Tools for doctoral Research
PURPOSE STATEMENTS
To prepare:
In this Discussion, you will read the Dawidowicz article a second time, focusing on the relationship between a research problem, a problem statement, and a purpose statement and on the narrowing process that occurs often between a research problem and a research study purpose. Reflect also on how research problems can be narrow and reflected exactly in a purpose statement or can be broad and must be narrowed to create a manageable study.
Reflect on how purpose statements within studies should be succinct and should include the following: study (a) design; (b) theory being tested (quantitative), central phenomenon investigated (qualitative), or both (mixed methods); (c) intent; (d) variables (quantitative), the definition of phenomenon (qualitative), or both (mixed methods); (e) participants; and (f) site or context in one or two concise sentences (Crawford, 2016, Ch. 10, para 4).
However, remember that for this Discussion you will not provide these additional details. The focus, instead, is on the important problem-purpose relationship.
View the media piece in this module’s Learning Resources with a focus on identifying the relationship between research problems and purpose statements.
Review the problem statements of your classmates from the Discussion in Module 2.Post the following:
Choose one of your classmate’s problem statements that intrigued you in the Discussion in Module 2.
Post two purpose statements that could be used to collect data on that problem. Use the following stems to write your purpose statements.
The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between [list at least two variables you want to compare].
The purpose of this study is to [explore, explain, describe] the [phenomenon] of [a group of people] on [what].