How to Formulate a Research Problem
I took 1 year and 3 months to learn how to formulate a research problem. To formulate a research problem is to rigorously and comprehensively understand a problem.
To formulate a research problem you need to define:
- What exactly is the problem?
- In what situation does the problem occur?
- What conditions need to be met for the problem to arise?
- What are the assumptions for the problem set-up?
- Why does the problem occur?
- What is the exact basis or mechanism by which the problem manifests?
- What are the consequences or impact of the problem?
- How does the solution target the root cause of the problem?
- What are the limitations of the solution?
- In what case is the solution limited in effectiveness?
- What assumptions are needed for the solution to work?
- What is the bigger picture that contextualises this problem?
Without a good understanding of the problem, it is impossible to derive a good solution approach to the problem.