{"id":225,"date":"2020-07-04T17:32:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T20:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0157\/?p=225"},"modified":"2020-08-16T20:32:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T23:32:16","slug":"what-makes-a-good-research-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0157\/what-makes-a-good-research-question\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Good Research Question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Makes a Good Research Question?<\/em><\/span>
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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<\/i>, 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>, 2019b). This seems corroborated by the inclusion of KState Librarie’s video (How to Develop a Good Research Topic<\/i>, 2013) in BCcampus’ ebook chapter on getting started in research (Chiang et al., 2015).<\/p>\n

Beyond ensuring that the research topic itself is neither too broad nor too narrow two criteria for a good research question are:<\/p>\n