Problem Formulation and Hypothesis Testing

A Module for AERS 282 -Social Research Design

By

Benevieve D. Villanueva

Joanna Opena

http://www.powys.gov.uk/uploads/pics/viz1_01.jpg

Components:

Lesson 1: Defining and Characterizing a Good Research Problem

Lesson 2: Developing Hypothesis

Objectives

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Define and characterize a research problem;

2. explain the role of literature review in problem formulation;

3. outline the stages in the development and the confirmation

or disconfirmation of a hypothesis; and

4. formulate a research problem and hypothesis.

Introduction

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. --- Lao-Tse

Social science research has a goal of further understanding a certain observable

fact through a systematic, objective and comprehensive exploration of social

phenomenon. Generally, any research must have a clearly stated problem that can be

affirmed in terms of a hypothesis.

This module focuses on the most critical part of the research process –

identification of the research topic and specification of the research problem. It

provides an in depth discussion on the basic steps in problem formulation and another

important element in the statement of the problem such as hypothesis.

Analyze the illustration below.

“what is” the actual situation?

? “what ought to be” the ideal situation?

Activity 1: Fill in the Gap

Lesson 3: Problem Formulation and Hypothesis Testing

When can you say that a problem exists?

Think of an actual situation. Is it an ideal situation? If not, what do you think

should be an ideal situation? How do you perceive the difference between the actual

and ideal situation? What can research do?

A. The Research Problem

The most difficult aspect of research is formulating a clear, concise, and

manageable research problem. In a conventional sense, a problem is a set of conditions

needing discussion, solution, and information. However, in a technical meaning, it

implies the possibility of empirical investigation, that is, of data collection and analysis.

A problem is not how to do something or a vague or too broad a proposition or a value

question.1 In other words, a research problem is a condition that can be investigated

through the collection and analysis of data with theoretical or practical significance.

1.1 Defining A Research Problem

Defining a research problem begins the

scientific process. It is the foundation of any research

method. It is one of the first statements defining the

research area which include a quick synopsis of how

hypothesis was arrived at.

When doing research, you should think on what

caused the need to conduct the research (problem

identification). Thus, it will be helpful to ask “Are there questions about this problem to

which answers have not been found up to the present?

Discussion

Inputs

Research always originates from a need felt by individuals in a social setting.

The problem is basically a “gap” between “what is” and “what ought to be”. When a

research is conducted to solve the problem as Tejero (2004) puts it, a gap is filled in and

new knowledge evolved. However, a clear distinction between the problem and the

purpose should be made. The problem is the aspect the researcher worries about,

thinks about and wants to find solution for. The purpose is to solve the problem, ie find

answers to the question(s). If there is no clear problem formulation, the purpose and

methods are meaningless.2

1.2 Characteristics of a Good Research Problem

A problem exist when there is an absence of information resulting in a “gap” in knowledge; when there are contradictory results; and when a fact exists and you intend to make your study explain it (Mc Gingan, 1978 in Tejero, 2004).

A good research problem as presented by Tejero (2004) is characterized as follows:

1. A good problem should be of great interest to you. A researcher needs to be highly motivated and interested because research is a long and arduous process.

2. It should be useful for the concerned people in a particular field. A researcher should select a topic within his field of endeavor so that he can share the benefits of his research work with other people in that particular field of interest.

3. A good problem should be novel. The research topic should be something new so that one can be sure that it really contributes to the formation of new knowledge and not just a mere repetition of what has been done already.

4. It should lend itself to complex designing. Complex research designs. 5. It should be completed in the allotted time desired. 6. It should not carry ethical or moral impediments

1.3 Sources of Scientific Problems

Tejero (2004) enumerated the following as some of the many sources of a problem:

1. Experiences and observations; 2. Courses that have been taken; 3. Journals, books, magazines or abstracts; 4. Theses and dissertation (focused on recommendations); 5. Professors and colleagues; and

6. Internet 7. Vast amount of literature in the researcher’s field;

1.4 The Role of Literature Review

The review of literature according to Bautista (1998) is an important component in the preparation of the proposal and of the research report. It can be considered as an important process in shaping the proposal such that it can help in the identification of a research problem. Review of literature is doing prior researches which can provide important leads to help you determine your topic of inquiry. You may discover some gaps in other researches which again as discussed by Bautista may serve as the starting point in the framing of a research proposal.

As an aspect in the research report, again Bautista pointed out that the review of literature details what previous investigations have proven and how your research would fit in the body of works on the subject matter. Previous researches may indicate unanticipated consequences, which can be validated in your own investigation.

Related Literature and Studies

Calderon (1993) differentiated related literature to related studies. Related literature is composed of discussions of facts and principles to which the present study is related. For instance, if the present study deals with climate change, literature to be reviewed or surveyed should be composed of materials that deal with climate change. These materials according to Calderon are usually printed and found in books, encyclopedias, professional journals, magazines, newspapers, and other publications which can be further classified as local if printed in the Philippines and foreign if printed in other countries.

Related studies on the other hand as presented by Calderon, are studies, inquiries, or investigations already conducted to which the present proposed study is related or has some bearing or similarity. They are usually unpublished materials such as manuscripts, theses, and dissertations.

Importance, Purposes and Functions of Related Literature

As summarized by Calderon, the following are ways in which reviewed literature and studies help or guide the researcher:

1. Guide the researcher in searching for or selecting a better research problem or topic- you may decide to replicate a similar problem if it is better than the problem already chosen;

2. Help the investigator understand his topic for research better. It may help clarify vague points about the problem;

3. Ensure and avoids duplication of other studies 4. Help and guide the researcher in locating more sources of related information; 5. Help and guide the researcher in making his research design especially in:

a. The formulation of specific questions to research on; b. The formulation of assumptions and hypotheses if there should be any; c. The formulation of conceptual framework; d. The selection and application of the methods of research e. The selection and application of sampling techniques; f. The selection and or/preparation and validation of research instruments

for gathering data; g. The selection and application of statistical procedures; h. The analysis, organization, presentation, and interpretation of data; i. The making of summary of implications for the whole study; and j. The formulation of the summary of findings, conclusions, and

recommendations 6. Help and guide the researcher in making comparison between his findings with

the finding of other researches on similar studies with the end of formulating generalizations or principles which are the contributions of the study to the body of knowledge

Characteristics of a good related Literature and studies (Calderon, 1993)

1. They must be as recent as possible, except when making a comparison or when dealing with universal facts

2. They must be objective and unbiased 3. They must be relevant to the study 4. They must have been based upon genuinely original and true facts or data to

make it valid and reliable 5. They must not be too few nor too many

B. Formulating a Research Problem

One of the major parts of developing any research paper is formulating the

research problem. For an experiment-based project, this question naturally leads onto

a hypothesis. A general research problem will usually be based around ‘why’ or ‘how’ a

certain phenomenon is happening.

For example, a research problem such as “why are the forest resources

declining in the Cordillera Region?” is a general research problem statement. The

statement could be based around a review of literature, which shows that the

Cordillera rainforest coverage is rapidly declining. As a result, you can legitimately use

that as a good starting point, a basic assumption upon which to build your research

project.

As a researcher, you may postulate several factors. However, naturally at first,

there will be no clear ground as to what contributes to the environmental and

ecological damage. One has to narrow down first the broad question which ideally is

moving towards a hypothesis or thesis question. With the general question, “why are

the forest resources declining in the Cordillera Region?” you could arrive at:

‘Is intensive agriculture the major cause of deforestation in the Cordillera Region?’ ‘Is the logging industry the major cause of deforestation in the Cordillera Region?’ ‘Is Global Warming the major cause of deforestation in the Cordillera Region?’

Once you have a good research paper question, you can then begin to generate a testable hypothesis or research question, and construct your paper around this.3

Guidelines in formulating the research problem: (Bautista, 1998 in Research and Public Management)

1. Be as specific as possible. For Example:

2. Raise a question that is ethically neutral.

The problem statement should not contain the word should or ought. Example: Should Charter Change be implemented during the term of the next president? It could be restated scientifically as the following: What do AERS 282 students feel about charter change? Are they in favor of or against its implementation during the term of the next Philippine President?

Too broad/Vague

What is the effect of the family

planning program of the government?

Precise

What is the effect of family planning

program on the knowledge, attitude,

and practice of family planning among

married couples of reproductive age?

3. State the problem in a declarative or interrogative form. Example:

Declarative form: The present work is a study of technocratic thought. It is an attempt to identify and define technocratic thought as such, to describe and explain the emergence of the authority of this thought in the context of development, as well as to draw attention to the changing nature of development. (Dubsky 1981) The following are examples of an interrogative statement, or a statement that raises a question: Is the Integrated Area Development approach an effective mechanism to coordinate planning and implementation of development projects? Is there any relationship between effective coordination with the projects’ performance? (Chandrachoti, 1984) Does religiosity influence the performance of Examiners at the Bureau of Internal Revenue? (Abdon, 1997)

C. Problem Statement

The problem statement is more specific than a topic and it limits the scope of the research problem. It communicates:

a. The focus and importance of the problem; A problem statement introduces the reader to the importance of the

problem. The reader is oriented to the significance of the study and the research questions or hypotheses to follow.

b. The context and scope; and

A problem statement places the problem in a context

c. The framework for reporting the results A problem statement provides the framework for reporting the

results. These indicate what is probably necessary to conduct the study and explain how the findings will present the information. You could relate the findings to prior research, or it could be presented as a comparison, or you could draw implications from the findings to generalize to other related conditions.

C.1 Problem statement in a qualitative Study

Parts of a Qualitative Problem Statement:

The purpose of this [type of study] study is to understand [what] of [who or what] involving [what or who] from [when] to [purpose].

EXAMPLES:

A Problem Statement by Michelle Kraft © 2000 Through a historical/legal analysis of the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) clause of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) amendments of 1997 (PL 105-17), and its intersection with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), I will compare the intent of the mandate to its actual practice in a five-month case study of a junior high art class. A theoretical frame consisting of values of equality, liberty, and efficiency guide data collection, analyses, and interpretation of the relationships and disparities that exist between the legal statute's intent and its actual practice.

A Problem Statement by Tiffanie Davis © 2000

The purpose of this project is to create four different WebQuests which employ constructive active learning pedagogy, teach higher order thinking skills, and that introduce feminist issues to 6th 8th grade art students. I will pilot the WebQuests over a period of 3 months and document student written responses, my observations of their process, and student WebQuest products in order to evaluate student learning and interest in the feminist technological art curriculum

Problem Statement Activity

Which of the following statements is phrased as a research problem? The purpose of the study is to determine:

a. whether the suspension policy should be changed.

b. the truth of the proposition that American education has encouraged and elite class in the United States.

c. how students can overcome test anxiety. d. if there is a difference in the mean gain scores in reading achievement between students taught word

attack skills and those taught comprehensive skills.

Which of the following statements is NOT phrased as a research problem? The purpose of the study is to investigate:

a. if there is a positive relationship between the number of books a child owns and reading readiness

scores.

b. how Lubbock schools can involve parents in their educational program.

c. how Ms. Hembree, an elementary school principal, encourages faculty to assume instructional

leadership roles during an academic year.

d. the legal principles applied in educational cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court under the Chief Justice who recently retired.

e. what it means to teach a handicapped child mainstreamed into Mr. Stout's seventh-grade class.

Deepening

CHECKLIST FOR TESTING THE FEASIBILITY OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

YES NO

1 Is the problem of current interest? Will the research results have social, educational

or scientific value?

2 Will it be possible to apply the results in practice?

3 Does the research contribute to the science of education?

4 Will the research opt new problems and lead to further research?

5 Is the research problem important? Will you be proud of the result?

6 Is there enough scope left within the area of reseach (field of research)?

7 Can you find an answer to the problem through research? Will you be able to

handle the research problem?

8 Will it be pratically possible to undertake the research?

9 Will it be possible for another researcher to repeat the research?

10 Is the research free of any ethical problems and limitations?

11 Will it have any value?

12 Do you have the necessary knowledge and skills to do the research? Are you

qualified to undertake the research?

13 Is the problem important to you and are you motivated to undertake the research?

14 Is the research viable in your situation? Do you have enough time and energy to

complete the project?

15 Do you have the necessary funds for the research?

16 Will you be able to complete the project within the time available?

17 Do you have access to the administrative, statistic and computer facilities the

research necessitates?

TOTAL:

D. Hypothesis

The hypothesis is one of the components of the research problem, particularly

that of exploratory types of studies particularly of the quantitative variety. Hypothesis as defined by Calderon (2004) is a tentative conclusion or answer to

a specific question raised at the beginning of the investigation. It is an educated guess about the answer to a specific question.

Characteristics of a good Hypothesis (Aquino,1992)

1. It should infer upon a relationship between two or more variables. 2. It should be stated clearly and unambiguously in the form of a declarative

sentence. 3. It should be testable, that is, it should be possible to restate it in an

operational form which can then be evaluated based on data.

A hypothesis can be derived from a problem statement. Example: 1. Problem Statement: What is the relation between IQ and Achievement?

Hypothesis: IQ and Achievement are positively related. 2. Problem Statement: Do students learn more from a “directive” teacher or a

“nondirective” teacher? Hypothesis: Directive teachers are more effective than “nondirective” teachers.

There are two forms of hypothesis: Operational/Alternative Form – states that there is a relationship between two phenomena and the null form which states no relationship.

Example: If age and knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) scores in family planning are being related,

the null form would read as:

There is no relationship between age and KAP scores on family planning among married couples of reproductive age (MCRA)

the alternative form would read as:

There is a relationship between age and KAP scores on family planning among MCRA’s or Age and KAP scores among MCRAs are related.

Steps in Writing Hypothesis http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/dwallace/lesson%2010.pdf

Writing Hypotheses Before we can start testing hypotheses, we must first write the hypotheses in a formal way. We will be writing two hypotheses: the research (H1) and the null (H0) hypothesis. The research hypothesis matches what the researcher is trying to show is true in the problem. The null is a competing hypothesis. Although we would like to directly test the research hypothesis, we actually test the null. If we disprove the null, then we indirectly support the research hypotheses since it competes directly with the null. We will discuss this fact in more detail later in the lesson. Again, the research hypothesis matches the research question in the problem. Let’s take a look at a sample problem: Suppose some species of plants grows at 2.3 cm per week with a standard deviation of 0.3 (μ = 2.3 σ = 0.3). I take a sample plant and genetically alter it to grow faster. The new plant grows at 3.2 cm per week (X = 3.2). Did the genetic alteration cause the plant to grow faster than the general population? Set alpha = .05. Let’s focus on writing hypotheses, rather than any other steps we have learned for now. In order to write the research hypothesis look at what the researcher is trying to prove. Here we are trying to show that the genetically altered plant grows at a faster rate than unaltered plants. That’s what we want the research hypothesis to say. However, when you write your hypotheses, be sure to include three elements:

1) explicitly state the populations you wish to compare. For now, one will be a treatment population and the other will always be the general population.

2) State the dependent variable. We have to be explicit about the scale on which we expect to find differences.

3) State the type or direction of the effect. Are we predicting the treatment population will be greater or less than the general population (1-tail)? Or, are we looking for differences in either direction at the same time (2-tail)? The above problem is one-tail since we are looking for a growth rate higher than the average. Look for words that indicate a direction in the problem for one-tail test (e.g. higher/lower, more/less, better/worse). It would be two-tailed if the problem had stated that we expected a “different” growth rate than the general population. Different could be higher or it could be different because it is lower.

The current example is easy to translate into a hypothesis, but check the homework packet because the wording is not always so obvious. For the research hypotheses (denoted by H1 ):

H1: The population of genetically altered plants grows faster than the general population. You could vary the wording a bit, as long as you include the three elements. Notice that we state both the treatment population and the population we will compare that to, the general population. Growth rate is the dependent variable, and we indicate the direction by saying it will grow faster. The null hypothesis (denoted by H0) is a competing hypothesis. It’s basically the opposite of the research hypothesis. In general it states that there is not effect for our treatment or no differences in our populations. For this example: H0: The population of genetically altered plants grows at the same or lower rate as the general population. I’ve included the “same or lower” wording for the one-tail test because we want to cover all the possible outcomes of the test. We only want to show that the treatment population grows faster. If they end up growing slower it won’t support the research hypothesis, so we include left-over elements with the null. For two-tail tests, substitute “different” for the word “faster” in the research hypothesis. The two-tail null would say the groups do not differ.

We can also write the hypothesis in notational form. We will restate both the

null and research hypotheses in symbols we have been using for our formulas. Thus: H1: μgen.alt. > 2.3 H0: μgen.alt < 2.3 Notice that we represent the treatment population with a “mu” (μ). We do this because we want to make inferences about the population, not the single value sample I am using to test the hypothesis. Our inferences will be that the entire population the plant comes from grows at a faster rate. The value of 2.3 is the general population mean we are comparing against. Although it is represented with a “mu” in the problem, we don’t the symbol because we know the exact value for that population. For two-tail test we simply change the direction arrows to equal/not-equal signs (an “=” sign for the null and / “ ≠ “ sign for the research hypothesis).

References http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/dwallace/lesson%2010.pdf 2 http://explorations.sva.psu.edu/lapland/LitRev/prob1.html#anchor2210644

3http://www.experiment-resources.com/research-paper-question.html#ixzz0Z8iAYbUb

Aquino, Gaudencio V. 1992. Fundamentals of Research. National Bookstore

Bautista, Victoria A. 1998. Research and Public Management. UP Open University

Calderon, Jose F. and Gonzales, E.C. 2004. Methods of Research and Thesis Writing

National Bookstore

Tejero E.G. and Catchillar G.C. 2006. Thesis and Dissertation Writing: A modular

Approach