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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za• What is the nature of the social interaction in a gay club?• What is the relationship between intelligence and creativity respectivelyand the ability to solve abstract problems?• What were the primary causes that led to the Soweto riots?• Why is alienation such a common characteristic of urbanized people ofour time?• What are the essential characteristics of structural violence compared withphysical violence?• In what way do the political attitudes of present-day youth differ fromthose of ten years ago?It is clear that research problems are usually worded in a form beginning with:What is or was... ? What happened... ? Why did x ... ? What are the causesof...? How much...? How many...? To what extent...?The exact formulation of a research problem is related to a number of factors.From the previous section it is evident that the research motivation (selfinitiatedor contract) exerts an important limitation on the problem formulation.In this section, we shall pay attention to three factors which co-determine themanner in which research problems are formulated: the unit of analysis,research goal and research strategy.Unit of analysisOnce a decision has been reached on the broad area of the investigation, theresearcher has to decide what is to be investigated, i.e. the nature of the unit ofanalysis. If one were to pose the question: “What area are you investigating?”,a researcher would readily reply “Social disintegration, political attitudesrelating to change, the population explosion, juvenile delinquency, alcoholism,or whatever.” It is, however, clear that each of these replies is merely a broadindication of the general area which is to be investigated. For a more exactindication of the research problem, it is necessary that the specific unit ofanalysis be identified. Following Babbie (The practice of social science) fourmain categories of units of analysis may be distinguished:INDIVIDUALSIndividual human beings are probably the most common typical object ofresearch in the social sciences. Even when groups, communities, or populationsare studied, it is customary to study individuals, and then to aggregate the datacollected in this manner for the group concerned. Clearly, the researcher isoften interested in specific categories of individuals such as students,constituents, politicians, academics, factory workers, and so on. In cases of thisnature a certain number of individuals are studied as representative of theparticular population which was initially identified.38