INT6067 Chap.3 Finding a Topic and Framing the Problem
Finding a Topic and Framing the Problem
The topic is submitted during the course, not at the end
Partway through the semester the schedule asks you to submit a research or project title and topic, and from that point your reading, your method and your timeline all answer to it. So the work is to make sure what you submit is a problem rather than a subject area. The two look alike on the page and behave completely differently afterwards.
Generative writing tools in secondary schools is a subject area: it says where to look and nothing about what would count as an answer.
Whether secondary students who use such a tool while outlining revise differently from those who use it while drafting is a problem, and the whole difference sits in the final clause.
Five gates, worked in order
Choose an area the department actually supervises; the first lecture lists the research interests available, among them cognition and technology in science and language subjects, digital assessment and evaluation, eye tracking, educational robotics, augmented and virtual reality, game based and inquiry learning, learning analytics, computer supported collaborative learning, and mobile and ubiquitous learning.
Fix the context before the technology, since titles from previous cohorts cluster along three axes at once: a technology, a research type such as evaluation or platform development, and a context such as special education, schooling, higher education or vocational training.
Name the population, the setting and the person who grants access. Convert the aim into something observable, because improving engagement is not observable while time on task, turns in a discussion, count of revisions and post-test score are.
Then locate the gap in print.
A gap is a published sentence, not an absence of results
The marking sheet awards the first ten per cent of the individual report for selecting a topic from a key research area while discussing its current status and identifying the gaps, which is three separate jobs. The third is the one students find hardest and the one most easily systematised.
Reviews state their own limitations, usually near the end of the abstract and again in the conclusions, and those statements are gaps handed to you with a citation attached. They come in recognisable kinds: a population the field has barely studied, a setting where a tool has never been tried, an absent account of learning, or an outcome nobody has measured.
Two gaps that intersect are much harder to dismiss than one, because the intersection is a blind spot rather than a preference.
Feasibility belongs in the framing
A problem statement carries hidden commitments about time and access, and the moment to notice them is while the words are still cheap to change. Comparing two conditions roughly doubles the participants you need.
Measuring change over a term commits you to a school that is still available in week twelve. Recording a classroom commits you to consent from every family in it and to somebody transcribing what you record.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why a title is submitted during the semester rather than at the end
- 02
Subject area against problem, and the clause that separates them
- 03
The supervised research interests of the department
- 04
Three axes in previous cohort topics: technology, research type, context
- 05
Naming the population, the setting and the gatekeeper
- 06
Turning an aim into an observable outcome
- 07
Four kinds of gap, and where reviews publish their own limitations
- 08
Why two intersecting gaps beat one
- 09
Feasibility commitments hidden in a problem statement
From an interest to a statement of the problem, gate by gate
- 3Fix the context, then the population, setting and access.
- 3Convert the aim into an observable outcome.
- 2Locate the gap in a published limitation.
- 2Write the three clause statement of the problem.
Key terms
- Subject Area
- A statement that names where to look, such as a technology and a population, without naming what would count as an answer. It is the commonest form a rejected title takes.
- Observable Outcome
- Something a person could see or count changing, such as time on task, number of revisions or a test score, as opposed to an inferred state such as engagement or motivation.
- Population Gap
- A group the field has barely studied, reported as a limitation by published work. Reviews of socially assistive robots note that mathematics and science are significantly under-represented.
- Setting Gap
- A context in which a tool has been demonstrated but not tried, such as the finding that little work has brought visual learning analytics tools into classroom settings.
- Theory Gap
- An absent or unexamined account of learning behind a designed system. Reviews of immersive environments report that learning theories were often not considered during development.
- Gatekeeper
- The person whose permission makes a study possible, typically a head teacher or a programme coordinator. Naming one in the proposal is what turns a sampling frame into a sample.
Finding a Topic and Framing the Problem FAQ
How do I know whether my topic is narrow enough?
Test it by trying to describe data collection day in one sentence: who is in the room, what they do, what you record. A topic narrow enough to study produces that sentence immediately. One that does not is still a subject area, however specific the technology sounds. The other reliable test is whether you can name the person who would have to say yes, since a topic without a gatekeeper is a topic without a timeline.
Is it acceptable to say that no previous study has examined my topic?
That claim is evidence about your searching rather than about the field, and a marker who knows one such study has ended the argument in a sentence. Build the rationale from what has been published instead: cite reviews that report what the field has concentrated on, then cite whichever of them names the limitation your study addresses.
A rationale resting on somebody else's stated limitation survives a counter-example, while one resting on your own absence of results does not.
Can I choose a topic just because the technology is new?
Novelty of a tool is not novelty of a question, and this field has been publishing for decades, so the question has usually been asked of an earlier tool.
One systematic review of applications in higher education screened over two and a half thousand publications and kept one hundred and forty-six, and concluded that the weakness of the field was a weak connection to theoretical pedagogical perspectives rather than a shortage of new tools. Arguing from novelty invites exactly that objection.
Assessment move
Spend one afternoon running the five gates on paper for three candidate topics rather than weeks reading for one. Most candidates die at the access gate or the observable outcome gate, and dying there costs an hour. Keep the two you reject with a note on why, because that note is the current status paragraph of whichever one survives.
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