Introduction

A research problem provides new research with purpose and justification. This arguably makes it the most crucial element of any research endeavour. In our experience, however, constructing a captivating research problem, and thereby effectively addressing the ‘so what question’, is one of the greatest challenges graduate students face when writing theses, dissertations or article drafts. They tend to struggle despite the guidance available from numerous publications that seek to provide concrete advice on how to justify new research (e.g. Zinnes 1980; Alvesson and Sandberg 2013; Gustafsson and Hagström 2018; Day and Koivu 2019; McCauley and Ruggeri 2020). We have also encountered resistance from students who find it difficult to take such advice to heart. Instead, many graduate students rely on vague statements about why they do not require a research problem, for example citing their use of a particular theoretical approach. Others resort to arguments about the need to fill gaps, without convincingly clarifying why those specific gaps must be filled. Even students who appear to grasp the research problem concept and its centrality find it difficult to develop one in practice (cf. Rouse et al. 2017).Footnote 1 We interpret such resistance among students as coping strategies employed to avoid or alleviate the anxiety related to constructing research problems, and indeed of doing research in the first place. Unfortunately, however, the existing literature on how to justify new research is focused primarily on technical issues and fails to explore how emotions such as insecurity and anxiety shape the research process, particularly in relation to the process of developing research problems.

The present article seeks to rectify this shortcoming by offering graduate students guidance on how to manage the anxiety they may experience when tasked with formulating research problems. In addition, it seeks to provide pedagogical strategies for professors to assist graduate students in this endeavour. To achieve these objectives, the article begins by elucidating how anxiety is related to the construction of research problems, particularly in the context of graduate education. According to existentialist theories, anxiety emerges predominantly in situations where individuals have the potential for self-development (Kierkegaard 1980; May 1977). As a case in point, graduate students are expected to evolve into scholars through their dissertation research. Given that research problems serve as the fundamental justification for such research, the ‘so what question’ inherently possesses an existential dimension that can induce anxiety. To gain a deeper insight into the coping strategies that students employ in order to avoid or alleviate such anxiety, we draw on Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory, which suggests four distinct approaches to negotiating the ‘so what question’. Some of these function as coping mechanisms that entail anxiety avoidance, while others are more conducive to the development of robust research problems. Based on existentialist theories of anxiety, the article argues that anxiety is an inherent part of the research process that we all experience, rather than just a negative emotion that students and others should try their best to avoid. If acknowledged and embraced, it has a creative potential that can be leveraged to develop compelling research problems (Kierkegaard 1980; May 1977). One strategy in that vein, the article suggests, is to formulate narratives about where the research is coming from, where it is headed and why. These narratives ascribe meaning by distinguishing new research from the existing state of the art, in a similar way to how identity is narratively constructed in relation to difference (White 1973; Bruner 1991; Patterson and Monroe 1998). Hence, by employing narratives that highlight the unique contributions and novel perspectives of our research, we can enhance the meaningfulness and significance of our work in an intersubjective manner.

The next, and second section, briefly reviews the literature on how to justify new research and develop research problems. The third section examines anxiety in the context of research problems. The fourth section turns to Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory to explain why certain coping strategies remain attractive, but also highlights the pitfalls of and prospects for more profound problematisation of the state of the art. The fifth section delves into the relationship between anxiety and creativity and provides suggestions on how professors can help students face their anxiety. The sixth section outlines how narratives can be used to construct research problems, exemplifying the point by crafting a narrative about this article’s process of becoming. By disclosing our own anxieties and the strategies we used to address them, we aim to provide an illustrative example. The final section concludes by summarising the article’s key advice in pedagogical and research terms.

State of the art: how to justify research

The methods literature in the social sciences prioritises the question of how to conduct research while largely neglecting the more fundamental one of why a study should be undertaken in the first place (e.g. Patton 2001; Gerring 2001; Marsh and Stoker 2002; Silverman 2011; Bryman 2012). This preoccupation notwithstanding, there is some discussion on how to justify new research. For example some methods textbooks suggest that the value of new research depends on whether it addresses a pressing real-world problem (e.g. King et al. 1994: 15; Van Evera 1997: 97; Shapiro 2002: 597). However, it is unclear how such problem formulation differs from that undertaken by politicians, activists and journalists. While a real-world problem is a situation that policymakers and others wish to resolve, a research problem is one that researchers seek to explain or understand better (Blaikie 2010: 45). A real-world problem may serve as the starting point for new research but to develop a research problem it is crucial to clarify the inadequacies of existing academic knowledge about it (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018).

Another common approach to justifying new research is to reference a gap in the literature, that is a topic that has not been sufficiently studied (e.g. King et al. 1994: 17; Van Evera 1997: 98, 101; George and Bennett 2004: 74). However, gap-filling has been criticised, since previous neglect does not automatically necessitate new knowledge (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018). Since there are countless gaps out there, any reference to a gap as a justification for new research should clarify why it must be filled.

Through its strong focus on how to do research at the expense of why it should be done, the existing methods literature also implies that rigorous methods can in themselves justify new research (e.g. George and Bennett 2004: 75–79; King et al. 1994: 14–19; Van Evera 1997: ch. 1, 2). Rigorous methodology is indeed necessary in any research endeavour. While it can help to determine how things are connected, however, it can hardly clarify why knowledge about such links is necessary to begin with (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018).

The literature on research puzzles expands the discussion on how to justify new research beyond real-world problems, gaps and methodological rigour (e.g. Zinnes 1980; Alvesson and Sandberg 2013; Gustafsson and Hagström 2018; Day and Koivu 2019; McCauley and Ruggeri 2020). Research puzzles differ from research questions in the form of ‘why x?’ As Zinnes noted: ‘We can be extremely uninformed and yet ask [such] a question’ (1980: 338). The research puzzle concept is better captured by the formula: ‘Why x despite y?’ The researcher finds phenomenon x puzzling precisely because it occurs despite y, or the existing knowledge seems to contradict x’s occurrence. Such a question thus requires close familiarity with a particular academic field. Puzzlement arises when assumptions and observations do not fit together as anticipated, thereby challenging existing knowledge. A puzzle, in other words, can only be developed based on a thorough literature review that critically engages with and problematises aspects of the existing research, or clarifies how a new study will go beyond and thereby contribute to existing scholarly debates (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018).

Despite the existence of well-meaning advice on how to develop research problems, the task remains one of the most formidable challenges faced by graduate students when writing theses, dissertations or article drafts. By emphasising the importance of having a compelling research problem, and only providing technical advice without considering the emotional aspects of doing research, supervisors and other senior scholars arguably put undue pressure on graduate students and early career scholars, thereby exacerbating the insecurity and anxiety they experience. The existing technical advice should, therefore, be supplemented with guidance that acknowledges and leverages the emotional aspects involved in the construction of research problems.

Anxiety and the ‘so what question’

A simple definition of anxiety is ‘a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome’ (Stevenson 1999). Existentialist anxiety theorists are more specific. Rollo May, for example, defines anxiety as ‘the apprehension cued off by a threat to some value that the individual holds essential to his [sic] existence as a personality’ (1977: 189, italics in the original). Such threats often arise in situations where there is a possibility for personal development and choice (May 1977; Kierkegaard 1980). We are not referring here to the kind of severe anxiety that is diagnosed as anxiety disorder and requires professional treatment, but to something we all experience now and then, especially in situations where personal development is simultaneously possible and at stake. Graduate education is a case in point, and being a graduate student can be anxiety-inducing in numerous ways. Obviously, even a tenured professor might experience a degree of anxiety when initiating a research project, assuming a new position or opening an e-mail containing peer reviews for a submitted paper. However, the professor experiences such anxiety from a position of relative security, in terms of both employment and feeling somewhat ‘at home’ in academia. The life of a graduate student and even an early career scholar, by contrast, is typically characterised more by job insecurity, liminality and a need to develop as a scholar and be recognised as such.

Within this broader context of the academic struggle for recognition and to fashion an academic self-identity, which is already fraught with insecurity and anxiety, graduate students are faced with the challenge of designing and conducting their own research, often for the very first time. This can itself be laden with anxieties. In a discussion influenced by Søren Kierkegaard’s (1980) observation that possibility and choice are intricately linked to anxiety, Michael A. Peters suggests what is at stake (2014: 1094):

I use the term ‘anxieties of knowing’ to suggest the ‘burden of freedom’ that one faces in choosing words to formulate a sentence, or a research topic, or an interpretation of a work, or indeed an utterance. On any topic seemingly there is a vast literature, a myriad of choices of word and phrases. The past is strewn with many literatures: so many great thinkers, poets, writers have gone before us. The prospect of saying something—anything of significance—is so daunting and many students and faculty in the face of adding to knowledge, say to themselves: what do I have to say? Do I have anything to say?

Graduate students move their thesis projects forward by choosing, for example a topic, a theory and a method. Anxiety can have a paralysing effect in such situations. Moreover, in addition to making these choices, and as a prerequisite for making them with precision, graduate students must also develop a research problem to provide their research with a justification and clarify its contribution to the existing literature. When constructing a research problem, graduate students are expected to engage in critical thinking—and to question, or at least reflect on, their own fundamental beliefs and those put forward in the research to which they wish to contribute (Barnett 2007: 34). Adopting a critical stance towards existing knowledge, and thereby emphasising the need for new knowledge, can be particularly anxiety-inducing for graduate students because often, in their previous studies, they have only consumed and provided accounts of already well-established knowledge.

This article suggests that learning how to develop research problems is not simply a technical issue, but a challenge intricately intertwined with issues of identity, recognition and insecurity. Unlike questions related to the choice of theory or method, the ‘so what question’ has a considerably more existential and anxiety-inducing dimension, as it addresses the raison d’être of a research project—often through questions such as: ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘Why should anyone care?’, rather than ‘Why are you doing it in this way?’ Graduate students in effect become scholars by successfully completing their dissertations. It may be particularly difficult for them to separate criticism of their projects, and how they are justified, from personal criticism.

The discussion thus far may seem to paint a grim picture of life as a graduate student, and particularly the challenges they face in the development of research problems. The high level of anxiety among students is undoubtedly alarming (e.g. LeBlanc and Marques 2019). However, existentialist scholars of anxiety, such as Kierkegaard (1980) and May (1977), have also highlighted the positive and creative potential inherent in anxiety. Instead of seeking to eliminate or avoid anxiety, existentialist theories suggest that we should confront it and strive to learn from it. Similarly, Lee S. Shulman suggests that ‘without a certain amount of anxiety and risk, there’s a limit to how much learning occurs’ (2005: 22). However, graduate students do not always confront their anxiety directly, but may instead either deny it or employ various anxiety-reducing coping strategies.

Before discussing the creative potential of anxiety at some length, we turn to Lacan. We find that his psychoanalytic theory can help to illuminate why certain coping strategies, such as gap-filling, remain attractive to graduate students, and why more profound problematisation is difficult but arguably preferable.

Lacan’s four discourses as ways of negotiating research problem-induced anxiety

The gist of Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory is that the subject desires full identity but continues to experience a lack. The subject thus crafts discourses about how this lack can be filled by retrieving a ‘missing object’ and thereby achieving ‘enjoyment’ or a sense of wholeness. These discourses feature what Lacan calls ‘fantasy’—or different understandings of who is to blame for the lack and what to do about it (Stavrakakis 1999). We propose that the concept of lack can be fruitfully compared to a research problem, since the bottom line with regard to the latter is often that the existing research is incomplete; something is lacking. This lack then acts as a driving force for new research, which, in turn, promises a more complete understanding. Lacan, however, conceptualises four discourses through which the lack can be negotiated: Master’s Discourse, University Discourse, Analyst’s Discourse and Hysteric’s Discourse. We contend that these also represent four distinct approaches to the challenge of developing research problems.

Master’s Discourse represents the voice of the authoritarian ruler who positions him/herself as the authoritative source of correct knowledge about the world and as the one who has the right to act on such knowledge. This discourse suppresses the recognition of any lack/problem and pretends that the speaker is already complete by uncritically reproducing master signifiers, such as ‘God’, ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’. According to this discourse, no new research is necessary since the speaker already knows everything. This comes close to describing some world leaders and the narratives they push (Solomon 2015). For example, following 9/11, the US President, George W. Bush, allegedly ‘saw questioning as wavering, doubting as weakness, indicative of a lack of moral clarity’ (Schonberg 2009: 165). Graduate students who adopt Master’s Discourse in their theses or dissertations may indeed project certainty and security. This might convince a non-academic audience, but hardly supervisors or peers.

University Discourse represents the socialising discourse of educational contexts, newspapers and bureaucratic narratives. It acknowledges the existence of a lack/problem, while offering an ostensibly neutral and objective solution to address it. University Discourse is arguably better suited to university textbooks than research, and graduate students who adopt this discourse in their theses or dissertations are likely to be criticised for merely summarising the existing literature. While few graduate students fully embrace Master’s Discourse or University Discourse in their writing, many adopt aspects of either or both. Graduate students can, for example, find comfort in strongly identifying with a particular theoretical or methodological camp, which they merely reproduce rather than question, while treating competing theories or methods as a theoretical or methodological ‘Other’. In this way, they craft their own identity as scholars along a well-trodden path, providing themselves with an academic ‘home’ and a sense of ontological security. Meanwhile, such strong identification can impede the ability of graduate students to differentiate their study from those they identify with and to articulate how their work contributes to the existing research.

In contrast with the previous two discourses, Analyst’s Discourse recognises the existence of a lack and thus shares similarities with gap-filling as a method for constructing research problems. In both cases, identifying a lack or gap serves to produce new insights on how to fill it. A lack/gap, however, implies that most knowledge is already known and stable, save for a small lacuna that requires scrutiny and filling. Analyst’s Discourse, therefore, offers an easily identifiable research problem and a seemingly straightforward answer. By adopting this discourse, researchers may thus superficially alleviate some anxiety but without confronting the deeper anxiety that is associated with entrenched societal knowledge claims (cf. Alvesson and Sandberg 2013). Because it helps to avoid such more fundamental anxiety, Analyst’s Discourse tends to be highly appealing. Providing even a weak justification can serve as a shortcut to a sense of certainty, comfort and belief that the fundamental issue of justifying research has been addressed, allowing the researcher to move on to the next stage of the research process. This arguably helps to explain the lingering attractiveness of gap-filling.

Hysteric’s Discourse, finally, is one of more incessant ‘questioning, protesting, or desiring’ (Solomon 2015: 55). The ‘hysterical’ subject actively challenges dominant truths in an effort to reform and revise the deeply entrenched system of knowledge. Hysteric’s Discourse thus acknowledges that the subject is incomplete or, in the context of this article, the absence of a completely stable foundation for acquiring new knowledge. Consequently, the lack/problem cannot be easily filled or resolved, let alone pinpointed once and for all. Narratives within this discourse continually seek to address the lack, but inevitably remain in a state of some lack and thus questioning. Since it does not offer absolute truth, let alone a simplistic and risk-free method for uncovering it, Hysteric’s Discourse may be less comprehensible and appealing to audiences than the other three discourses (Solomon 2015: 56). Despite its air of pathology, however, this discourse arguably resembles the way in which meaningful research problems tend to emerge gradually by asking one question after another and by alternating between simple and more profound questions.

If students and professors reflect on an attempt to construct a research problem and realise that it consists only of a gap, one strategy might be to adopt a Hysteric’s approach by asking a range of questions: Why does this gap have to be filled? What are the negative effects of its existence? Have others sought to fill this gap? If they have not, does it mean it does not need to be filled? Can this gap be linked to a particular academic debate or literature? If we use a particular approach to fill the gap, will it have any consequences for existing research and for what we believe we know? Engaging in such challenging inquiries about our own ideas can be anxiety-inducing. However, this discomfort is precisely the catalyst for moving forward, as we can only transform weak research problems into strong ones by confronting our anxiety.

The next section expands on this point as it argues that creativity is stimulated when we embrace and explore our anxieties rather than ignore or bypass them.

Anxiety, creativity and the construction of research problems

For Kierkegaard (1980), anxiety is intimately related to freedom and possibility. We tend to experience more anxiety when faced with many possibilities, while anxiety diminishes and it becomes easier to take action when we have fewer choices. It is thus easy to understand why we often continue on a trajectory that initially appears to provide comfort and security. However, while choosing a new and more challenging path that requires us to do what we have not previously done is likely to exacerbate our anxiety, it is also the path to personal development. As Ray Land aptly puts it: ‘The notion of a threshold has always demarcated that which belongs within—the place of familiarity and relative security—from that which lies beyond—the unfamiliar, the strange, the potentially threatening. It reminds us that all journeys begin with leaving that familiar space and crossing over into the riskier space beyond the threshold’ (2013: 43).

Anxiety is thus a necessary part of the human condition that cannot be escaped completely without restricting our personal development (May 1977; Kierkegaard 1980). It can feel overwhelming; but it must not be evaded but instead ‘moved through’ in order for meaningful and transformative learning to occur (May 1977: 41, emphasis in the original). Thus, to be healthy does not imply being completely free from anxiety; instead, it involves learning to confront and live with it, and being able to channel it for creative purposes (May 1977). As May puts it: ‘One has anxiety because it is possible to create—creating one’s self, willing to be one’s self, as well as creating in all the innumerable daily activities (and these are two phases of the same process)’ (1977: 39).

Creativity can involve both constructive and destructive aspects: ‘It always involves destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood, and creating new and original forms and ways of living’ (May 1977: 39). Creativity is thus ‘the process of bringing something new into being’ (May 1975: 39, emphasis in the original). This is achieved by bridging the gap between one’s expectations and ‘reality’ in a manner that appears to make sense (May 1977: 368). Thus, anxiety is key to conceptualising these expectations or novel ideas that challenge conventional understandings of reality. The gap between expectation and reality is pivotal because it has to be bridged in order to carry out creative acts. This is precisely what we do as scholars when we conduct research, or at least when our attempts prove fruitful. We can, for example, construct new frameworks that incorporate previously unused theories to understand a particular problem and seek to show with reference to empirical evidence that these frameworks make sense and offer novel ways of understanding the problem.

However, it is necessary to emphasise that our examination of existing explanations is equally significant. Similar to how identity depends on difference, it is only in relation to old accounts that the novelty of the new understandings can be clarified. The process of reviewing the existing literature should thus be informed by a sense of doubt and even anxiety. If we were certain about how things hang together, as in Lacan’s Master’s and University Discourses, there would be no need for new research. In other words, when engaging with the existing research, we must remain open to the possibility that it could be flawed, or that a different interpretation might shed light on previously unexplored aspects. We may, for example, consider the evidence presented through the lens of other theories, thereby developing expectations for how a phenomenon or episode (‘reality’, in May’s words) might be reconstructed or reinterpreted in novel and innovative ways. Such a critical reading necessitates facing anxiety. This approach diverges fundamentally from one more akin to Lacan’s Analyst’s Discourse, which merely refers to a gap without providing a clear rationale for why it must be addressed or precisely how filling the gap would contribute to the existing research.

As Stanley Presser argues, ‘doubt about what science has concluded often drives progress’ (2022: 12). Because all knowledge claims are uncertain, doubt and anxiety should also inform our attitude to the research and theoretical orientations with which we identify. If not, it becomes difficult to contribute meaningfully to those approaches. Staying within our comfort zone as a means of avoiding and reducing anxiety thus carries the risk of limiting our ability to generate novel ideas (cf. Presser 2022: 15). Hence, if we evade anxiety or retreat to the familiar instead of venturing beyond it, it becomes difficult to construct a compelling answer to the ‘so what question’.

Our call to face or confront anxiety arguably consists of two concrete components: reflection and action. Supervisors and other professors can foster reflection by asking the kind of challenging questions that characterise Lacan’s Hysterics Discourse. Such questioning, however, is likely to trigger or exacerbate student’s anxiety in a similar way to the existing advice on how to construct research problems. When professors teach and supervise, they must, therefore, communicate to students that they are not alone in experiencing such emotions. They can share their own anxieties and experiences of failure to show that they are an inherent part of the research process. While our initial reaction might be to ignore, deny or try to reduce anxiety, we should instead acknowledge it, and reflect on why we are feeling anxious or what anxiety is trying to tell us. This is how we can learn from it and progress with our projects. It is crucial to emphasise that professors are not expected to become therapists. However, we believe that the research process and the development of research problems can benefit from an ongoing meta-discussion about challenging emotions and how to manage them. In cases where students suffer from more severe anxiety disorders, by contrast, they should seek the assistance of a qualified therapist.

Taking action and thus doing what we have been avoiding is the second general approach to confronting anxiety. Professors can assist students in specifying the necessary actions to take. They can inquire about what students believe they need to do in order to make progress. They can also let students know that they should not wait for their anxiety to dissipate before embarking on the journey of developing a research problem. As existentialist theorists suggest, anxiety typically does not go away on its own; rather, it can be mitigated if we face it by taking action, thereby trying to move through it. Taking even just small steps forward or making initial mistakes can generate momentum and help to alleviate anxiety. Professors, therefore, have a role in encouraging students to persevere and reassuring them that such steps, even if not entirely successful, still signify progress.

The next section explores the potential utility of narratives rooted in Lacan’s Hysteric’s Discourse as a strategy for facing anxiety. To illustrate this, the section constructs a narrative around the process through which this article was conceived and written.

Narrative meaning-making that embraces anxiety

The general idea that research publications may take narrative form or that narratives can be leveraged as a mode of explanation is far from new (White 1973; Suganami 2008). Our focus, however, is specifically on how research problems can be narratively formulated in a self-reflexive and self-critical manner so that anxiety is confronted and embraced in a way akin to Lacan’s Hysteric’s Discourse.

In practice, narratively formulated research problems should be considered works-in-progress. The realisation that they cannot ever become fully complete or capture the complexity of existing research or the world, however, does not mean that we should abandon this pursuit. Instead, it means that we should engage in it more fully. This involves a constant examination of political phenomena, and the question of how existing research succeeds or falls short in addressing them. Rather than seeking closure, this process seeks continuously to problematise or falsify existing theories, with the aim of generating new knowledge. It is typically characterised by abduction, or the continuous back and forth movement between theorisation and empirical analysis (Peirce 1934), which allows the research problem to evolve alongside the inquiry. This mindset of ongoing investigation must also be directed inward, as we strive also to problematise our own assumptions, concepts, theories, methods and findings. Hence, problematisation needs to be premised on an ethos of continued self-reflexivity (Amoureux and Steele 2016).

While some narratives may appear rather ‘pointless’, we argue that meaningful narratives—or the stories that are worth telling—are those where the plot deviates from the expected (Bruner 1991: 11). Consequently, narrative can be defined as ‘a sequence of events that carries meaning and is justified, at least in part, by the fact that it somehow violates what is normal or expected’ (Patterson and Monroe 1998: 320). Similarly, the most captivating and innovative research tends to formulate research problems around circumstances that violate what is expected and that appear counterintuitive, puzzling and in need of better explanation. We propose that such narratives, which challenge conventional accounts of what reality is like, or what is ‘normal’, require a mindset that, according to May and others, involves confronting and embracing anxiety, as well as the constant questioning of Lacan’s Hysteric’s Discourse. In what follows, we present an example of what this might entail, drawing from our own experience of conceiving and writing this article.

A few years ago, we published an article in European Political Science titled ‘What is the point? Teaching graduate students how to construct political science research puzzles’ (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018). We made numerous presentations of the paper, both while working on it and after it had been published. We also used it in our teaching, assigned it to graduate students, referred to it when giving feedback on other scholars’ papers and so on. Given the extensive positive feedback, we received for the article and the fact that it has been accessed more than 80 000 times from the journal homepage, we believe that many scholars and students have found value in the advice it offers. At the same time, however, we have also begun to feel slightly anxious about it. We have come to realise that some graduate students feel frustrated and struggle to construct a compelling research problem in spite—or sometimes perhaps because—of the guidance we provided. In some instances, it appeared that our well-intentioned and somewhat technical advice created the impression that developing a research problem is a rather easy task, at least for graduate students who have a wise enough supervisor. This may have placed additional pressure on graduate students, and possibly also their advisers, thereby exacerbating rather than alleviating their anxiety. When we first began to feel anxious about this, we did not take it seriously enough, perhaps pretending that the article was already complete, similar to Master’s Discourse. We may thus have dismissed it, made light of it or even blamed critical voices for not ‘getting it’. At that point, we were arguably avoiding anxiety. Eventually, however, we chose to confront our anxiety, reflect on it and to seek to understand what it was telling us. We, therefore, embarked on a journey during which we kept asking ourselves and each other exactly the kinds of questions associated with Lacan’s Hysteric’s Discourse.

Through this process of experiencing anxiety, doubt and ongoing self-reflection, we conceptualised a new idea: that the role of emotions, particularly anxiety, needs to be reckoned with in the construction of research problems. That led us to develop the idea—and research problem—for the present article: ‘Why do graduate students often struggle to develop compelling research problems, despite the abundance of guidance available from an extensive methods literature?’ We already had a preliminary answer, which required further theorisation—that emotional aspects of constructing a research problem were involved but had not been adequately addressed in the existing literature, including our own earlier article. Once this idea—or expectation, as May puts it—took shape, we sought to bridge the gap between our new idea and ‘reality’, in May’s words. We did so by refining the idea in a way that would make sense and offer practical advice or assistance to others in developing their research problems. Needless to say, this article does not provide a definitive solution to the conundrum of how to construct compelling research problems. Developing such advice is an ongoing process without an endpoint. Nonetheless, we hope at least that we are moving in the right direction, and that this new article can provoke further contemplation and questioning.

The account presented above is undoubtedly a retrospective construction and may, therefore, appear overly neat. It does not fully capture the depth of our anxious struggles. In a sense, it was through working on this article that we developed the theoretical language necessary to articulate what we had experienced. Nonetheless, we believe that a few general practical insights can be gleaned from our journey and applied to the development of research problems. First, it was essential to doubt and question what we thought we knew. Second, others helped us by sharing their doubts, suggesting that it is useful to expose one’s work to the scrutiny of others. Third, we encountered anxiety when our ideas were challenged. Having one’s work questioned by others can trigger anxiety and reflection. The literature on anxiety tells us that facing, reflecting on and acting in spite of such anxiety are essential. Avoiding or dismissing anxiety is unlikely to lead to new ideas, whereas facing it can facilitate creativity and novel insights. In the case of this article, that process of questioning and self-reflection continued throughout the review process. Fourth, a research problem is always narratively formulated after the fact and, therefore, cannot fully capture the anxiety that permeates the research process. The challenge is to keep telling and revising the story until chaos is alleviated and some order restored, even though we may fail numerous times along the way and the contours of such failures will forever leave a mark even on our best research.

Conclusion

This article has explored the role of anxiety in the research process, specifically focused on its role in the process of developing research problems. It has underscored the importance of recognising not only the negative aspects of anxiety, but also its positive features. The article has sought to clarify the relationship between anxiety and creativity, highlighting how the former can be leveraged to make a meaningful contribution and to addressing the ‘so what question’. Specifically, it has emphasised that anxiety must be faced rather than avoided. The article has sought to provide advice on how graduate students can face such anxiety, and how professors can assist them in this endeavour. This advice is summarised in Table 1.

Table 1 Strategies for developing compelling research problems while facing anxiety
Full size table

Needless to say, when we resort to anxiety avoidance as a coping strategy, this may not be readily apparent to us. One purpose of this article has been to raise awareness among readers about the risks associated with taking shortcuts and evading anxiety when attempting to address the ‘so what question’. When colleagues, supervisors or reviewers tell us our research problem is unconvincing or explicitly pose the question, ‘so what?’, it is crucial not to dismiss concerns and double down on a weak research problem. Instead, we must confront the anxiety that arises from a recognition that our paper may not yet possess a strong enough justification. After critically reflecting on existing knowledge and discerning the ways in which our research diverges from it, we should act and seek to clarify what is at stake.

Professors and supervisors have an important role to play in helping students to face rather than avoid anxiety. It seems clear that ‘a pedagogical task of higher education lies in helping students to understand that anxiety is a condition of what it means to be a student’, and that ‘a pedagogical achievement of higher education is that—on the student’s part—of coming to live purposefully with anxiety’ (Barnett 2007: 36). Both students and faculty members, therefore, need to learn to appreciate the educational and research-related value of anxiety. A key task for future research will be to build on the groundwork laid by this article by devising more concrete ways to use insights about anxiety in the research process in general and in the construction of research problems in particular.