Identifying a Researchable Problem and Develop a Research Question
A research problem is a statement about a specific issue, difficulty, contradiction, or gap in knowledge that you will aim to address in your research. You might look for practical problems aimed at contributing to change, or theoretical problems aimed at expanding knowledge. Your goal is to find a gap that your research project can fill.
After reading about your topic and looking for under-explored aspects and areas of concern, conflict, or controversy and thoroughly gathering data, students are to develop a two-page paper to identify the specific problem that they will attempt to study and begin to formulate their research question.
The paper should include the following:
Identification of the study problem- the scope of the problem statistics, and the need and relevancy of your research study for policy, and social work practice
Highlight historic developments in the policies- recent research, theory, and debates on your topic
Provide two practice theories that can used to address the study problem.
Develop a Research Question
A research question is a sentence that defines what you will examine and within which population. The research question helps you narrow your research and write a clear, arguable study. A research question focuses the study, determines the methodology, and guides the inquiry, analysis, and reporting. Your research question needs to be concise, arguable, and focused on your topic.
Before writing your research question, narrow down your topic and brainstorm possible questions. Research questions should be focused on a single problem; researchable; able to be answered, specific, and relevant to the social work profession. When you have a clearly defined problem, you need to formulate one or more questions. Think about exactly what you want to know and how it will contribute to resolving the problem. Students are to submit their research question in a word document.
