Course: Research Method in Information Systems

Course Code: (INSY3061)

Compiled by: Siraj Sebhatu (PhD)

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 Chapter 2
Defining or Formulation of
The Research Problem
 Selection of a research topic
The first step in designing any research study is deciding what
to study.
•A researcher may choose a topic in a variety of ways
•The researcher’s interest and Basic curiosity about observed
phenomenon provides sufficient motivation for choosing a
research topic
Two considerations when choosing topic:
[Link] problem must be answerable using the available
scientific methods.
– “Is there an exact replicate of me in another universe?”
[Link] sure that the problem you are asking has not already
been answered by others through literature review.
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Generally selection of the research theme/topic is
influenced by :

Personal interest
– Social significance
– Theoretical interest
– “Research ability”
– Ethical questions: who’s interests does the
research serve?

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Sources of Research Problems
– Making Observations.
– Conducting Literature reviews.
– Participating Professional conferences.
– Consulting Experts.

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 Sources of Research Problems
• Once you’ve identified a research problem:
– State that problem clearly and completely.
– Determine the feasibility of the research.
• Economical
• Technical
• Operational
• Legal and contractual
• Political &
• Schedule
• Identify sub-problems:
– Completely researchable units.
– Add up to the total problem.
• Must be clearly tied to the interpretation of the data.
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 Conducting Literature survey
• After choosing a specific topic, the next step is
reviewing the existing literatures on the topic area.
• Purpose: to become familiar with the existing
literature (e.g., books, journal articles) on a
particular topic.
– Do a brief review  not comprehensive
– Refer the original resources & try to understand it
– Avoid errors of interpretation and transcription

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 Developing Research Questions and
Hypothesis
• Identifying the things you need to find out;
– Finding what you don’t know
• A question is a problem or statement in need of a
solution or answer
Ex:
• How can we identify factors affecting ICT usage &
utilization in universities?
• How can we get SMS in local languages on the
Mobile infrastructure?
• How can we get IR systems in local languages?
• How can we secure our network from threats?
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 Developing Research Questions and
Hypothesis
• Identifying research questions may involve review
of the literature (reading quite a lot) before you
even know what is not known.
• Critical Issues:
– Questions must be in principle answerable
• Specific
• Refer to something you can find an answer
for
– Questions should be general/guiding questions

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 Developing Research Questions and
Hypothesis
• General research questions
– Guide our thinking
– Are of great value in organizing the research
project
– Are not specific enough to be answered
• Specific questions
– Direct empirical procedures
– Are the questions actually answered in the
research
• It is useful to identify and separate the general
and the specific questions. 10
 Research Questions … cont’d

• Research area
– Is a general field of inquiry
– It is NOT a research question
– Contains many researchable questions (both
general and specific)
• Hierarchy of the concepts
– Research Area
• Research topic
–General research questions
»Specific research questions
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 Research Questions … cont’d

• Example:
– Area: IR Systems
• Topic: Effectiveness/Efficiency IR Systems
• Research question:
–Is there any performance difference
between systems A, B or C?
–Specific question:
»Is system A better than system B?

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 Research Questions … cont’d

Developing research questions

• Knowing the knowledge gap is crucial
• What are we trying to find out? Why?
– Generate possibilities
– Develop Mixture of question subdivision
• General question into component parts;
• Separate different questions from each other
– Ordering and developing focus
• Categorizing and grouping of questions together
– Bringing the project down to a workable problem
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 Research Questions … cont’d

Developing research questions … cont’d

– Question development stage is pre-empirical
– Not yet focusing on methods
– “How will I do this?” or “Should I use this
method or that method?” should not come
too early
• Questions are refined gradually to make them
specific and answerable

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 Research Questions … cont’d

The Role of Research Questions

1. Organize the research project and give it
direction and coherence
2. Delimit the research project – show the
boundaries
3. Keep the researcher focused
4. Indicate the data that will be needed
5. Provide a framework for writing up the project

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 Research Questions … cont’d

Good research questions are:

– Clear
– Specific
– Answerable
– Interconnected
– Substantially relevant

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 Research Questions … cont’d

• Hypothesis: A predicted answer to a

research question
– A specific research question states what a
researcher is trying to find out
– A hypothesis predicts, apriori, the answer to a
question

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 Research Questions … cont’d

• Important Questions:
– What is the basis for prediction?
– Why do we expect what we predict?
• Possible answers:
– Because another researcher did some
research;
– Existence of theory;

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 Research Questions … cont’d

In research, hypothesis serves several

important functions
– It guides the direction of the study
– It identifies facts which are relevant to the
study and which are not
– It suggests which form of research design is
likely to be most appropriate
– It provides a framework for organizing the
research result or the report

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 Research Questions … cont’d

• Simplified Model of Research (Punch, 1998)

•?

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 Research Questions … cont’d

• Pre-Empirical Stage
– Research Area
– Literature •Problem •Questions
– Context
• Empirical Stage (What •Hypothesis
data is required to answer
the questions?)
– Design
– Data Collection
– Data Analysis
– Answer Questions
/Test Hypothesis

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 Research Questions … cont’d

The Role of Literature

• A fruitful source of:
– Concepts
– Theories
– Evidence
– Influence how we look at a topic

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 Research Questions … cont’d

The Role of Literature

• Guide the researcher
• When reviewing literature, observe thoroughly:
– Style of research;
– The overall strategy of research;
– Objectives of the proposed study;
– The nature of the problem and how much is
known about it;
– The development of the literature in the area;
– The knowledge the researcher already has;

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 Research Questions … cont’d

Guidelines for review of literature

• Questions that the reviewer should answer
through reviewing literature include:
– What variables are known to be related to the
problem?
– How have these variables been studied and
described by others?
– How have these variables been manipulated in
previous studies?
– Has research in the past on those variables used
sound methodology?

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 Types of Questions
• Descriptive
– When a study is designed primarily to describe what is
going on or what exists.
• Relational
– when a study is designed to look at the relationships
between two or more variables.
• Causal
– when a study is designed to determine whether one or
more variables causes one or more outcome
variables.

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 Specification of Objectives
• Addresses the purpose of the investigation.

• Objectives can be stated as the research question

• Can be broken down into investigative questions

• In a casual study, objectives can be restated as a

hypothesis.
– Example- An increase in the family income leads to the
percentage of income saved.

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 Concepts and Variables
• Concepts-
– A concept is generally accepted collection of
meanings/characteristics associated with certain
events, objects, conditions situations & behaviors.
– Classifying and categorizing objects/events with
common characteristics creates concepts.
• Sources of concepts
– Frequent & general use Concepts  developed
over time through Shared language usage.
– We acquire them through personal experience &
observation.
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 Construct
• Concepts have progressive levels of
abstraction.
– Example table is an objective concept- we
have the image of all characteristics of a
table in mind.
– But an abstraction like personality is much
more difficult to visualize.
– Such abstract concepts are often considered
as constructs.

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 Construct
A Construct
• is an image or abstract idea specifically
invented for a given research/ theory
building purpose.
– We build constructs by combining simpler but
more concrete concepts.
– Specially when the idea/ image is not directly
observable.

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 Variables
Variables-A variable is anything that can
take on different values.
– For example, height, weight, age, race,
attitude, and IQ are variables because there
are different heights, weights, ages, races,
attitudes, and IQs.
• Constant - something cannot vary/does
not take on different values.

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 Types of variables
1. Independent and Dependent variables
– Researchers are more interested among variables.
Example: Does the availability of infrastructure
(independent) affect utilization of internet
(dependent) among Wolaita Sodo University
community?
• Many textbooks use the term predicator
variable as a synonym for independent variable
(IV).
• It is manipulated by the researcher and the
manipulation causes an effect on the dependent
variable(DV).
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 Types of variables
2. Moderating variables (MV) –
– is a second independent variable that
is included because it is believed to
have a significant contribution or
contingent effect on the original IV-DV
relationship

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 Types of variables
3. Extraneous variables-Almost infinitely
many extraneous variables (EVs) exist
that might conceivably affect a given
relationship .
• Some are considered as independent or
moderate variable
• Some are assumed or no effect and
excluded in the study

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End of Chapter 2

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