Prospectus and Concept Paper Assistance

Okay, so in this video, we’ll be looking more closely at the problem statement. The problem statement is often considered the centerpiece of the study, providing the foundational justification for the need for your particular investigation We find that this is the most important element of the whole manuscript, as it drives every aspect of the full study to come. Ideally, it’s the first element developed and remains without change until final manuscript approval.

Actually, for many schools, including the major online universities, they have fully developed pre-dissertation topic development processes that make the crafting of the problem statement the main step in that work. If you would like to review how the problem statement fits within the broader topic development process, you should definitely check out our video on Topic Development.

Given our experience with these online universities, in particular, we can help with this step as part of full assistance with your prospectus, concept paper, or any other foundational work for your dissertation. Hopefully you find this video helpful as you plan for work on your problem statement, and we can definitely assist with developing this segment of your work.

Because the problem statement is the centerpiece of the dissertation, getting it just right from the beginning will be critical to your success. This applies here at the start of your project, and in our experience consulting on the full scope of a dissertation, we know that it also matters all the way through to your final defense.

Here’s what the problem statement does. As centerpiece of the study, it does many important things:

First, it provides the central problem(s) that generate the need for your study. Second, it describes the results and the significance of that problem. Thirdly, the problem statement commonly (but not always) contextualizes the problem within the theoretical framework for the study. Finally, it diagnoses the precise gap in the literature that, when addressed, can help to solve the problem. Altogether, these parts of the dissertation help to provide the cornerstone of all that follows.

This all assumes that you have an idea of what you’d like to study, and with nearly infinite possibilities, it might be hard to decide! Given our expertise in myriad fields, we can provide support with even this initial step!

Again, though, once you’ve picked a general topic and are aware of how you might access data, it’s time to think about the statement itself. Given what I mentioned before — given these four jobs that the problem statement does — you might think that the problem statement is very long. Actually, it competes with the purpose and research questions for shortest section in the whole dissertation manuscript!

It does this by being certainly the most efficient, and here are its specs:

• First, it’s comprised of one or two paragraphs (usually two), and it contains about 350 words. Note that some online universities, in particular, have very specific length requirements that might differ from this model in some ways. The vast majority of schools and programs work at about this length, though.
• Because it draws a line through the most recent research in the field, it has usually between 12 and 15 different sources, all from peer-reviewed articles and published within the past 2-3 years. The reasoning here is that the problem that your study works to solve must still exist, and the research gap that directly motivates your study must also still be open. Only sources as close as possible to today can accomplish that!
• Three! You’ve maybe received feedback saying that, just because something is under-researched or not known, that doesn’t mean that any time should be spent studying it! This is true, and the problem statement starts to demonstrate significance in the very first sentence – with a “hook.” This is often a compelling statement that points to the enormity of the problem, often by noting how commonly-experienced it is. This is followed by the “anchor” — a statement that grounds or puts a finer point on that hook. In most cases, it provides further “hard evidence” to support the existence of the problem in the hook.
• In the process, it documents several things: First, it explores the results of the problem in very specific ways — those adverse effects — in greater detail, making clear the costs of the problem. Of course, these are also costs of not studying it further, too.
• It may convey the theoretical framework providing the lens through which the problem is best understood. This is helpful in providing the set of assumptions that underlie a study, especially for qualitative research. I actually discuss the role of the theoretical framework in our Literature Review video, if you wanted to learn more about this. 04:14 We’re one of the only dissertation consulting firms that can help to point the way through such qualitative research concerns, including methodology and analysis, and so we’re here to help!
• Finally and most importantly, it exposes a gap in current understandings related to the problem that, when filled, can help to solve that problem. This “lack of research” should itself have sources to support it. That might sound impossible, or at least counterintuitive, but we’ll talk about that soon!

While I mentioned above that it’s one of the shortest sections in the dissertation, it’s still a little bit too long to go over in full, or at least all at once! Let’s zero in on the important parts, starting with the hook and anchor:

Its says, “Patient-perpetrated violence against mental health workers, especially in-patient clinicians, is common.”

Okay, so it gestures in the direction of a hook, but it’s not there yet. First, while it states a problem, it’s missing a clear and compelling statement in that first sentence to impress upon the reader the weight of the problem, or how big it is.

Second, the problem itself is unsupported — it has no citations. This can happen when candidates feel that a problem, especially when it’s borne out of their experiences, is self-evident. Unfortunately, no claim can be assumed true, regardless of how obvious it seems. Help with your thesis or dissertation can allow for a second set of eyes to find these statements. In this case, we’ll need empirical evidence that the problem is common.

Finally, the anchor that would support the hook — again, often with that statistic or specific data — is missing. Without this, we’re left wondering how common is common!

Where this needs to go first is through more research! I’ll show you an updated draft here, and what you’re about to see makes the development of a problem statement look very easy! It’s not, though — it takes, as a first step, a massive amount of research and nuanced understanding of the ideas you’re reading.

It also takes organization. In the dissertation help we provide, we find that, for many candidates, sorting through so many ideas and then having them to hand when you need them for the problem statement is very difficult. One particular issue is how far away from your study the hook should be. Notice that we didn’t start with the number of patients in in-patient psychiatric treatment, and we didn’t start with the number of people suffering from mental illness.

Those would be just too far away from the research gap that we’ll get to. We’ll talk more about that gap coming up!

In the meantime, we did some more research and have the following revision:

Now it’s a bit more specific, reading, “Patient-perpetrated violence against mental health workers, especially in-patient clinicians, is common, and as many as 70% have reported being assaulted by patients. According to Raja and Azzoni (2015), nurses are the victims in 78% of incidents.”

You’ll notice that I skipped the in-text citations — there’s a lot of them! First, though, the hook itself has a statistic, noting that up to 70% of clinicians working in in-patient settings have been victims of assault. That tells us just how common it is.

In the next sentence, we now have a clear supporting statement, emphasizing just how common it is — in this case, particularly among nurses.

To return to the citations, you’ll see that, in just two sentences, we’ve cited five studies. Five! They’re also incredibly recent sources — 2016, 2015, 2015, 2014, and 2015.

We can most certainly assist with that work for you, and we’d love to talk with you about this part of your dissertation and all of the assistance we offer! In particular, we can help you to take on the monumental research needed to find the numerous sources you’ll need at each step of the way for your problem statement.

Now, this isn’t the whole first part! It’s just the hook and anchor. Again, as I mentioned above, the remainder of the first paragraph will be concerned with the results and significance of the problem — in this case, what makes it an intractable one.

Let’s review the final portion of the first paragraph of our initial draft. We’ll look at one chunk at a time. Here’s the first one:

This first portion says, “Research has indicated that risk assessments reduce the likelihood of violence and coercion in in-patient settings, but practical, technical, and ethical concerns have limited their use.” This seems to start well — it’s not very specific on its own, but it’s well-supported, using three citations to support the claim.

Let’s now take a closer look at how the first paragraph ends:

“Sensitivity and specificity of even the best instruments are low, and ethical questions are raised about who benefits from their use. Victimization leads to the same physical and emotional effects for this group as for the general population.”

Now, for this part problem statement, we learn that risk assessments that might predict violent behavior aren’t very good, and might pose ethical concerns as well. Moreover, nurses and other clinicians, while professionals, are people too. That means that they’re subject to the same physical and emotional effects that people in the general population would experience. Clearly these are impacts of the problem that justify investigation for your dissertation. But, what you’ll notice here is the need for citations to help support these concerns as currently present.

Now, although citations are present, some of those that are here fall outside of the range that is considered sufficiently recent for the purposes of the problem statement. Most universities require such supporting sources to have been published within the last five years, and many universities are increasingly placing this requirement at two to three years. This of course demonstrates that the problem is current, as we discussed earlier. So, let’s look at the revised second segment of the problem statement. Since the first sentence worked well, let’s zero in on the last:

This portion reads, “Sensitivity and specificity of even the best instruments are low, and ethical questions are raised about who—the patient or the clinician—benefits from their use. Here, we see an updated source. Remember that the last version featured one from 2008, so this is a marked improvement.

Here’s the next portion:

It reads, “As such, mental health clinicians are still made victims, and victimization leads to the same physical and emotional effects for this group as for the general population.”

So, although we were definitely headed in the right direction with the first draft of the problem statement, this revised version demonstrates that these impacts of the problem are indeed current, providing a major dimension of the rationale for your proposed study.

You’ll notice that the sources have been updated to 2014, 2016, 2016, 2014, and then a couple of more sources from 2016 and 2015. In addition, you’ll notice that the final sentence in this first paragraph has clear linkage with the sentences that come before. As a result, it a much more cohesive statement of the significance of the problem.

Again, maybe the most difficult part here is the research that comes first. Like I mentioned, even the 85/15 requirement that many schools use can be difficult — the more significant 2-3 year rule for the dissertation that you can see in this problem statement can be even trickier, but we can definitely help!

With the assistance we’ve provided, we have experience with those guidelines at the major online universities, and we’d love to use our dissertation knowledge to help you be successful!

Okay, so now it’s on to the second paragraph. Again, a common way to start here is with mention of the theoretical lens through which the problem will be viewed and explored. Some reviewers frown on this, but most recommend including this part.

So, let’s look in more detail at the initial draft of this first section of the second paragraph:

The theoretical framework through which this problem will be viewed is Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior in conjunction with the three-dimensional iteration of attribution theory. Drives affect inferences and attitudes and exert influence on resulting behaviors.

So an important thing to mention here is about dates: You’ll remember what I said above about 2-3 years, and in our example, no source is older than 2014 (all others being from 2015 and 2016).

Actually, this is the one exception for the dissertation and here in the problem statement — the theories chosen for your study should be well-established, and primary, theory-articulating-sources are required. So these will be older sources — “well-established” is a euphemism for “old” here!

Also, you’ll notice that sentence that describes the connection between drives, inferences, attitudes, and behavior is not supported by a citation, that it is quite vague, and that its relevance to the problem is not clearly conveyed.

Remember that the first two sentences, which conveyed the framework, worked. Let’s have a look at the revised version of the sentences that follow:

I’ll read with the first sentence in place: “The theoretical framework through which this problem will be viewed is Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior in conjunction with the three-dimensional iteration of attribution theory. Specifically, inferences about behaviors, ours and others’, are subject to our emotional and motivational drives. These drives, as they affect inferences and attitudes, also exert influence on resulting behaviors.”

You’ll see in this revised version that citations are present for each assertion, and that the core propositions of the theory are explained in more detail and then connected with the problem. The primary issue we encounter in helping candidates here is with integrating the theoretical framework for the dissertation in a compelling way here, so navigating this can be difficult!

While the theoretical framework often starts the second paragraph, it’s the research gap that ends it. Remember that it’s the gap that motivates your study directly.

As we found above, the problem is a well-documented thing — it might even seem to be self-evident! Of course, the problem itself isn’t sufficient to justify your study — in addition to creating real consequences that are currently ongoing, the problem itself must be combined with a need for additional research to fully understand it.

This is the research gap, of course, which is a statement that describes what we don’t know yet about the problem. It’s some understanding that eludes us, and it’s something that, if only we only knew what it was, would allow us to help solve the problem expressed in the hook and anchor.

This should come at the end of the problem statement, though some online university guidelines do recommend otherwise, and should state clearly, and with support, just what needs to be known in order to help solve the problem. Because it’s the most important sentence you’ll write for the dissertation, it’s a super common area where we’re asked to provide assistance for candidates.

It’s the statement of the research gap, then, that will align with our purpose and research questions — that means it will determine whether you’ll be embarking on qualitative research or grappling with statistical analysis. Check out our tutorial on alignment for more on this!

So let’s check out that most-important statement for our study:

It says, “Nurses and other mental health workers often do not report incidents, and research has insufficiently explored incident underreporting.”

Okay, so again, it’s on the right track, but there is some work to be done. First, it’s just too general. Because you will have done a lot of research at this stage, you’ll know that “incident underreporting” has been explored quite a lot! The other problem that makes this vague is that we don’t know what, precisely, needs to be explored. Is it psychological factors for clinicians that influence it?

Might it be the degree to which clinicians feel that the work environment or their career advancement would be negatively impacted through reporting? Is it whether organization-level policies and procedures are bound up with it? We don’t know!

In part because it’s too vague, it’s also unsupported — no citations here at all. This is an extremely common problem when it comes to describing your research gap, and one for which our clients often seek dissertation help. The point to emphasize here is that a lack of research does not equate with a research gap, and you must instead demonstrate that in addition to a lack of research there are also indicators of the necessity for future research to fill this gap.

You might be thinking: How do I prove that something isn’t there? Isn’t that impossible? In most cases it is! A consultant can point the way forward for this most important part of your dissertation, and for us, we find that journal and other research articles often describe the limitations of their current studies and then share recommendations for future research. Both places are great to use in mining for justification for your study — for proof that a gap exists.

We recommend that you find at least three articles that talk about your proposed study in those sections. It might be that they investigated the same or a similar question, and they recommended that the study be applied to other populations. It could also be that the sample size was too small, so the researchers suggested that follow-up work be done with a larger group of participants.

In either case, finding sources like this can be really powerful: it helps to show that you’re taking on for your dissertation the very study that other researchers have asked to be done!

Let’s look at a revision of that research gap statement, reading for both specificity and support. The first portion in the initial draft worked well, so let’s zero in on the revised second portion:

With that first sentence, it says, “In terms of clinician responses to patient violence, nurses and other mental health workers often do not report incidents, and research has insufficiently explored whether and how victims’ mental health attitudes, understandings of reporting protocol, or other factors influence observed incident underreporting.”

Again, I didn’t read the citations aloud, but there are three — and look at how recent they are! We have sources from 2016, 2017, and 2017, respectively.

On a final note, it’s also much more specific now. Remember that the old one noted only the need to better understand incident reporting. In this case, we now have some factors identified.

Now we’re looking at victims’ mental health attitudes, understandings of reporting protocol, or other factors. This is much more specific! Along with the citations that lend support for the existence of the research gap, we’re all set to go!

We’ve explored the main sentences in our problem statement here along with those linking sections, so know that the full statement contains many other sources as it describes the results and significance of the problem and then draws the line that leads to the research gap.

Again, the end result here is that clear problem statement. It’s now ready for the prospectus or concept paper, and it can be used just this way in chapter 1 — in the dissertation itself! It’ll be the cornerstone of your manuscript, influencing each step, from research and methodology all the way to discussion and dissertation editing.

Again, the problem statement is the most difficult part of the whole dissertation, but it’s also the most important! Having yours work like this one does will help to set you on a smooth path. We can share the help you need, and we even take on all revisions to final approval. We look forward to hearing from you!

Definitely ask us questions, and thanks for watching.