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Social science research is rarely guided by the search for right or wrong answers. This is because many social science research questions analyze aspects of society that are not governed by rules and facts. While this can be daunting, developing a good research question can help your work stay focused and directed.
The process of developing a research question can be summarized in these five steps:
- Identify a Broad Interest: Begin by noting the observations you have about the social world that capture your attention.
- Consult Existing Research: To understand how your interests could become research topics, look at academic papers, literature reviews, and other relevant resources to see how previous researchers have explored them. As you do so, focus on how other researchers have connected theories to their qualitative or quantitative data.
- Identify a Gap in Knowledge: Unanswered or unresolved issues in previous research can give you good ideas of where to take your project. Would studying a particular group of people or a specific place add details that have been left out of earlier work? How would a different method contribute new data or analyses?
- Narrow Down to a Specific Topic: Turning your interests into a manageable topic means identifying what you can research with the data that you will be able to collect with the time and resources that are available to you.
- Write your Research Question: Your research question ends with a question mark. That means it should be answerable with the data you use or collect and connect to the theoretical perspectives that have guided previous explorations of your topic.
While following these steps may not be as linear as solving a mathematical equation, you can use them as a guide for developing your research question in an efficient and effective manner. In general, your results become more precise as your question becomes more focused and the methods are determined: the clearer your vision becomes, the better your project!
