How do you formulate a research problem?

Consider 5 ways to formulate the research problem:

1. Specify your research objectives;
2. Review its context or environment;
3. Explore its nature;
4. Determine variable relationships;
5. Anticipate the possible consequences of alternative approaches.

How do you formulate a research question in qualitative research?

Use good qualitative wording for these questions:
1. Begin with words such as “how” or “what”
2. Tell the reader what you are attempting to “discover,” “generate,” “explore,”
“identify,” or “describe”
3. Ask “what happened?”
4. Ask “what was the meaning to people of what happened?”
5. Ask “what happened over time?”

5 Common errors in the research process:

 Population Specification:
Population specification errors occur when the researcher does not understand who
they should survey
 Sampling and Sample Frame Errors:
Survey sampling and sample frame errors occur when the wrong subpopulation is used to
select a sample, or because of variation in the number or representativeness of the sample
that responds, but the resulting sample is not representative of the population concern.
 Selection:
Selection error is the sampling error for a sample selected by a non-probability method.
When respondents choose to self-participate in a study and only those interested respond,
you can end up with selection error because there may already be an inherent bias. This can
also occur when respondents who are not relevant to the study participate, or when there’s
a bias in the way participants are put into groups.
 Non-responsive:
Nonresponse error can exist when an obtained sample differs from the original selected
sample. This may occur because either the potential respondent was not contacted or they
refused to respond. The key factor is the absence of data rather than inaccurate data.
 Measurement:
Measurement error is generated by the measurement process itself, and represents the
difference between the information generated and the information wanted by the
researcher. Generally, there is always some small level of measurement error due to
uncontrollable factors.

1|Page