Choosing Between Problems
Chapter -Five
Syllabus topic 6, "Identification of Research Problem and formulation of Hypothesis."
Pages 418 to 420 of 543
In one line
A good problem is not the most important one available: it is the most important one that this researcher, with this time, this access and this supervisor, can actually finish.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the selection of a research problem is governed by its significance, its novelty, its feasibility in time, cost and access, the availability of data and of supervision, the researcher's own competence and interest, and ethical acceptability; feasibility is decisive, since a problem which cannot be completed within the available time and access produces no research at all however important it may be.
The seven criteria
One: significance. Would resolving it change anything for anybody, chapter 1070?
Two: novelty. Has it been done? The literature review answers this and must be done before committing, chapter 1290.
Three: feasibility. Can this person finish it in the time available? Discussed at length below because it is decisive.
Four: data availability. Does the material exist, and can it be reached? A brilliant problem whose data is in a file nobody will open is not researchable.
Five: competence. Does the researcher have or can they acquire the skills? A study requiring statistical modelling from a student who has never done any is a bad choice, chapter 1040.
Six: interest. A year is a long time. A problem the researcher does not care about will be abandoned in month five.
Seven: ethics. Can it be done without harming anybody, chapter 1400?
Feasibility, taken apart
Time. Count backwards from the submission date. MU's Semester IV dissertation must be submitted on a date the Department notifies, chapter 120, and the viva follows within weeks. Fieldwork of six weeks needs to start four months before, not two.
Access. This is the criterion students underestimate most.
Ask, before choosing, who must say yes. A study inside a jail needs permission that may take months and may not come. A study of court records may need the District Judge's leave. A study of a college's examination practice may need the University. A study of published documents needs nobody, which is why chapter 990 recommends it.
And ask what happens if they say no. A problem with no fallback is a gamble.
Cost. Travel, printing, copies. A student's budget is small and honest planning respects it.
Language. Can the researcher conduct the fieldwork in the language the respondents speak, or is an interpreter needed, and how would that affect the data, chapter 960?
Supervision. Is there a supervisor who can judge this work? A student doing empirical work under a supervisor who has never done any will get little help with the part that matters most.
Choosing Between Problems
The unresearchable problem
Four kinds, and recognising them saves months.
Normative. Whether legal aid is just. It requires argument from a value premise, not investigation, chapter 1050. It can be written as a piece of legal philosophy, and should be described as one.
Predictive. What will happen when a new Act is applied. Nothing has happened yet.
Inaccessible. Whatever depends on material nobody will produce.
And unbounded. Anything whose data collection has no natural end.
The scoring exercise
A practical device worth doing on paper.
List three candidate problems. Score each from 1 to 5 on the seven criteria. Add.
Then look at feasibility separately, because it is not one criterion among seven: a problem scoring 1 on feasibility is out whatever else it scores.
And then apply the last test. Write, in one sentence each, the finding you expect and the finding that would surprise you. If you cannot write the second, the problem may not be a real question.
What to do when the best problem is not feasible
Narrow it, chapter 1100. The remand study is one court, not the State.
Change the unit. Colleges instead of students; registers instead of interviews; published documents instead of officials.
Change the method. If interviews inside a jail are not possible, released prisoners can be reached by snowball, chapter 1020.
Split it. Do the part that is feasible, and state the rest as what further research should do, which is a proper part of a conclusion.
Or take the adjacent problem. If the question about magistrates is inaccessible, the question about what the legal aid panel records is often not.
A worked example
A student wants to study custodial legal aid.
Candidate one. Whether persons in police custody in this district are informed of their right to legal services. Significant, novel, and inaccessible: a police station will not admit an observer, and the persons concerned cannot be interviewed while in custody.
Candidate two. Whether persons produced for remand are informed. Significant, novel, and feasible: the remand court is open, no permission is required, and observation is possible, chapter 960.
Candidate three. How many legal aid assignments in this district arose at the remand stage rather than at trial. Significant, feasible if the District Authority will show its records, and dependent on a permission that may not come.
The choice. Candidate two, because it is the one that can certainly be done, with candidate three as an addition if the records are made available and as a stated limitation if they are not.
And notice what has happened. The student has not abandoned the important question; they have found the version of it that a semester can answer, and that is the whole skill this chapter teaches.
Choosing Between Problems
Quick revision
Seven criteria: significance; novelty; feasibility; data availability; competence; interest; and ethics.
Feasibility is decisive and has six parts: time counted backwards from submission; access, asking who must say yes and what happens if they say no; cost; language; supervision; and skills.
Four unresearchable kinds: normative, requiring a value premise rather than investigation; predictive, where nothing has happened yet; inaccessible; and unbounded.
The last test: write in one sentence the finding you expect and the finding that would surprise you. If you cannot write the second, it may not be a real question.
When the best problem is not feasible: narrow it; change the unit; change the method; split it and state the rest as further research; or take the adjacent problem.
Test yourself
1. Name the seven criteria for selecting a research problem and say which is decisive. Significance, novelty, feasibility, data availability, competence, interest and ethics. Feasibility is decisive, because a problem that cannot be completed within the available time and access produces no research at all, however important it may be.
2. Break feasibility into its parts. Time, counted backwards from the submission date; access, meaning who must give permission and what happens if they refuse; cost, including travel and printing; language, including whether an interpreter is needed and how that would affect the data; supervision by somebody able to judge the work; and the skills the method requires.
3. Name the four kinds of unresearchable problem. Normative problems, which require argument from a value premise rather than investigation; predictive problems, where the events have not yet occurred; inaccessible problems, depending on material nobody will produce; and unbounded problems, whose data collection has no natural end.
4. Give three things a researcher can do when the most important problem is not feasible. Narrow it, for example to one court rather than a State; change the unit of study, using registers or published documents instead of people who cannot be reached; or split it, doing the feasible part and stating the remainder as what further research should undertake.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.