The document provides guidance on how to phrase a research problem for a PhD dissertation. It dispels myths that a research problem needs to be earth-shaking and provides examples of seminal works that began from simple questions, such as Margaret Mead's study of cultural stability in Polynesia and Noam Chomsky's inquiry into language acquisition. The document advises that smart research problems ask questions where one has the gut feeling of doing something new. It provides an example of a simple bivariate research question examining whether humor increases class participation and how this could be expanded by considering the influence of sex. Researchers are encouraged to trust that they can find answers worth looking for and to write and discuss simple research problems with partners.

1. How to phrase your
research problem?
Dr. Wilfred Bidad

2. Let’s start by dispelling myths

3. A Ph.D research problem is not earth shaking

4. Circa 1928
Margaret Mead made a simple study
about aborigines in Polynesia
Her dissertation into the Question of Cultural Stability in Polynesia
brought anthropology to the public's interest and pioneered areas of study dealing
with culture versus biology in the formation of societies and the "complexities of
being human."

5. Circa 1955
Noah Chomsky made a simple
inquiry into why children easily
learn a new language.
Transformational Analysis
Linguistics: Chomsky introduced transformational grammar, a theory which changed conceptions about how
children acquire language and the construction of language and grammars, with significant implications for the
field of cognitive psychology. He "contributed substantially to a major methodological shift in the human
sciences, turning away from the prevailing empiricism of the middle of the twentieth century: behaviorism in
psychology, structuralism in linguistics and positivism in philosophy."

6. Smart research problems are those questions that
give you the gut feeling that you are doing
something new…

7. After your PH.D dissertation, you know you have something new to say…

8. What is the easiest way to
write a research question?

9. Trust
Trust that you can find answers and
And that the answers are worth
Looking for

10. Consider this simple problem…

11. Does humor increase class participation?

12. Humor Class Participation
Conceptual Framework

13. The study is bivariate causal .
The Cause is…

14. HUMOR… .AND THE EFFECT IS…

16. But suppose in your literature review you learned that men and
women tend to respond to humor in different ways?

17. Conceptual Framework
Humor Class Participation
Sex

18. A simple question like this
Is in fact a groundbreaking
Research because this is
A relatively new field..

19. What is the research problem here? Can you state it in one sentence?

20. Can you draw on the board the conceptual framework here?

23. Write a simple bivariate research problem…Discuss with a
partner and then present in the class.