What Is A Good Research Question
What Is A Good Research Question
What Is A Good Research Question
It is important to start your thinking about the dissertation with a question rather than simply a topic heading.
The question sets out what you hope to learn about the topic. This question, together with your approach, will
guide and structure the choice of data to be collected and analysed.
Some research questions focus your attention onto the relationship of particular theories and concepts: 'how
does gender relate to career choices of members of different religions?' Some research questions aim to
open an area to let possible new theories emerge: 'what is going on here?' is the most basic research
question in exploratory research. For an undergraduate dissertation, your question needs to be more
targeted than either of these.
Creating a research question is a task. Good research questions are formed and worked on, and are rarely
simply found. You start with what interests you, and you refine it until it is workable.
There is no recipe for the perfect research question, but there are bad research questions. The following
guidelines highlight some of the features of good questions.
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Relevant.
Interesting.
Relevant
The question will be of academic and intellectual interest to people in the field you have chosen to study. The
question arises from issues raised in the literature or in practice.
You should be able to establish a clear purpose for your research in relation to the chosen field. For example,
are you filling a gap in knowledge, analysing academic assumptions or professional practice, monitoring a
development in practice, comparing different approaches or testing theories within a specific population?
Manageable
You need to be realistic about the scope and scale of the project. The question you ask must be within your
ability to tackle. For example, are you able to access people, statistics, or documents from which to collect the
data you need to address the question fully? Are you able to relate the concepts of your research question to
the observations, phenomena, indicators or variables you can access? Can this data be accessed within the
limited time and resources you have available to you?
Sometimes a research question appears feasible, but when you start your fieldwork or library study, it proves
otherwise. In this situation, it is important to write up the problems honestly and to reflect on what has been
learnt. It may be possible, with your supervisor, to develop a contingency plan to anticipate possible problems
of access.
Substantial and (within reason) original
The question should not simply copy questions asked in other final year modules, or modules previously
undertaken. It shows your own imagination and your ability to construct and develop research issues. And it
needs to give sufficient scope to develop into a dissertation.
Consistent with the requirements of the assessment
The question must allow you the scope to satisfy the learning outcomes of the course.
For example, you can choose to conduct a theoretical study, one that does not contain analysis of empirical
data. In this case, it will be necessary for you to think carefully before making such a choice. You would be
required to give an account of your methodology, to explain why theoretical analysis was the most appropriate
way of addressing the question and how you have gone about using theoretical models to produce new
insights about the subject.
Clear and simple
The complexity of a question can frequently hide unclear thoughts and lead to a confused research process. A
very elaborate research question, or a question which is not differentiated into different parts, may hide
concepts that are contradictory or not relevant. This needs to be clear and thought-through, but it is one of the
hardest parts of your work.
Equally, you may want to begin with your literature review and data collection and you may feel tempted to
'make do' with a broad and vague research question for the moment. However, a muddled question is likely to
generate muddled data and equally muddled analysis.
If you create a clear and simple research question, you may find that it becomes more complex as you think
about the situation you are studying and undertake the literature review. Having one key question with several
sub-components will guide your research here.
Interesting
This is essential. The question needs to intrigue you and maintain your interest throughout the project. There
are twotrapstoavoid.
Some questions are convenient - the best you can come up with when you are asked to state a
question on a form, maybe or perhaps the question fits in with your units so you decide it will suffice.
Some questions are fads - they arise out of a particular set of personal circumstances, for example a
job application. Once the circumstances change you can lose enthusiasm for the topic and it
becomes very tedious.
Make sure that you have a real, grounded interest in your research question, and that you can explore this and
back it up by academic and intellectual debate. It is your interest that will motivate you to keep working and to
produce a good dissertation.
Studentvoice
Introduction
Now that you are doing your own research, you need to formulate your
own question or questions to be answered. A
goodresearchquestionhelpsto:
This section will help you write a good research question to guide your
research and writing. You will revise and refine this question throughout
your research as you come to a more sophisticated understanding of
your topic and target a more specific area of scholarship.
A well defined research question has six properties:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The research problem explains the knowledge gap your research will
address.
The remainder of this section will go into further detail about how to
write a good research question.
Recognisability
A well-defined theoretical construct helps you identify relevant versus
irrelevant research. It ensures that you are always searching for
relevant matches in your data and can avoid wasting time reading and
writing about ideas that aren't directly related to your research. The
theoretical construct must be clear, precise and must conform to the
technical usage in your discipline.
Example: Instead of the broad topic: 'health information
systems', choose 'decentralised health information systems
in developing countries'.
Research methods
There are various resources available for finding out more about suitable
research methodologies to answer your research question. SAGE
Research Methods (SRM) can help researchers in the social sciences or
humanities design appropriate qualitative and quantitative research
methods for data collection.
Significance
Your research question should suggest how your study will increase
knowledge of the theoretical construct. You need to convey what
interests you about the theoretical construct and what will be different
about it by the time your work is finished. Significance will reflect
specialised knowledge in your discipline.
Example: Your new contribution might be to suggest ways to
make health information timely and reliable to
ensure evidence-based health planning in decentralised,
developing world health systems. You begin your research
knowing that health information systems lack good
information; your new contribution will be to offer evidencebased insight and solutions to improve health information
systems in developing nations.
What makes research exciting and surprising is discovering insights and
solutions that you will not know at the start of your research.
Capacity to surprise
Valuable research surprises your reader with new ideas or new
relationships between existing ideas. Your research question needs to
hint at surprising possibilities to increase the probability of original
results.
Example of an unsurprising research question: "How do
health information systems fail to provide reliable, timely
information?"
This research question presupposes that all aspects of health
information systems fail and that there are no possibilities other than to
Robustness
Your question must be capable of generating multiple insights about the
theoretical construct you are studying, and thus lead to complex results.
It should not be a question to which the answer is 'yes' or 'no' because
such an answer is not a complex result.
Example of a non-robust research question: "Are public
health information systems in Sri Lanka effective for
accurate decision-making?"
Whatisthenature of
Whatfactorsaffect
Underwhatconditions do
Discuss your research question with your supervisory team and make
sure they approve it before you start accumulating too many articles
and books. Write down your research question at the start of your
resource log. By the end of AIRS, you will most likely have altered your
research question considerably, which reflects your research journey and
your increasingly sophisticated understanding of your topic.
Summary
Writing your research question is one of the first things to focus on when
you begin your research journey. Your question identifies your
contribution to research, has the capacity to surprise and can produce
robust results. A good research question scaffolds your entire research
project and keeps you excited on the journey.