ABSTRACT
Social work research mandates implications for practice, recommendations for helping people to do better. Problem identification is the search for a general area of interest that has professional meaning. Problem formulation has two steps: Identification refers to broad topic area, and formulation refers to the angle from which going to examine that area. Think of problem formulation as descending a funnel starting with a good long stretch on top as people can identify a broad area of interest and moving down through its neck, each step representing further conceptual refinement. At the end of the process people develops research problem stated in either a hypothesis or question form and stated simply enough to repeat over and over again from memory. Don't assign a negative connotation to the term 'research problem'. A research problem simply represents some gap in knowledge that needs to be 'closed' through inquiry, close examination, and analysis.
