Good order is the foundation of all things. ~ Edmond Burke
January is National Organization Month. For many doctoral students, the New Year signals a new semester – and a new start.
For the student researcher, a new start can mean many things such as starting a new research project and/or organizing your research. Your thoughts are complex. Managing these along with your research tasks can be mind boggling.
According to a team of psychology experts at Queen’s University in Canada, the average person can have around 6,000 thoughts running through their mind each day. These thoughts can be linked to various aspects of your life including self, home, work, financial, and social to name a few.
For a doctoral student, these random thoughts are compounded by research demands. Unfortunately, these distractions can be overwhelming and interfere with your ability to focus and develop a sound problem statement.
Because the problem statement guides your entire research proposal, it is considered a key item underpinning your study. Getting this element right is imperative for keeping your dissertation on track.
So, let’s start by identifying what a problem statement is:
According to Bloomberg and Volpe (2008), a well-written problem statement includes a brief summary of the literature that substantiates the study. It detects the need to conduct the study from the gap in the literature, describes the problem to be investigated and sets limits, and situates the study in a broader context.
While crafting a problem statement may sound straightforward, many students new to research stumble through this process of narrowing and organizing their ideas.
For instance, my dissertation explored a topic on social media. By itself, social media is a broad topic that covers an array of subtopics. A recent library search on social media returned over 400,000 scholarly articles alone! Obviously, this topic needed to be trimmed and sculpted into a workable problem statement.
So, let’s look at three ways you can take control of your thoughts.
Mind Your Mindset
Believing in yourself and keeping a positive mindset is an integral first step to controlling your thoughts and navigating a successful research journey. In fact, John C. Maxwell, a well-known leadership expert, suggests that monitoring your mindset throughout the day influences your success.
While balancing day-to-day responsibilities, it’s likely you’ll confront obstacles along your academic path. Obstacles are interferences that prevent you from fulfilling your tasks. These obstacles can lead to setbacks, causing you to stumble due to lack of confidence, planning, action, and reflection. Overcoming these obstacles will depend on what you believe in your heart of hearts, asking yourself to summon up the courage to continue on your path and go after what matters to you.
Keeping a positive mindset will help you stay on course to finish your doctoral work when obstacles appear. Keeping a positive frame of mind builds your resilience and the confidence needed to maintain your focus.
Create a Mind Map
Organizing your ideas allows you to draft a sound problem statement. For this, you may need to invest in a whiteboard or use a mind mapping software of your choice. For my project, I used Coggle to create a mindmap, which eventually evolved into the literature map pictured below.
Start by writing the key elements (context, knowledge gap, significance) of the problem statement related to your research topic. One color may refer to the context, another color can highlight the knowledge gap, and another to address the significance of the problem.
Having a clear representation of your thoughts empowers you to manage them more easily and you can delete or wipe away the thoughts when they’re no longer needed.
By using a mindmap to organize my ideas from the relevant literature, I was able to develop a sound problem statement that laid the foundation for my entire research project.
Declutter Your Mind
Successful researchers have long realized that focus is the key to being productive.
Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’ ~Marcus Aurelius
If you have too much clutter competing for your attention, delegate! Start by making a list of your most pressing tasks. Once again, getting your thoughts on paper is the beginning of gaining control!
Once you identify your roadblocks, identify people who can help you. The library is an excellent resource dedicated to helping students succeed. For instance, the reference librarian can often help students navigate the available learning resources, databases, and research management software. Upon request, they may be able to provide resources for background information and help you locate hard-to-find materials. In addition, many universities understand that a dissertation is a large endeavor that requires careful planning. Therefore, they offer training workshops geared to help budding researchers successfully tackle different phases of their research. Check your university’s library for such resources. Furthermore, if you have research-savvy colleagues, ask them to share relevant information and reciprocate, accordingly. This outside professional help can save you hours of work at little or no out-of-pocket cost!
Bottom Line
Remember, it’s time to tame the random thoughts running through your busy mind while you travel down the dissertation path. According to Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of Mindset, “Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning.”
Know you are always in the process of learning and building your mental muscles. Sometimes, you just need to take time to adjust your mindset and reflect on how you can organize your thoughts and research ideas. By writing down your thoughts, organizing your ideas, and delegating tasks as needed, you can achieve a sense of peace and take control of your mind and your research.
Bloomberg, L. D., & Volpe, M. (2008). Completing your qualitative dissertation: A roadmap from beginning to end. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781452226613
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Problem Statement Worksheet
This free worksheet provides step-by-step instructions to guide you easily through
the process of writing your problem statement.
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