The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process

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The Problem The Heart of the Research Process

• Week 2 Lecture 2

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Agenda

• General research process
• Finding research projects
• Dividing the research problem into sub-problems
• Further delineation of problem

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Refresh your mind

• What is the scale of measurement that is most
  appropriate for each of the following variables?
• Highest degree obtained (bachelor, master,
  doctorate)
• Annual income (in dollars per year)
• Average score in class test
• Political philosophy

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Refresh your mind (cont)

• What makes scientific approach different from
  common sense approach?

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The Stages of Research

• Seven stages of research
• Choice of research topic
• Defining research problem
• Research design
• Sampling
• Data collection
• Data Analysis
• Writing the report

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Research topic and problem

• Research topic
• A general area of study or issue
• Research problem
• The more specific question
• The formulation of a problem is often more
  essential than its solution which maybe merely a
  matter of skills
• Albert Einstein
• Important questions about research problem
• Does it really interest me?
• Can it be answered with scientific inquiry?
• Do I have the resources?
• Are there irresolvable ethical problems?
• Is it theoretically or practically important?

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Research Design

• The overall plan for conducting the research
• What kind of design is appropriate for the
  problem which is being researched?
• What variables are to be measured
• What hypotheses are to be tested
• Types of research design
• Experimental
• Quasi-experimental
• Non-experimental

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Sampling

• Whats sampling?
• the process of selecting units from a population
  of interest so that by studying the sample we may
  fairly generalize our results back to the
  population from which they were chosen.
• Why take samples?
• Saving time and money
• Sampling procedures
• Probability and nonprobability

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Data Collection and Analyses

• Data collection
• Gathering data by the procedures developed in
  design and sampling phase
• Data Analyses
• Data preparation
• Cleaning and organizing the data for analysis
• Descriptive statistics
• describe the basic features of the data
• inferential statistics
• Testing Hypotheses and Models

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Writing the report

• General orientation
• Audience
• Style and tone
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Organization
• Introduction, literature review, hypotheses,
  research design, data collection procedures,
  findings, discussion, conclusion

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Mini workshop

• Identify the true research problem(s) among the
  following problems?
• The problem of this research is to learn more
  about the web services.
• This research project will compare the increase
  in the number of Internet host running Linux over
  the last 3 years with the number of Internet host
  running Windows.
• This research project will investigate if IQs of
  parents are closely related with IQs of their
  children.
• The problem we try to answer in this study is
  whether or not companies are ready for mobile
  commerce?
• This research project will try to identify the
  key factors affecting the adoption of mobile
  devices.

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Finding research projects

• What are not suitable projects?
• Research projects should not be a ruse for
  achieving self-enlightenment
• A problem whose sole purpose is to compare two
  sets of data is not a suitable research problem
• Calculating a coefficient of correlation between
  two sets of data to show a relationship between
  them is not acceptable as a problem for research
• Problems that result in a yes or no answer are
  not suitable problems for research.

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Finding research projects

• How do I find a research problem
• Experience
• Theory
• Attend professional conferences
• Seek the advice of experts
• Review of the literature
• Possible source
• CACM (Communications of the ACM), Computer (IEEE)
• Latest IT news www.idg.net
• The science and/or technology sections in major
  newspapers (www.nytimes.com)

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Finding research projects

• Review of the literature
• Your research project might
• Address the suggestions for future research that
  another researcher has offered
• Replicate a research project in a different
  setting or with a different population
• Apply an existing perspective or explanation to a
  new situation
• Explore unexpected or contradictory findings in
  previous studies
• Challenge research findings that fly in the face
  of what you know or believe to be true.

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Stating the problem

• Guidelines
• State the problem clearly and completely.
• A bad problem statement Adoption of handheld
  devices
• A revised one What are the key factors that will
  affect the individuals use and adopt handheld
  mobile devices.
• Think through the feasibility of the project that
  the problem implies.
• This research propose to study the IT executives
  on their perceptions and plans for wireless in
  the Australia enterprise.
• Say precisely what you mean
• Edit your work

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Dividing the problem into subproblems

• Subproblems vs. pseudo-subproblems
• Pseudo-subproblems
• Whats the best way to choose a sample.
• What statistical procedures should be used to
  analyze the data
• Characteristics of subproblems
• Each subproblem should be a completely
  researchable unit
• Each subproblem must be clearly tied to the
  interpretation of the data
• The subproblems must add up to the totality of
  the problem
• Subproblem should be small in number

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Sample problem statement

• The main goal of this research is to expand our
  understanding of how hypertext links may
  influence the trust transfer process in three
  ways.
• First, we question whether trust transfer is a
  one-way process.
• Second, we examine the Importance of link
  direction, assessing links both form a trusted to
  an unknown organization.
• Third, we investigate two different kinds of
  links that are commonly used on the web,
  advertising links and links to partner
  organizations.
• -- Katherine J. Stewart and YaliZhang, Effects
  of Hypertext links on trust transfer, ICEC 2003,
  PIttsBurgh, PA

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Further Delineation of problem

• Stating the hypotheses and/or research questions
• One-to-one correspondence between the subproblems
  and their corresponding hypotheses or questions
• Delimiting the research
• Know precisely what we are not going to do
• Defining the terms
• Provide operational definition for important
  terms
• Stating the assumptions
• What you take for granted

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Summary

• 7 key steps of research process
• What is and is not a suitable research problem
• Where to find research problems
• How to state the problem clearly
• It is a generally experience to divide a main
  problem into several subproblems
• Problems need further delineation