Identifying problems

In the previous section we overviewed the steps involved in a typical scientific research process. You should now have a very good understanding of the process and steps involved in scientific research. In this lecture we will take a deeper look into the identification of research problems

You might wonder: why do some research projects produce such important results, while so many others fail to do so? The fact is, many researchers owe their greatness not to their skills in solving problems, but to their wisdom in choosing their problems in the first place.

As you should recall, the first step of scientific research method is to identify a research problem.

Please note that the 'research problem' I describe here is not a problem that you encounter while you are conducting your research. Instead, the 'research problem' means the topic of your research study. Every scientific research study is aimed at solving a specific problem or question. In other words, scientific researchers typically begin conducting a research study by identifying a problem in their field that needs to be resolved. By specifying a research problem, the researcher limits the subject matter and focuses attention on an important aspect of a broader topic or field of study.

Finding a topic may be the hardest part of a science project. One of the most important considerations in picking a topic for your study is to find a subject that you consider interesting. However,  researchers do not find their research topics randomly.

Although problems in need of research are everywhere, researchers usually find their research topics by following their curiosity within their specific areas of interest. Besides curiosity and interest, what else?... What can you think of?

To find a good research project, you have to know what a good research problem should look like.

It should be interesting – it's hard for you to work on something that you don't like it.

It should be researchable; that is, you must be able to collect and analyse data on your topic.

A good problem should be significant; that is, it should address an important question and advance the frontiers of knowledge.

Finally, it should be manageable. It must possible for the project to be handled by you. This means you should have the equipment required, find it safe to perform, and so on.

It is often difficult to justify that one choice of a research problem in a given field is better than another. As you've learned, one of the most important criteria is that the problem chosen should interest the researcher strongly. Scientific research is not a routine process. It requires originality and creative thought. An uninterested person is unlikely to produce new ideas and make any significant progress. One famous scientist expressed this idea by saying that the problem should be important in the larger picture of one's view of the world.

If you are a curious and inquisitive person, you may have already have wondered about a number of problems you've encountered in your profession or your research field. This makes sense, since the identification of research problems is usually based on observation. You should note, however, that 'observation' does not necessarily mean that you have to see something with your own eyes. Relevant information can be obtained from various sources such as books, articles on the Internet, your own past experience, talking to others, and so on.

In addition to observations, some other starting points when shopping for an idea are your own experience, your needs and your interests.

When these factors are added up they can help you get closer to indentifying a research problem. Of course, there is no magic way to accomplish this.

As a science student, the best way for you to start in identifying a research problem is to read extensively in the literature related to your field of interest. By reading the results of studies conducted by investigators in your field of interest, you can learn what has already been done, and what problems were encountered.

Some other ideas I'll mention here may be useful in helping you to identify 'researchable' problems:

• Try looking around you – this means using your observations.

• Try reading the literature for new information and inspiration.

• You can attend professional conferences to get ideas by listening and talking to other experts.

• You could seek the advice of experts directly.

• Try to choose a topic that intrigues and motivates you; that is, research something you are really interested in.

• Finally, you can try to choose a topic that others will find interesting and worthy of attention. This means that topic is 'hot', so it will be easier to follow.

Let's suppose that a researcher has located an interesting, feasible, and worthwhile topic for investigation. There may still be a serious problem: that is, most research problems are too large or too complex to be solved in one research project.

One of the best ways to handle a major research problem is therefore to break it down into subproblems. This allows researchers to manage their research problems more easily. As you can imagine, it is much easier for a researcher to tackle a series of sub-problems one by one.

So, you may ask, what is a subproblem? A subproblem is a subparts of the main problem that is an integral part of the main problem.

For example:

Let's say we are going to study the effect of a new drug, drug A, on lung cancer. This is a big project, so we can divide this main problem into several sub-problems.

First, we may first investigate the effect of the drug to the growth of lung cancer cells by adding different amounts of drug A to the cells, and then measuring their growth.

Then, we could perform animal studies by setting up another set of experiments to test the effect of various concentrations of the drug on rats induced with lung cancer.

We could also to investigate how drug A might be used to kill lung cancer cells.

There may be more sub problems in this example, but what you can see here is that all the sub-problems are still under the umbrella of the main problem.

To distinguish and set up subproblems, you need to know their characteristics:

First, just like for the main problem, each subproblem should be a complete and researchable unit.

A subproblem must be clearly tied to the interpretation of the data.

The subproblems you choose to research must add up to the totality of the problem; remember, all of these subproblems are broken down from the main problem.

Finally, the number of subproblems should be kept small. You can't handle 1000 subproblems, right? They should be kept to a number that you can handle.