{"id":208,"date":"2020-07-06T21:18:58","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T04:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/?p=208"},"modified":"2020-07-06T21:18:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T04:18:58","slug":"what-makes-a-good-research-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/what-makes-a-good-research-question\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes a good research question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo by\u00a0Hans-Peter Gauster<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

If you good a quick internet search to \u201cwhat makes a good research question\u201d many answers appear!\u00a0 In the YouTube video entitled \u201cThree steps to writing a good research question\u201d,<\/a> it states that a good research question does not have a yes or no answer. Good research questions also do not use value words such as good or bad. A good research question also cannot be too broad or narrow. (Library Youtube Research and Learning Channel, 2018). Sounds good, but where do you start?\u00a0 Is there an algorithm, a set of rules that can help craft a good research question?<\/p>\n

A method to help draft a research question commonly used in quantitative healthcare research is the \u201cPICO(T)\u201d method. PICO(T) stands for population, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time. A good healthcare research question has PICO, not necessarily in that order with T as optional (McMaster University, 2020).<\/p>\n

For instance, the following is a research question following the PICO(T) method and is taken from McMaster University Health Sciences Library:<\/a> In\u00a0emergency room visitors<\/u><\/strong> (population)<\/strong>, do\u00a0hand sanitizing stations<\/u> (intervention)<\/strong>\u00a0result in\u00a0fewer in-hospital infections<\/u> (outcome)<\/strong>\u00a0when compared\u00a0with no hand sanitizing stations<\/u><\/strong> (comparison)<\/strong>\u00a0over\u00a0a year-long pilot period<\/u><\/strong> (time)<\/strong>? This research question is on the general topic of prevention, specifically preventing fewer in-hospital infections. There are other examples from McMaster university that help develop research questions for the topics of etiology (cause of disease), therapy (treatment), diagnosis and prognosis (McMaster University, 2020).<\/p>\n

While this is health sciences specific, this could be used similarly in other fields. The PICO(T) method helps to create questions that are not yes or no or too broad or narrow.\u00a0 And watch out for value words (good or bad)!<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

McMaster University. (2020). Nursing: Forming Questions<\/em>. Health Sciences Library Guides and Tutorials. http:\/\/hsl.mcmaster.libguides.com\/c.php?g=306764&p=2045176<\/a><\/p>\n

Library Youtube Research and Learning Channel. (2018, January 16). Three steps to writing a good research question <\/em>[Video]. YouTube. https:\/\/youtu.be\/tuJXwyiR7qg\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by\u00a0Hans-Peter Gauster\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash If you good a quick internet search to \u201cwhat makes a good research question\u201d many answers appear!\u00a0 In the YouTube video entitled \u201cThree steps to writing a good research question\u201d, it states that a good research question does not have a yes or no answer. Good research questions also do not use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt522","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0159\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}