How to write a PROBLEM STATEMENT in your THESIS: Its 2 parts with an EXAMPLE

why is there no study if there's no problem statement let's talk about it [Applause] hey everyone thank you for joining me on this channel today we're going to be speaking about the problem statement in your thesis what it is why it's important and simply why there is no study if there is no problem statement if you find value in this video please click the like and subscribe button so that i can continue making new content on these topics in this video i'm going to show you the two parts to a problem statement and i'm going to give you an example that we're going to work through that will assist you to write a great problem statement so let's start at the beginning if there is no problem there is no study you must have a problem substantially enough that it justifies doing the study what is a problem statement it is the problem that your study is trying to address either solve or shed more light on so it's important that you write a clearly and well articulated problem statement so that your reader has buy-in as to the relevance of the problem itself but before you write the problem statement it's crucial that you deal with the background in other words you must set the scene for the reader so that they can get a better idea of who all the players are and what the context is within this problem and for that reason the background to the study is important and it precedes the problem statement so i just want to give you a few pointers in the background so there's a natural progression into the actual problem statement the background contextualizes the study in other words it effectively introduces the problem where in the problem statement section itself you identify the actual problem in the preceding background you contextualize the problem you contextualize the environment within which the problem subsides so the background introduces the reader to the players and the arguments that are important when you discuss the actual problem itself ideally in your background you want to provide some sort of literature to support your claims but by no means is the background a formal literature review rather you need to identify certain sources that add value for the reader in order to understand the relevance of the background that leads the problem statement and the intention is to have a natural progression from the background into the problem statement so that when the problem is discussed the reader is more aware of who the parties are what the arguments are that result or lead to the actual problem being a problem so in this background you would want to set the scene you'd want to create context you would want to explain what the scope is of the study the who the why the how but very briefly just enough so that there is a natural progression into the problem statement you don't want a situation where the reader reads the problem and then asks but who is this person or who is this company or why should i care about this or why are these players important why why did they not mention these players for example the background must also provide some sort of idea as to the novelty of your study in other words what contribution you're going to make but of course that contribution is dependent on the problem that you identify in the following section so once the background has been established the next step is to get into the problem statement the problem must be big enough or substantial enough to justify doing the study and the problem statement must be argued in such a way that your study will provide some sort of value with regards to either solving the problem or shedding light on the problem or giving the problem a different perspective or looking differently at the problem remember although you claim to have a problem that does not mean that your study will solve the problem but it's vitally important that the reader is aware of what the problem is why it's a problem and how substantial the problem itself is there are two parts to a problem statement the first part is where you discuss what the actual problem itself is you identify the actual problem in terms of its magnitude and the extent thereof and part of this is identifying the actual research gap of which the problem is part of the second important part of a problem statement is what are the implications of not addressing the problem or not solving the problem in other words it's not just good enough to say there is a problem you need to establish what the consequences are if you do not address this problem and that is what your study is about addressing the problem in other words your study will not per say address the consequences of the problem but rather the cause of the consequences that is the actual problem itself so in summary for every problem statement there are two parts the first part is what is the actual problem and the second part is what are the implications of not dealing with this problem common feedback given to a student with regards to problem statement is to ask the question so what why is this a problem why is it relevant why is it significant enough and normally that is asked because the second part of the problem is not explained properly so you have to contextualize the implications of not dealing with the problem itself so by way of an example it's one thing saying your staff are unhappy but i can ask them so what why does it matter that they are unhappy and then you should explain the implications of not addressing the problem so it would not be good enough to only say your staff are unhappy you would rather than say my staff are unhappy and this is causing bad service customers aren't happy customers are leaving my business i'm losing revenue and as a result i'm having problems with regards to sustaining my business so let's look at an example which we can work through to see what the two parts are but also let's look at the background and see how there is a natural transition from the background to the actual problem statement let's look at the two parts to a problem statement before we do that we look at the introduction and background remember it's important to set the context and what that means is that you need to introduce the reader to the background of the problem so that there is a natural transition into the actual problem itself so this particular study looks at the behavior of professors at a particular university so i've highlighted the sources here in yellow just so that you know that it's important to provide sources because that gives more credibility to your arguments don't just write a background where the reader feels that you are giving your view or your opinion you must back up your background with relevant credible sources so that the arguments are sound and that the arguments are supported with literature right so we are looking at excellent university which is a fictitious university an american university of higher learning that is regarded as one of the 10 best in the world according to all the major university rankings in the world i provide the relevant source to support that the university is known to have one of the best campuses in the us with a thriving student life why am i saying that because i want to get through to the reader that although this university is regarded as one of the best it also has a great campus life and the student life is thriving the eu offers some of the best programs in economics and finance in the world and as a world-renowned department of economics why i'm saying that is because this study is going to be within the department of economics so i need to get a message across that this university is a great university but so too is the department of economics it's a department of stature i then go into discussing the academic staff there are 21 academic staff members of which 12 are full professors so more than half of the department are full professors and they are specializing in different disciplines in other economics of finance under the umbrella of the department of economics i say this because the study is going to be focusing on professors so it's important to establish that the majority of the staff members at this department are indeed full professors i then established that the professors in the department are a god as of the top in the world and they hold research chairs in their respective areas of specialization funded by prominent banks such as morgan stanley jp morgan city bank and hsbc why am i saying this because i want to get across the credibility of the department and of course the professors this is a high profile department with high profile professors i furthermore indicate that four of these professors have been economic advisers to the us government and three further professors are currently on the board of directors at the federal reserve bank in the u.s so once again i'm just reinforcing the fact that the professors are of high caliber and that they are well established not only academia but also in private sector the professors in the department are very busy and have many commitments to stakeholders outside the confines of the university and are more often than not high profile commitments in other words what i'm trying to say here is the fact that the professors are busy so once i read this background the sense i get is that we are working with a university that is well established we are working with a university that is high profile we are working with a department within this university that is high profile that has more than 50 percent of the academic staff being full professors and these full professors are well established not only in academia but also in the private sector and they are high profile professors they are busy so that was important to establish to get into the problem let's look at the problem itself as i mentioned earlier in the video a problem statement has two parts the first part is where you actually state the problem itself so if i state the problem here very simply in one sentence i can say for example the behavior of professors at the department of economics at excellence university towards students is not acceptable now what does that mean can i provide evidence or proof to argue the merit of this actual problem let's do that and what i've done here is i've given you a few bullets of course when you actually write the problem itself it will be in a paragraph format i've just given you put it so you can get a nice idea of the different arguments that i'm posing within the actual evidence that i provide for the problem itself so firstly i'm mentioning the problem itself that the behavior of the professors is not acceptable towards the students let me give you some examples of what that actually means students are constantly complaining about professors being rude to them and are never available during consultation hours i state that but because i establish in the background that these professors are busy and that they are well established in the private sector and have commitments in the private sector one can understand that this happens or at least one can understand why they are never available the fact that they are rude to students is an issue of concern furthermore there's also evidence that exam scripts are not being marked fairly and that students are not being assigned marks even if evidence is provided to the contrary what this suggests perhaps is that the professors are not being thorough whilst marking the exam scripts and the fact that they are rude in the preceding bullet and not adjusting marks accordingly even if there is evidence to suggest that the marks are correct it raises a further problem so what are the implications of this the students are laying complaints directorate and several professors have been contacted by the exco of the university regarding their poor conduct so this is escalated the professors have now been contacted by the exco and the university has taken note of the poor and bad behaviour of these professors furthermore the per conduct of professors in the department has been discussed on several social media platforms and the negativity has snowballed in recent months now you can think for yourself this is indeed a problem the way that social media works is that there are clear reputational effects and this can become a serious reputational problem not only for the department and the professors but indeed for the university furthermore a facebook group with over 10 000 followers called we hate the professors of the department of economics at eu has been established and the number of followers is growing so what that highlights is that these students are serious about how unhappy they are and they are not merely unhappy they seem to hate the professors there are very clear emotions involved here and this can escalate to become a very serious problem for the university and the department furthermore several prominent politicians have noticed the anger of students at eu and have made public utterances on the natural public gatherings that have been reported in several of the major newspaper outlets in the u.s so the fact that politicians are now jumping onto the bandwagon and given the ability of politicians to speak in front of audiences and speak in front of many people and the influence that they have raises further alarm bells for this department of this university with regards to the behavior of these few professors the human resource department the eu has consequently issued final warnings of potential dismissal to half of the professors in the department should this behavior continue so we can we can conclude then that the problem is substantial the professors are rude they don't seem to have time they're not marking scripts correctly and students are laying complaints for the university where they are sharing on a public platform the problems they are facing with these professors so now that we've established what the problem itself is what are the implications of not addressing these problems firstly the per conduct of professors has serious reputational consequences for both the department and the university these reputational consequences can lead to a decrease in the number of student applications in coming years not only for the department but for the university as a whole especially if social media hype escalates so what i'm trying to do here is i'm trying to take the problem to the next level that if i don't deal with this problem there are going to be serious consequences so the implications part of the problem statement just makes it much more real it makes it much more relevant it just reinforces why it needs to be dealt with this could further result in the best students not applying to study at eu and choosing other universities instead the rankings of the university could resultantly deteriorate of course many universities rely on these rankings from a reputational point of view from a funder's point of view so this could be devastating for the university especially as it escalates in the social media space all of these factors could result in the university losing revenue and even grants from external funders who associate themselves with leading universities of repute in the field of economics and finance so there are very real implications of this problem escalating then the final part of the problem statement is where you give a perspective on how your study will address this problem this study will identify why the behavior of the professors at the department is not acceptable towards its students so it's important that you end off the problem statement by highlighting how your study will address this problem so to summarize a problem statement has got two parts the first part is the problem itself there you establish what the problem is once you've done that you explain what the implications are of not addressing the problem the second part just raises the seriousness of the problem so that the reader can clearly see that this problem needs to be addressed this problem needs to be solved or at the very least this problem needs to have some light shed on it your study will attempt to shed some light on it thank you so much for watching the video if you enjoyed it please click the like button the subscribe button and ring the little bell so that i can let you know when i drop another video if you are busy with your research please consider watching some of my other videos where i deal with interesting topics on for example the readability of your thesis or if you're considering starting research i have a video that gives you four questions that you can consider before you start i have another video that sheds some light on how a phd will change you and specifically the life skills that it will equip you with on that note i will see you next time

Channel: Prof Johan Coetzee

Views: 39,953

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Id: 4MP6mVVauVk

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021