Title: Chapter 4 Research Problems, Research Questions, and Hypotheses
1Chapter 4Research Problems, Research Questions,
and Hypotheses
2Basic Terminology
- Research problem
- An enigmatic, perplexing, or troubling condition
- Problem statement
- A statement articulating the research problem and
indicating the need for a study
3Basic Terminology (contd)
- Research questions
- The specific queries the researcher wants to
answer in addressing the research problem - Hypotheses
- The researchers predictions about relationships
among variables
4Basic Terminology (contd)
- Statement of purpose
- The researchers summary of the overall study
goal - Research aims or objectives
- The specific accomplishments to be achieved by
conducting the study
5Sources of Research Problems
- Experience and clinical fieldwork
- Nursing literature
- Social issues
- Theory
- Ideas from external sources
6Developing and Refining Research Problems
- Selecting a broad topic area (e.g., patient
compliance, caregiver stress) - Narrowing the topicasking questions to help
focus the inquiry - Examples
- What is going on with?
- What factors contribute to.?
7Evaluating Research Problems
- Significance of the problem
- Researchability of the problem
- Feasibility of addressing the problem (e.g.,
time, resources, ethics, cooperation of others) - Interest to the researcher
8Problem Statements
- Should identify the nature, context, and
significance of problem being addressed - Should be broad enough to include central
concerns - Should be narrow enough to serve as a guide to
study design
9Statement of PurposeQuantitative Studies
- Identifies key study variables
- Identifies possible relationships among variables
- Indicates the population of interest
- Suggests, through use of verbs, the nature of the
inquiry (e.g., to test, to compare, to
evaluate)
10Statement of PurposeQualitative Studies
- Identifies the central phenomenon
- Indicates the research tradition (e.g., grounded
theory, ethnography) - Indicates the group, community, or setting of
interest - Suggests, through use of verbs, the nature of the
inquiry (e.g., to describe, to discover, to
explore)
11Research Questions
- Are sometimes direct rewordings of statements of
purpose, worded as questions - Are sometimes used to clarify or lend specificity
to the purpose statement - In quantitative studies, pose queries about the
relationships among variables
12Research Questions (contd)
- In qualitative studies, pose queries linked to
the research tradition - Grounded theory process questions
- Phenomenology meaning questions
- Ethnography cultural description questions
13A Hypothesis
- States a prediction
- Must always involve at least two variables
- Must suggest a predicted relationship between the
independent variable and the dependent variable - Must contain terms that indicate a relationship
(e.g., more than, different from, associated with)
14Simple Versus Complex Hypotheses
- Simple hypothesis
- Expresses a predicted relationship between one
independent variable and one dependent variable - Complex hypothesis
- States a predicted relationship between two or
more independent variables and/or two or more
dependent variables
15Directional Versus Nondirectional Hypotheses
- Directional hypothesis
- Predicts the direction of a relationship
- Nondirectional hypothesis
- Predicts the existence of a relationship, not its
direction
16Research Versus Null Hypotheses
- Research hypothesis
- States the actual prediction of a relationship
- Statistical or null hypothesis
- Expresses the absence of a relationship (used
only in statistical testing)