https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-questions/#:~:text=A%20good%20research%20question%20requires,argument%20to%20provide%20an%20answer.&text=The%20answer%20to%20the%20question,and%20interpret%20what%20you%20found
How do you know if your research question is a “good” one? A good research question should:
- Consider potential relationships between or among variables
- Acknowledge that these relationship(s) can help us draw important conclusions regarding social life
- Allow a range of possible answers that can be examined in conjunction with collected data to determine which fits best
- Advance one or more existing intellectual conversations within your discipline of interest (Luker 2008).
Research questions are usually dynamic in nature, which means they engage with the different levels of an issue at the same time. A good research question should both abstract out, pulling in vital concepts and ideas to answer the overarching “so what” question, and drill down, paving the way for an empirical answer to be found via the collection of concrete evidence and data (Calarco 2021).
How general or specific should my research question be?
In an attempt to make the data collection process more manageable, some researchers will try to start with a research question that is already specific. In theory, this would make the process of “drilling down” simpler, as the research process and data collection methods would become more apparent. However, in reality, a research question that is too specific can make the process of abstracting out nearly impossible, and with no clear link to theory and/or implications, your end product will likely consist of solely description and no analysis. Let’s look at this sample research question:
How did children use imaginary companions to cope with the pandemic?
If you tried to conduct research on the above question, you are likely to be left with a few accounts of children and their imaginary companions, but these accounts would likely be descriptive, rather than an explanation that builds on theoretical insights about why or how this is happening.
Sometimes, a potential research question may be ill-fitted for your research because it falls under a larger question that has already been answered. The above sample research question could fall under either of these larger-scale questions:
How did children cope with the pandemic? – Imaginary Companions
How did children cope with isolation? – Imaginary Companions
If both of these quesitons already have been studied, your hypothetical question is not the best choice for your research question.Your goal should always be to identify and fill an existing gap in knowledge, which is significantly more difficult to do when substantial research has already been conducted. Instead, a better question to ask may look like…
How do the language skills of elementary school children who developed imaginary companions to cope with the pandemic compare to those who utilized other coping mechanisms in the year 2022?
This question abstracts out to children’s social adjustment, while also drilling down to language skills as a quantifiable measurement of a child’s development. Having operationalized components that define how you will measure the phenomenon being studied will help keep your research question empirical (based in data) and answerable (Avineri, 2017).
When formulating your research question, it can be helpful to bear the four most essential characteristics of a good research question in mind (Scribbr 2020):
At the end of the day, there is no “one size fits all” guide to writing research questions. Your research question is ultimately going to be specifically tailored to the needs of your research as well as the time and resources at your disposal. The above information was certainly expansive, so let’s take a look at this short video to review what we have learned…
