You want to study the relationship between family variables and the self-esteem of children. You want to see if specific characteristics of families affects the self-esteem of children between the ages of 6-10 years. You have some general thoughts about the subject, but have never done research or reading on self-esteem and are not familiar with what others have said or done on this topic. According to the SCIENTIFIC PROCESS, which of the following should you do first?