
focus of my research.
A research problem would be a
statement; formal ideally, but intuitive or a syllogistic approach can reap
benefits as well.
From Q1: Carbon nanotubes are
long carbon chains with a distributed pool of elections at each end. Due to the
near atomic size of the string, we need to do equipment and literature search
for the a process or equipment that can measure voltage at such a low small
level. Can we do that? If not what are the alternatives.
As you can see its quite subjective, to the nees and
expertise of the researcher. Either way, wherever you are at its a good first
step to thinking through the dynamics of the research you are working on…good
luck.
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