Skip to main content

Explain the criteria to be considered while selecting a research problem.

Selection of a research problem is a big job in itself, although, the actual research is more painstaking (especially if it is for a dissertation). There are a few criteria one can use to select the research problem. 


  • Passion: How passionate you are about a research topic is one of the top criteria for selection of a research problem, especially for a long-duration project. Researchers face many issues during the tenure of the research project and it is the passion for the particular research topic or sub-area that keeps them going. So you may want to think about what excites you among the large number of research problems or areas.

  • Knowledge gap: A successful research attempts to fill the knowledge gap. That is, it is aimed at adding to the knowledge of the scientific community and public (in general). A research problem may excite you, but if it has already been worked upon by a number of researchers and all the questions have been (more or less) answered, very little remains to be worked on. That is where literature review may help you. For any research area of interest, go through some books, reports and journal articles and try to figure out if a sufficient enough knowledge gap exists.

  • Availability of resources: It may be easier to figure out a research problem, but difficult to see it through. One always have to compare the resources required and resources available for a given research problem. If your problem requires laboratory work, ensure that the required equipment is available or could be arranged. Similarly, if field work is needed, have a preliminary idea of your sample group and its availability. 

  • Scope of the problem: We all want to answer so many questions as researchers, however we only have a given amount of time to do so. Thus, keeping the scope of the problem in mind is really important. While selecting a research problem, have some idea of how long will it take to answer the inherent questions and then modify your research problem according to the time allocated (by your supervisor or instructor). 

Hope this helps.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more