Identifying a Problem or an Area of Study

The very first step in any project is to be completely clear about what you want to study. Everything that follows — the people you approach, the questions you ask, the data you collect and the way you process them — flows from this decision. If the objective is vague, the data will be unfocused and the conclusions will be weak; if the objective is sharp, the rest of the project almost designs itself. This is why identifying the problem is treated as the foundation stone.

The objective drives the method. Once you have settled on your objective, you proceed with the collection and processing of the data in a way that serves that objective. In practice this means asking, for any topic you consider: What exactly do I want to find out, and what evidence would answer it? A clearly stated aim tells you which variables matter (income, expenditure, brand, age, location, and so on) and how the information should later be summarised.

Examples of problems or areas of study. The book suggests several kinds of questions that make good projects:

• A product's production or sale. You might study the production or sale of a product such as a car, mobile phone, shoe polish, bathing soap or a detergent — for instance, how much of it is bought, by whom, and why.
• A civic or utility problem. You may wish to look into water or electricity problems relating to the households of a particular area — how severe the problem is, whom it affects, and what might be done.
• Consumer awareness. You could study consumer awareness among households, that is, how aware people are of their rights as consumers.

These are only illustrations. You are free to pick any topic that deals with a genuine economic issue, provided you can state it clearly and gather data on it.

Turning an area of interest into a precise question. An "area of interest" (say, toothpaste) is not yet a research problem; it becomes one only when you narrow it into something specific and measurable — for example, "What is the average monthly household expenditure on toothpaste, and which brands are most preferred in this locality?" A well-framed problem is:

• specific — it names the variable(s) to be measured; …