The Heart of the Research Process
1 Identify strategies for choosing and refining a research problem.
2 Subdivide a main research problem into useful subproblems.
3 Recognize examples of independent, dependent, mediating, and moderating variables.
4 Pin down a proposed research study by
(a) stating one or more hypotheses,
(b) identifying variables to be examined,
(c) defining terms,
(d) stating assumptions,
(e) identifying delimitations and limitations
(f) explaining the study’s importance.