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Chapter 2
THE PROBLEM: THE HEART OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Students are likely to benefit from practice at formulating research problems. This group activity will help students move from identifying a topic or question of interest to clearly communicating a research problem that can serve as the foundation of a formal investigation.
Form groups of three to five students who share common research interests. Ask each group to formulate a formal statement of a research problem. In doing so, the students will need to consider the importance and practicality of the general research problem. Then they will need to identify subproblems, pose hypotheses, define terms, and state assumptions related to the research problem. Although students may lack a deep familiarity with a body of professional literature and may thus be somewhat limited in their ability to work through all of these steps, the exercise will impress upon them how complex the task of research problem formulation is when done properly. Ask each group to hand in a detailed document at the end of the activity.
The research problems formulated in this exercise will be a good basis for the group activity recommended for later chapters. Therefore, you may want to make note of group membership from this activity and collect the research problem exercises for later use.
Chapter 2
THE PROBLEM: THE HEART OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Multiple-Choice Questions
*1. Research problems, as defined in your textbook:
a. are identified by experts in the field, and not typically knowable by novices.
b. clearly and completely specify important questions that are currently unanswered in a particular field of inquiry.
c. are broad, general statements about the incomplete state of understanding in a particular field of inquiry.
d. can be addressed by compiling and synthesizing existing information in a way that sheds light on the issue of interest.
*2. Basic research is:
a. research intended to enhance basic
THE PROBLEM: THE HEART OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Students are likely to benefit from practice at formulating research problems. This group activity will help students move from identifying a topic or question of interest to clearly communicating a research problem that can serve as the foundation of a formal investigation.
Form groups of three to five students who share common research interests. Ask each group to formulate a formal statement of a research problem. In doing so, the students will need to consider the importance and practicality of the general research problem. Then they will need to identify subproblems, pose hypotheses, define terms, and state assumptions related to the research problem. Although students may lack a deep familiarity with a body of professional literature and may thus be somewhat limited in their ability to work through all of these steps, the exercise will impress upon them how complex the task of research problem formulation is when done properly. Ask each group to hand in a detailed document at the end of the activity.
The research problems formulated in this exercise will be a good basis for the group activity recommended for later chapters. Therefore, you may want to make note of group membership from this activity and collect the research problem exercises for later use.
Chapter 2
THE PROBLEM: THE HEART OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Multiple-Choice Questions
*1. Research problems, as defined in your textbook:
a. are identified by experts in the field, and not typically knowable by novices.
b. clearly and completely specify important questions that are currently unanswered in a particular field of inquiry.
c. are broad, general statements about the incomplete state of understanding in a particular field of inquiry.
d. can be addressed by compiling and synthesizing existing information in a way that sheds light on the issue of interest.
*2. Basic research is:
a. research intended to enhance basic