What Makes a Good Research Question?
When researching what makes a good research question, it struck me that it may be worth looking at bad research questions, as well, which led me to the University of Maryland’s library website. While they note some differences between both good and bad research questions, one item that stood out is their defining a good research question as considering cause and effect (LibGuides, 2019a). Interestingly, in Chapter 1 of their book on educational research, Johnson and Christensen (2016) that cause and effect is of importance in quantitative research as it, “[enables] them to make probabilistic predictions and generalizations,” (p.33, para. 4) while qualitative researchers are, “usually are not interested in generalizing beyond the particular people who are studied” (p. 35, para. 1). As a result, depending on the type of research being performed, this may not be a critical component.
Interestingly, in researching this topic, the idea about the topic was often raised simultaneously. For instance, prior to University of Maryland’s slide describing both good and bad research questions, it is noted that a research topic should be narrowed in order to create a good research question (LibGuides, 2019b). This seems corroborated by the inclusion of KState Librarie’s video (How to Develop a Good Research Topic, 2013) in BCcampus’ ebook chapter on getting started in research (Chiang et al., 2015).
Beyond ensuring that the research topic itself is neither too broad nor too narrow two criteria for a good research question are:
- Any research question should interest both you, as a researcher, and the reader
- Any research question should be feasible to study (incl. time, money, equipment, knowledge, etc.)
References
That’s a really good summary on that site: https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/customers/1118/images/1-4_Good_and_Bad_Research_Questions.png
I’m big on infographics like this one. This one makes is particularly concise and effective – Nice find!
Thanks very much, Patrick!
Jean-Pierre, You touch on several key factors in generating a good research question (narrowed topic, different kinds of questions for qual/quant. research, feasibility). In terms of “interest” did you mean by “reader”, a person in the researcher’s same scholarly community? I think it would not be possible (nor important) to try and find a research topic of interest to all readers.
Thanks for the feedback, Loni.
With regard to “interest”, based on the readings it was my understanding that the reader would likely be a person in the same scholarly community. Interestingly, I’m watching your podcast as I type this, hearing how you discuss this topic further. I do agree with your statement that it really needs to be interesting to me, first and foremost, so I appreciate the clarification. I much prefer being able to select based on my interest and being able to run with it from that aspect far more than having to select based on what appears to be a consensus topic by my peers.