Research questions, hypotheses, and operational definitions
Week 2.2
Quality of data
Validity: A measure of research quality, meaning that the data we are planning to gather and
work with to address our research questions is a close representation of the aspect of social
reality we are studying.
Credibility: The credibility (or believability) of the researcher’s interpretations of the data she has
gathered is tested by the analysis and interpretation of data being transparent, for example, by
testing out the interpretation of the data with the research participants or by setting the
interpretations alongside existing theory.
Reliability: A measure of research quality, meaning that another researcher would expect to
obtain the same findings if they carried out the research in the same way, or the original
researcher would expect to obtain the same findings if they tried again in the same way.
Triangulation: A measure of research quality, meaning that if different types of data are collected
to address the same research question, each set of data can be used to check the findings from
the others.
What are research questions?
● Basically, if there is no question, you cannot find an answer.
● Research questions are central to your project and provide the focus of your
research.
● A research question, therefore, both states the purpose of your research
project and guides you through the process of research.
● Obviously, then, it is more than a simple statement because it has to include
some detail of the complete nature of the research.
● This means that research questions are specific to a particular research
undertaking.
Types of research questions
1. Exploratory. That is, an initial attempt to understand or explore some social process or
phenomenon when you have limited prior understanding of the area or issues.
2. Descriptive. This sort of question usually follows on from exploratory questions. Descriptive
questions are often concerned with quantifying an area, issue or phenomenon, for example: How
big is it? How many are there? Where are they? What proportion of the population is affected?
3. Explanatory. This could be described as the ‘why’ question. It asks about causes and effects:
Why has this happened? How did this happen? What processes are at work here?
4. Evaluative. Evaluative questions are concerned with the value of a particular social practice or
phenomenon and asks questions like: What works best? How good (or not so good) is it? How
effective is this? This type of research often includes making recommendations about how
something may be improved or changed and this aspect may be included in the research
questions.
Hypotheses
● Hypotheses are a specific type of research question which actually are
not questions but rather statements or assertions about relationships
between two or more concepts.
● The question is implied rather than stated and could be in the form ‘Can I
prove (or disprove) that there is a relationship between these two
concepts?’
● The purpose of the research then is to test the asserted relationship with
a view to proving or disproving it.
● Hypothesis is a testable assertion about a relationship or relationships
between two or more concepts (this is not necessarily a statement about
reality; it is something to be proved or disproved).
Hypotheses – crime and ethnicity
A hypothesis
People from ethnic group A are more likely to commit crimes than people from
ethnic
group B.
This hypothesis asserts that there is a relationship between ethnicity and
committing crimes.
We could say that the research question is:
Is there a relationship between ethnicity and committing crimes?
Two types of relationship in social sciences
There are two main types of relationship that are investigated in social science
research in this way. These are causal and associative.
Causal relationship: The assertion that a change in ‘A’ causes a change in ‘B’.
Association or associative relationship: The belief that there is a relationship
between two concepts, but not necessarily that the relationship is causal.
Research Question wording
If, for example, we are interested in people’s experiences of visiting their doctor
and one of our questions is:
Have you had to wait too long to see your doctor?
Any problems with this question?
Individuals will define too long in different ways???
For some, five minutes may seem a very long time and answer yes; for others, a
wait of 40 minutes in an air-conditioned waiting room may be a welcome relief
from the heat of a summer’s day and answer no.
To get the data we are interested in, we may need to ask more questions. Like??
How long did you have to wait in the waiting room before seeing the doctor?
Were you satisfied or dissatisfied at having to wait this length of time?
Why were you satisfied/dissatisfied at having to wait this length of time?
Developing research questions and operational definitions
● Before you can produce research questions or hypotheses, you need to unpack
your initial questions to ensure that you know exactly what you are researching and
that you will be able to gather data that will help you answer them.
● This involves creating some operational definitions.
● Operational definitions are definitions that the researcher can work with and adapt
to help to focus the research questions and to decide what data to gather to address
those questions.
● Operationalisation: Jupp et al. (2000: 62) describe this process as referring to the
laying down of rules which stipulate when instances of a concept have occurred.
● In slightly clearer language, the purpose of the operational definition is to give you a
clear indicator so that you can tell when the thing you are researching happens.
Operational definition
Concepts are ideas that can be defined or understood differently by different
individuals or groups or at different times so it is essential that you have a clear
definition of the concepts you use and that the definition is workable for your
research – it is operational.
An operational definition:
● must be valid for and specific to the research – it must be able to be used to
gather data to help you to address your research question;
● is always context-specific, designed for each research project and may be of
no use in other research projects.
1. An adult who is not in paid work.
2. An adult who has been in paid work but is not now.
3. An adult aged between 16 and 65 years who has been in paid work but has not
been in paid work for more than one year.
4. An adult who is receiving unemployment welfare benefits – ‘on the dole’.
5. An adult who is not in paid work and is looking for paid work – ‘signing on’.
6. An adult who does not work.
Cont’d
We need to know the focus of the research and the research question before we
can choose the definition that is going to be used.
For example: If the research question is:
A. What are the impacts of long-term unemployment on people’s mental health?
Which of previous definitions would be appropriate?
operational definition 3 would be appropriate and could be used to identify a
suitable sample of research participants.
OR COULD IT?
Getting the same type of answer
● One of the purposes of creating operational definitions and using them in
questions is to make sure that the question always gets the same type of
answer.
● For example, a question that asks ‘Where do you live?’ can be answered in a
variety of ways. How??
○ in Birmingham;
○ in a house;
○ with my parents;
○ near the park;
What is the solution?
● Questions must be worded precisely to ensure that there is a common
understanding. For example:
○ Which local authority area do you live in?
○ Do you live in a house, bungalow, flat or other type of accommodation?
○ Who lives with you in the same household?
○ Which street do you live in / what is your postcode?
Operational definitions
Pilot-testing operational definitions
It is difficult for an individual to create valid, reliable operational definitions.
The recommended course of action is to pilot-test your definitions. This could
mean, at its most simple, asking a few colleagues or friends to consider
whether the definition makes sense and check whether it always results in the
same type of answer.
Pilot-test: A trial run or an opportunity to try out a data collection method on a
small sample of cases before the main research data gathering takes place;
question wording, research participant understanding and data collection
procedures can all be tried out and amended if necessary before the main
research stage.