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Research Question

The document outlines five steps for developing a research question, starting with choosing a personally interesting subject and conducting preliminary reading. Students are encouraged to pose open-ended questions, evaluate these questions for clarity, focus, and arguability, and finally consider potential research outcomes. This structured approach aims to guide students in formulating a strong and effective research question.

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Mandeep Kaur
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4 views2 pages

Research Question

The document outlines five steps for developing a research question, starting with choosing a personally interesting subject and conducting preliminary reading. Students are encouraged to pose open-ended questions, evaluate these questions for clarity, focus, and arguability, and finally consider potential research outcomes. This structured approach aims to guide students in formulating a strong and effective research question.

Uploaded by

Mandeep Kaur
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Five steps to developing a research

question
Choose a subject and topic that is of interest.
Deciding on a subject and topic that is of interest and in which the student
is personally invested is important if their motivation is to be sustained
throughout the process. The student should be able to identify, in a broad
sense, what it is that they are interested in and why.

Carry out preliminary reading.


After deciding on a topic of interest students should undertake some
general reading around the issue. Questions they must consider at this
stage are:

 What has already been written about this topic?


 Was it easy to find sources of information?
 Is there a range of different sources available?
 Is there a range of views or perspectives on the topic?
 What interesting questions have started to emerge from this
reading?

Consider the emerging questions.


The student should now begin posing open-ended questions about their
general topic. These questions will usually be framed using the terms
“how”, “why” or “to what extent”.

Evaluate the question.


Once possible research questions have been posed they should be
evaluated. This evaluation should be based on whether the research
question is clear, focused, and arguable.
Clear: Will the reader understand the nature of my research? Will it direct
the research being undertaken?
Focused: Will the research question be specific enough to allow for
exploration within the scope of the task (that is, the number of words and
time available)?
Arguable: Does the research question allow for analysis, evaluation and
the development of a reasoned argument?
Consider research outcomes.
Once a provisional research question has been decided upon students
should start thinking about the direction their research might take. This
could be in terms of:

 suggesting possible outcomes of the research


 outlining the kind of argument they might make and how the
research might support this
 considering options if the research available is not sufficient to
support a sustained argument.

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