You should have a clear statement of problem before embarking on any academic research.

When a problem is not well stated, the focus of the research will be lost.

What to include in your statement of the problem

• Properly expression the relationship between variables.
• Endeavor to state the exact problem you are trying to solve
• Your statement of problem must portray the possibility of formulating hypotheses objectives and research questions thereon.

Points to Note while developing your statement of the problem;

• Don’t answer the research questions while stating your problem
• Try not to conclude your study in your  problem statement
• Do not make recommendations yet

Your attitude when writing statement of the problem:

• Assume you are yet to know the outcome of the study
• Make it obvious that there is a problem but don’t state a problem based on assumption.
• The statement should indicate that your study shall undergo further investigations on problems affecting the subject matter.

Statement of Problem must properly connect the variables in your topic, the problem must be well stated without offering any solution at the moment.

So many students and even lecturers make the mistake of stating the solutions to a problem in their problem statement, this is wrong, you should only say what the problems are; don’t suggest ways of solving the problems yet.

Proffering solutions only tells one thing which is that you’ve already finished your research from the beginning without collecting data, no analysis done, you have just concluded your study without an investigation…very wrong.

Solutions must come at the end of your investigation, in chapter 5 there is a section titled RECOMMENDATION that’s where to make recommendations on possible solutions…there’s a reason for this section, so it’s very wrong jumping the gun.

Also, while stating the problem, don’t make a long list of problems which makes it obvious that you have verified and approved the exact list of problems on your topic, i advice that you make a simple statement indicating your knowledge of an existing problem affecting the subject matter.

Remember that the problems you are stating were gotten from related literature you’ve read over time, so your statement is on the basis of existing knowledge in literature reviewed.

What the study will now do will be to find out from real human beings what their opinion on the stated problems are, of course this will be accompanied by other relevant questions after which the information (i.e., data) collected will be analyzed with various statistical tools and conclusions will then be drawn.

Request free sample