Today, I’d like to provide some guidance about research questions. This will be a two-part feature. Part 1 will include a description of research questions and guidance to help you develop your own. For Pat 2 (in 2 weeks), I will focus on how to use other sources as inspirations for your research questions.
A research question is used to clarify the scope of your research project. It is a narrower version of the topic that you’re interested in studying. A good research question should be specific, include the variables you are interested in studying, and be testable in a finite amount of time. Your variables should also be operationally defined. It’s not enough to say “children” for example; you should specify “5-8-year-olds”. Similarly “do better” is not a good way to operationalize student success because it’s not easy to measure; instead, phrase it as “earn higher scores on Test 3” because that is how you will measure whether they have done better. Although specific, “When will the pandemic end?” is also not a good research question for many of the reason above. In many ways, a good research question is similar to a good course learning outcome: it should be clear, specific, and measurable within a designated time frame and in a particular sample. What will you be able to demonstrate/answer at the end of your research project?
Here are 3 good examples of testable research questions related to SoTL:
· What personal and educational factors contribute to student test performance in college?
· What can General Education faculty do to prevent first year student attrition in their courses?
· How has online education affected college students’ mental health?
Now that you know more about research questions, here is how you can generate one of your own:
1. Select a broad topic area that interests you (e.g., student learning, student mental health, etc.)
2. List some questions or problems that are interesting to you (e.g., Why are students finding this topic difficult? What did I change to make this semester’s grades much lower/higher? Why are students choosing online education when given a choice of delivery modes? Etc.)
3. Pick one of the questions you generated in #2 to begin refining it. If you aren’t sure which one to pick, you can try to brainstorm what you already know about these question- this can help steer you towards a particular aspect of your topic.
4. Refine your research question by doing a literature search to see what others have already done. You want your research question to contribute to the field in some way.
5. Finalize your research question. Ensure it is testable and specific. You may now also form a hypothesis about the outcome of your study (i.e., What do you think your data will show? What will be the answer to your question?)
Two additional points to consider: First, once you have your final research question, you will need to consider the feasibility by thinking about the logistical details. Start thinking about who will be studied, what data you will need, and how you will obtain those data. Don’t forget to also consider the resources required (time, money, etc). If the research does not seem feasible (time, financing, etc) you may decide to move on to a different question instead, so return to your list of research questions and pick another one. Second, although I have presented this as though you can only have one research question, many projects have multiple questions. But it’s a good idea to focus on one primary research question before trying to develop additional primary research questions (or secondary ones).
Stay tuned for Part 2 in a couple of weeks where I will focus on other sources of inspiration for research questions. As always, if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see from me, please reach out to me via email (lynne.kennette(at)durhamcollege.ca) or on MS Teams, or pop in during my weekly “office hours” on whereby(dot)com(slash)drlynne (every Friday from 12:30-1:30).
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