So What? Who Cares? Crafting an Effective Problem Statement

Several months ago, I had a conversation with a colleague who is the department chair for a higher education graduate program. He shared that one of the biggest stumbling blocks for students at the dissertation stage is defining a research problem. As I think about my own educational experiences (as an undergraduate psychology major and across two master’s and one doctoral program), I can’t recall much explicit instruction about how to derive a problem statement. I knew I needed one, and I surmised that they frequently involved efforts to fill gaps in the literature. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure.

Since that conversation, I have given a lot of thought to what we mean by the problem or purpose statement and how we get one. In this post, I share some of the things I gleaned from reading about the production of scholarly writing. I also offer suggestions for activities designed to help you craft or refine a problem statement.

What Is a Problem Statement?

In describing journal article reporting standards (JARS), the APA Style Manual (7th edition) indicates that the problem statement for a quantitative study should indicate the importance of the problem along with its theoretical and practical implications. Similarly, the problem statement for qualitative research frames the problem or question and its context. In doing so, it synthesizes key issues, debates, or theoretical frameworks in the relevant literature, clarifying barriers, knowledge gaps, or practical needs. In short, all problem statements should answer two questions: So What? and Who Cares?

Answers to the So What question help define the problem and who it affects; they also suggest the implications of your study for future research, practice, and potentially to the lived experiences of your subjects or participants. In thinking about the Who Cares question, we might consider folks with a vested interest in this problem. They might include members of disciplinary or practice communities, members of the larger population your sample represents, and increasingly, stakeholders outside higher education. Roland Jacobs (2011) suggests the problem statement should also indicate what you will do. For example, will you test a hypothesis, analyze a dataset in a new way, describe participants’ lived experiences, or compare findings across a series of studies, to name a few?

The problem or research purpose statements we encounter in the published literature are frequently articulated in one or two sentences, but they represent a process of investigation, analysis, and synthesis that begins by noticing convergences, areas of agreement, or seemingly settled “truths” in the literature (see Jacobs, 2011). Next, we bring these into conversation with other propositions emerging from theory, research, or practice. As a result, we recognize gaps, contradictions, or unanswered questions. From here, the problem statement begins to take shape: first, as we theorize about the relationship between these two sets of propositions, and next, as we start to consider the action we might take to resolve contradictions, fill gaps, or answer questions.

Getting It Right (Or How To Avoid Getting It Wrong)

Because the problem statement guides the design of a research study and shapes any manuscript reporting the study’s findings, getting it right is crucial. Yet, several scholars describe where and how problem statements go wrong. For example, Jacobs identifies seven common concerns with problem statements—most of which speak to a failure to adequately address the So What and Who Cares questions. Wendy Belcher (2019) notes that research manuscripts are frequently rejected because they lack a strong argument. To that end, she offers a series of tests for determining whether we have an argument (here, think of the problem statement as the argument the manuscript makes). Again, not attending to relevance or significance (i.e., So What and Who Cares) weakens the problem statement, but Belcher also suggests the importance of using the problem statement as a platform for communicating what we plan to do.

In the table below, I summarize the guidance from Jacobs and Belcher designed to help writers evaluate the effectiveness of research problem statements.

Common Issues with Problem Statements (Jacobs, 2011)

Do You Have an Argument? (Belcher, 2019)

Fails to establish the existence of a problem Explains all problems in the same way Doesn't offer insight into the history of the problem Offers limited support to explain how theoretical or research-based propositions interact Has limited meaning outside the researcher’s personal experience Is stated too broadly Has limited importance to the field or portrays information drawn from literature inaccurately

Have you merely marked out a topic? Do you make an observation without offering an interpretation? Have you made an obvious, vague, or general claim? Have you simply stated the variables you planned to study without suggesting how they might be related? Have you identified a gap in the literature without suggesting how your study will fill that gap? Have you offered a policy recommendation?

So, what do you do if you have evaluated your problem statement and found it lacking? Or what if you simply don’t know where to get started. Below are some resources and activities you might consider trying:

1. Review the discussion of using argument templates in Week 2 of Wendy Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks (2nd edition). Dannelle Stevens also offers a helpful discussion of argument templates in Write More, Publish More, Stress Less! (see pages 36-31). Try drafting or revising your problem statement using a template presented in one of these sources.

2. Identify problem statements in the published research you are reading. Make a note of the ones that seem especially compelling. Then, consider using them as models for your own problem statements.

3. Spend some time writing multiple drafts of your problem statement. See Exercise 31 in Patricia Goodson’s Becoming an Academic Writer (2nd edition) as a guide for practice.

4. Walk through the steps of developing a problem statement. The mini-course, Defining the Research Problem, is designed to unpack the strategies involved in coming up with a research problem and help you craft a solid purpose statement.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed).

Belcher, W. L. (2019). Writing your journal article in twelve weeks: A guide to academic publishing success (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Jacobs, R. L. (2011). Developing a research problem and purpose statement. In T. S. Rocco, T. Hatcher, & Associates, The handbook of scholarly writing and publishing (pp. 125-141). Jossey-Bass.