{"id":345,"date":"2019-07-10T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T18:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/?p=345"},"modified":"2019-09-20T08:38:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T15:38:26","slug":"what-makes-a-good-research-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/what-makes-a-good-research-question\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes a good research question?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">[<a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/search\/photos\/question?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Photo by\u00a0<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@brandi1?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Brandi Redd<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/search\/photos\/question?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">\u00a0on\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/search\/photos\/research-question?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Unsplash]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">~ Old Talmud saying<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When reflecting on what makes a good research question, I would like to draw from my experience (of both what good research question is and is not) as well as from the literature on research design.<\/p>\n<p>Good research question:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>invites &#8220;deeper thinking&#8221; by using open-ended questions, thus fostering contribution to the larger field of knowledge (Booth,\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Colomb, &amp; Williams, 2008, p. 44);<\/span><\/li>\n<li>can evolve over time, as a researcher expands his or her knowledge of the subject area (<span class=\"surname\">Race, 2010), and as he or she is able to do &#8220;problematization&#8221; and &#8220;gap-spotting&#8221; better (Alvesson &amp; Sandberg, 2013).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>has a precise focus and identifies the problem that a research project will address within its limits (length, time, the expertise of the supervisor, etc.).<\/li>\n<li>brings some sort of innovative component to the research field and contributes to the meaningful conversations within that field.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Blaikie (2004) points out, formulating a good research question is the &#8220;most difficult part of any research design&#8221;. Understanding how to construct a good research question will ensure the success of the whole research project from the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p>Alvesson, M. &amp; Sandberg, J. (2013).\u00a0<em>Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research.<\/em>\u00a0London: SAGE. doi: 10.4135\/9781446270035<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., &amp; Williams, J. M. (2008). <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Craft of Research<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"csl-bib-body\">\n<div class=\"csl-entry\">\n<div class=\"def\">\n<div class=\"bibl\"><span class=\"author\"><span class=\"persname\"><span class=\"surname\">Blaikie, N. (2004).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Research Question.\u00a0 In M. Lewis-Beck, A. Bryman, &amp; T. Futing Liao, <i>The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods<\/i>. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4135\/9781412950589.n857\">doi:10.4135\/9781412950589.n857<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"csl-bib-body\">\n<div class=\"csl-entry\"><span class=\"surname\">Race, R. (2010).\u00a0<\/span>Research Question. In N. Salkind,\u00a0<i>Encyclopedia of Research Design<\/i>. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4135\/9781412961288.n383\">doi:10.4135\/9781412961288.n383<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Photo by\u00a0Brandi Redd\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash] If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there\u2026 ~ Old Talmud saying When reflecting on what makes a good research question, I would like to draw from my experience (of both what good research question is and is not) as well as from the literature [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt522"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":497,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}