How do I write a problem statement?

There is an intentional process to writing problem statements, even if it's just a few sentences. This section deals with what things belong and don't belong in a useful problem statement.

Questions to answer when writing a problem statement

As written above, make sure that your problem statement has three essential components:

• What does your literature review say? While your background description of the research should be presented in thorough and transparent detail, you need to have a succinct summary of what the existing research says and how it informs your study design.
• What is missing in the existing research and why is this important? A sufficiently comprehensive literature review should also allow you to describe what the current research has yet to establish or achieve. It is also important that you explain why this unexplored topic or question is important for theory or practice. This gap illustrates the problem and justifies the proposed solution in the present study that addresses this problem.
• What study is required to contribute to scientific knowledge? Identifying the literature gap and explaining how your research address that gap in knowledge will help illustrate the novelty and contribution of the study you want to present.

Note that the overall study should address all of these questions in detail for transparency's sake. However, a succinct problem statement gives your research audience an easy place of reference to identify the salient points of the new research. Variations of your problem statement can be presented in your abstract, introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections.