One of the most gratifying aspects of completing a dissertation or thesis is the opportunity to contribute to positive social change. This means that your study will literally help to make the world a better place! Many of our dissertation assistance clients have shared that this potential to benefit others is a source of inspiration that propels them through the toughest moments of their graduate research. In order to reach this rewarding finish line with your dissertation, however, you will need to spend some time defining an aspect of the world around us that needs to change for the better.
This aspect of the world that needs to change is your research problem, and a major chore of topic development is researching and writing the problem statement that clearly articulates this problem. In fact, a great number of our dissertation consulting clients have shared that they found this to be the toughest part of writing the prospectus or Chapter 1. It is an important step to complete thoroughly, though, as your problem statement provides the foundation for the rest of your study (Baloch, 2011). In this short section of 250-350 words, you must lay out your key variables if conducting statistical analysis, or phenomena of interest if conducting qualitative analysis. This sets the stage for the purpose of your study and research questions.
It is important to note that your problem statement should emerge from your review of the literature. Doctoral candidates often approach their dissertations with professional experience in their fields of practice, which may help greatly with identifying potential problems. Although personal experiences can be a great place to start when attempting to develop your research problem, your actual research problem should not stem only from your own experiences (Ellis & Levy, 2008). To qualify as research-worthy, the problem must be documented in the recent research literature as an issue that warrants additional attention from researchers.
Our dissertation coaches have suggested that, when researching and writing your problem statement, it may help to break this task down into its separate, distinct components. Although no two problem statements are exactly alike, good problem statements will all contain the same elements: (a) a description of the problem, (b) a relevant statistic, (c) an explanation of the adverse effects of the problem, and (d) documentation of the research gap. This article will discuss how to approach each of these four elements of your problem statement in a series of steps, which we hope helps you to move more easily through this vital step of developing your dissertation topic.
Step 1: Describe the Problem
Being clear and direct is a key aim in dissertation or thesis writing. From the earliest sentences in your problem statement, the reader should have a good sense of what the problem of interest will be for your study. Depending on your university, you may need to use a specific format that previews the research gap. Common formats among our dissertation assistance clients are, “It is not known…” or “It is unknown…” Some universities leave this formatting to your discretion, but what is important here is that you get right to the point in defining the problem. Our dissertation coaches often suggest writing out your findings from the literature more freely at first, and then editing your work down to only the essential information required for this section. The key to writing a good problem statement is being focused and concise.
A useful approach for structuring your presentation of the problem is moving from a general problem to the more specific problem you will examine with your study (Baloch, 2011). In fact, in working with our dissertation consulting clients, we have found that some universities specifically require this structure. To illustrate, imagine that you were interested in conducting statistical analysis to examine variables related to novice teacher turnover in urban school districts. Before defining this specific problem (i.e., novice teacher turnover in urban school districts), you might start off by describing the general problem of turnover in novice teachers more broadly.
When contemplating possible problems for your dissertation, it may help to understand that a problem may be something negative or harmful that is occurring, such as abusive leadership, but it may also be the lack of something positive, such as the lack of consistent safety policy implementation. In the first case, you might wish to conduct statistical analysis to determine the predictors or outcomes of abusive leadership to better understand the problem. In the second case, you might wish to use qualitative research to explore perspectives on methods to ensure more consistent safety policy implementation. These are just hypothetical options, but the important point to note is that, either way, you are addressing situations that could be improved for the benefit of individuals.
Step 2: Report a Relevant Statistic
Another great practice when writing the problem statement for your dissertation is to provide a recent statistic that relates in some way to the problem. This helps to convey the magnitude of the issue to the reader. For example, if you were planning to investigate factors that predict long-term success in small- to medium-sized businesses, an applicable statistic might be the percentage of such businesses that fail within the first 5 years.
As another example, imagine that you were planning to examine the relationship between job strain, burnout, and turnover in nurses; applicable statistics might be prevalence of burnout or turnover rates among nurses. Our dissertation coaches have noted that not all research problems lend themselves well to such prevalence statistics; but, if at all possible, try to include this element in your problem. We think you’ll find that it really enhances the impact of your statement.
Step 3: Explain the Adverse Effects of the Problem
Once you have defined the problem you will address through your dissertation, it is important to also describe some of the negative effects of the problem. This helps to underscore the importance of addressing the problem, which is one of the main aims of your problem statement (Schurink, 2010). Drawing from some of the previous examples, let’s consider the types of adverse effects to document in relation to specific problems. If you were planning to complete statistical analysis to investigate variables associated with novice teacher turnover in urban school districts, it might help to search the literature for evidence of adverse effects in areas such as student outcomes, staffing levels, or teachers’ longevity in the field.
For dissertations using quantitative methods, our statistical consultants recommend that you consider the research on all variables you will examine while developing this subsection of your problem statement, as some may warrant mention here. Consider our previous example related to nurses’ job strain, burnout, and turnover. In this example, the high rate of burnout in nurses might be your problem, the influence of job strain may be the research gap (more on this later), and turnover may be a key adverse effect that you discuss in this subsection. Although you should definitely discuss variables like this that are central to your statistical analysis, feel free to document other adverse effects, especially those that are relevant to your field of practice. In this example, you might also document adverse effects such as understaffing in medical facilities or degradation to patient care quality.
Returning to our previous example of a problem that was related to the lack of something positive (i.e., the lack of consistent safety policy implementation), our dissertation coaches suggest that the adverse effects should reflect what is likely to occur in the absence of this positive phenomenon. As an aim of the dissertation is to help support positive change, our dissertation assistance clients are sometimes surprised to learn that it is insufficient to simply state that “things could be better” if the problem were addressed. In this case, you might think that the potential for a safer work environment would illustrate the importance of your qualitative research on safety policy implementation. But, to document the problem thoroughly, you must also explain the adverse outcomes that occur in the absence of consistent policy implementation, such as a higher frequency of accidents or higher costs related to property damage repairs.
Step 4: Document Research Gap
The final major element of your problem statement is your documentation of the research gap. A common mistake among our dissertation consulting clients when working on the research gap is to make statements like this: “The problem this study will address is the lack of research on the role of job strain as it relates to burnout and turnover among nurses.” There are a couple of issues with this statement. One is that the problem is never the lack of research; the problem is the actual situation—in this case, burnout—that is causing undesired outcomes in people’s lives.
The next issue with this statement is that it is not so much the lack of research but the need for research that matters. If you can’t find research on a specific topic in the literature, this may indicate a valid research gap, but it may also indicate that the topic is not research-worthy. To demonstrate that you have identified a true research gap on a worthy topic, you need to cite at least three other recent studies (i.e., published within the last 3 to 5 years) in which the researchers recommended future research into your topic (Ellis & Levy, 2008). A tip from our dissertation coaches is that it is unlikely that the researchers in these studies have specified your exact study topic, but they will have indicated a need for additional quantitative or qualitative research that in some way relates to your specific focus.
Considering another example may help to make this more concrete. Imagine that your dissertation’s problem is challenging behavior exhibited by high school students with intellectual disabilities, and your plan is to conduct statistical analysis to determine the effects of a social script program on their behavior while in school. It is possible but rather unlikely that previous researchers have recommended this exact study. For this reason, our dissertation consultants often advise using a combination of relevant recommendations to support the need for your topic. Consider these three fictitious recommendations for future studies:
- Example 1: “Although statistical analysis results indicated that social scripting was effective in decreasing challenging behavior among students with autism spectrum disorders, future research is needed to determine whether similar benefits would be experienced by students with other types of disability.”
- Example 2: “As challenging behavior was negatively correlated with academic performance among students with intellectual disabilities, it is important for researchers to further examine methods of reducing such behavior in this population.”
- Example 3: “Qualitative analysis findings suggested that some teachers viewed social scripting as helpful in reducing challenging behavior in students with intellectual disabilities, but future statistical analysis will be necessary to determine the effects of such interventions on behavior among students.”
As you can see, none of these researchers specifically recommended your dissertation topic related to social scripting among high school students with intellectual disabilities. But when you consider these recommendations for future research all together, they do, as a group, indicate the need for your study. Our dissertation coaches recommend using this sort of “patchwork” approach as necessary to solidify your research gap.
Example Problem Statement From Step 1 Through Step 4
Now that we have discussed the four major elements of the problem statement, it may help to see how all of these steps fit together in a single example. Let’s imagine that we are constructing a problem statement for a qualitative research study to explore work engagement among direct care staff who work overnight shifts in residential programs for adults with disabilities. Here is how we might move through these four steps:
Step 1: Describe the Problem
General problem
Direct care staff in residential programs for adults with disabilities may experience low levels of work engagement (Connor & Johnstone, 2019; Watson, 2020).
Specific problem
In particular, direct care employees who work overnight shifts in residential programs have reported lower levels of work engagement than employees on day or swing shifts (Danforth et al., 2021; Turnstone et al., 2019).
Step 2: Report a Relevant Statistic
Percentage, ratio, frequency, etc.
In a study of residential agencies in the Southwest region of the United States, researchers found that 40% of overnight staff reported levels of work engagement that were low enough to be considered “disengaged” (Wadsworth et al., 2020).
Step 3: Explain the Adverse Effects of the Problem
What are the negative effects?
Low levels of work engagement have numerous consequences within an organization, including lower productivity, lower organizational commitment, and higher turnover (Hayes et al., 2019; McCord et al., 2021; Witt et al., 2020).
Are there adverse effects that are specific to your setting or population?
In the residential care industry in particular, low levels of work engagement can be dangerous to clients with disabilities, as disengaged workers are more likely to make medication errors, fall asleep on the job, and have auto accidents (Lowe & Gaston, 2019; Ruhle et al., 2020).
Step 4: Document the Research Gap
Discuss recommendations for research related to problem
Research is needed to better understand how to increase work engagement among direct care staff who work overnight shifts in residential programs (Fang et al., 2021; Ruhle et al., 2020).
If applicable, discuss variables or phenomena of interest that you will examine in relation to the problem
Implementing a participatory leadership approach may increase work engagement in residential program staff; this form of leadership was correlated with higher levels of work engagement in direct care staff working all shifts in residential programs (Sweet et al., 2020).
Move from general to specific recommendations for additional research
Additional research is needed, however, to better understand how employees perceive participatory leadership as influential of their work engagement (Chin et al., 2020; Sorenson & Stone, 2020).
Conclusion
For those who are brand new to dissertation or thesis writing, it can be quite surprising to find out just how much background research it takes to develop this rather short section. It is not uncommon to review 50, 100, or even more studies just to find the 15 or so that are needed to write the problem statement. It takes a careful eye to locate key information in relevant studies, and our dissertation consultants are happy to help out as you work through this vital step in your study, whether you are just getting started or working out the kinks in an existing draft. Sometimes a teammate who can offer a second set of eyes is all that it takes! We hope you found this article helpful, and best of luck with your research.
References
Baloch, Q. B. (2011). Writing of research proposal. Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences, 4(1), 121-137.
Ellis, T. J., & Levy, Y. (2008). Framework of problem-based research: A guide for novice researchers on the development of a research-worthy problem. Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, 11, 17-33.
https://doi.org/10.28945/438Schurink, W. (2010). The importance of theorizing in proposal writing. Journal of Public Administration, 45(3), 420-434. https://doi.org/10.10520/ejc-jpad-v45-n3-1-a3