Developing Research Questions

Developing research questions is very much important for guiding research papers. The process of developing research questions is an important step when conducting a study. It helps narrow down the scope and direction of your work, while also helping you figure out what to do with that data once it’s collected.

Developing a good research question is very much crucial for providing the reader with proper guidance throughout the research paper. Research questions represent the objectives that you intend to achieve by conducting an investigation.

In the context of the research paper, the researcher generally writes one research question for guiding their research paper. The answers which you write are your thesis statement.  Few professional academic papers such as dissertations consist of multiple research questions.

While writing research questions you need to make sure that they all are linked with each other. It is also very much essential to ensure that you have designed all questions for the research paper considering the issue.

How to write Research questions?

The procedure of developing research questions includes the following steps these are:

1. Selection of broad topic
2. Perform preliminary reading for finding a Debate about a specific issue.
3. Narrowing down of niche
4. Identification of practical or theoretical research issue

After providing a clear definition of an issue you need to write one or more research questions. While creating research questions you need to keep in mind your aim. You should also consider the way the findings of the research will help you in finding a solution to the specific issues.

The research questions which you are designing should be:

• Focused:  A strong research question mainly includes only one problem.
• Feasible: It means that the research question that you have to design is easily answerable within a limited time.
• Researchable: You can easily find answers to the research question using either primary or secondary sources of data collection.
• Specific: An important characteristic of strong research questions is that you can answer a research question.
• Relevant: This means that the question which you are designing should relate to your field.
• Complex:  It is characteristic of a strong question that you by answering it can write a thesis.

For examples:

What strategies a teacher can utilize for teaching the students suffering from a special kind of disability? How economic factors influence the decision of workers related to participating in campaigning organize by the organization?

What makes good research questions?

Developing research questions is not at all a complex task, but students generally faced issues in designing good research questions. It is very much important for you to keep in mind that research questions guide your entire research project. You should take the time for designing and refining them.

Below is the criterion which will help you in evaluating the strength of the research Questions. These criteria are:

1. Focus and Researchable

A.) An important characteristic of the research question is that it revolves around a specific issue. You should design research questions considering the research aim.

Example: How helpful is the company’s new compensation policy at reducing employee turnover rate?

B.)  You should avoid the beginning of questions with why. Instead of why, you can use what, how, etc.

C.) After designing the research question, you need to make sure that you can answer it by utilizing Quantitative and Qualitative data. You should avoid using subjective words such as better, good, etc. in the research question.

Example: What is the reason for the occurrence of digitization?

2. Feasible and Specific

A.) Before designing research questions you need to first confirm that you have sufficient time and resources for performing the investigation required for answering questions.

B.) While designing the research Question you should ensure that all the terms in research questions consist of clear meaning. You should not use vague language at the time of developing research questions.

For example: What are the most effective communication strategies for increasing customer engagement in business?

C.) You need to utilize clearly defined and specific concepts for the formulation of research questions.

For example: What influence do online gaming applications have on children’s minds?

While creating the research question you should keep in mind that the main purpose of the research is to inform not instruct.

3. Complex and arguable

The questions containing the option of yes or no consideration as so simple. But such type of research questions does not provide much scope for research.

For example: How digitization has influenced the growth of small-medium enterprises in the UK during the last few years?

It is the characteristic of a strong research question that you need to gather original information from different sources to answer questions. Characteristics of a Strong research Question are that it provides scope for debate and deliberation.

4. Relevant and original

You should design a research question that addresses the issue which is relevant to your field. The research question should be designed based on a preliminary reading of the topic. After writing the research question you should make sure that it emphasizes specific issues and fills the knowledge gap.

You need to make sure that that research question design has the potential to contribute to the existing debate. It could help in the generation of knowledge. While formulating research questions you should confirm that a question is still unanswered.  In simple words, you should design original research Questions.

What are the different types of research questions?

Both types of research whether qualitative or quantitative consist of research questions. There are various types of research questions that correspond to different types of research (If you are still unaware of types of research you can read our article).

Conclusion

It’s important to pose research questions for a study or paper to have meaning. Research is based on the answers and conclusions we gather from asking these questions, which are determined by what it is our investigation aims at understanding.