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The Problem Formulation PowerPoint Presentation
- 1. PROBLEM FORMULATION Defining aResearchable Problem Research Methods College of Public and Community Service University of Massachusetts at Boston ©2011 William Holmes 1
- 2. PROBLEM FORMULATION: SOURCES OFIDEAS News Stories Personal Experiences Review of Research • Electronic Databases • Library Indexes • Web pages • Internet Libraries – NCJRS, NLM… Authorities • Opinion Leaders • Funding Sources 2
- 3. PROBLEM FORMULATION: FOCUSING (DEFINING)THE PROBLEM • Ways of Defining Problem – Formal (nominal), defining with words – Example (epistemic), defining by example – Procedural (operational), defining a method to recognize examples 3
- 4. SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS:1 • Articles in Professional Journals • Electronic Abstracts and Indexes • Web Searches • Books, Monographs, Government Reports 4
- 5. SOURCES OF DEFINITIONS:2 • Professional Standards • Legislation • Regulations • Journalistic Sources • Advocacy Groups 5
- 6. WHAT MAKES AGOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 1 • Focused • Empirical • Clear • Based on prior research or theory 6
- 7. WHAT MAKES AGOOD RESEARCH QUESTION? 2 • Important to answer • Does not use “should” • Has intuitive appeal 7
- 8. PROBLEM FORMULATION: TYPES OFRESEARCH QUESTIONS • Exploratory • Descriptive • Explanatory • Predictive • Evaluative 8
- 9. EXPLORATORY QUESTIONS • ClarifyingQuestions • Clarifying Populations • Clarifying Ideas • Open-ended 9
- 10. DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS • Obtainingspecific facts • Obtaining facts to describe issue • Summarizing population characteristics • Examining non-causal relationships 10
- 11. EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS: 1 •Examines causal relationships • Tests causal hypotheses • Explains relationships • Builds theories 11
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- 13. PREDICTION • Predicts events •Predicts characteristics • Uses Theory and Description • Develops predictive equations 13
- 14. MIXED QUESTIONS • Triangulation •Multi-measures • Multi-methods 14