This document was created to facilitate mentoring graduate students in the Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning (MATL) program at Nova Southeastern University. At the beginning of each course, the students begin an inquiry learning project, which incorporates problem-based research in order to address a problem that exists in their classrooms. The first step in this process is determining the problem and distilling it down to a single-sentence Problem Statement. This process is very important, and is one that the students often have difficulty with. For this reason, I incorporated several "frequently asked questions" and their respective answers into a single document. This set of guidelines is intended to supplement the materials that each student receives at the beginning of the course, and to further explain the purpose and procedures for creating quality Problem Statements.
The process of creating this document was a simple one. I just considered the issues that commonly arose, especially for the students in the initial course in the program. The document preemptively addresses many of these concerns, if the students take the time to read it. The guidelines do not answer every potential question, but they do address the major concerns with this important step in the action research process.
This is a living document. It is updated with each new term in order to reflect the changing requirements of the MATL program, as well as any new concerns that arise from previous student groups.
A PDF version of the document can be viewed here.
Crafting Quality Problem Statements
Matthew Reece, MATL Mentor
At the beginning of each block, you are required to submit a problem statement to either your AS or mentor for approval before continuing work on Assignment #1. This is one of the most important and challenging steps of each block. This document is intended to help you understand the importance and characteristics of a good problem statement.
A problem statement is:
A problem statement is not:
A carefully crafted problem statement focuses and directs the entire inquiry project. This is why approval of the PS is required before you continue the first assignment.
The inquiry project for each MATL block is designed to be responsive action research (researching several potential solutions to a specific problem) rather than proactive action research (implementing a given solution and measuring the results). For this reason, the problem statement should be written about the problem as it exists, not to facilitate a specific solution. Let the research determine the solutions you will implement. The end results of responsive and proactive action research are often the same, but the process is slightly different.
Here are some examples of problem statements that fit the above criteria:
Progress toward addressing these problems can be measured in two ways: by reducing the number of students in the situation (degree) or the amount of time it occurs (frequency). Note that the second example takes a different approach: since it measures the number of students not experiencing the problem, progress would be measured by increasing the degree percentage or reducing the frequency.