{"id":303,"date":"2020-07-03T13:29:49","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T20:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/?p=303"},"modified":"2020-07-04T03:27:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T10:27:39","slug":"what-makes-a-good-research-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/what-makes-a-good-research-question\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Good Research Question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@nickdepartee?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Nick de Partee<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/question?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before we discuss what makes a <em>good <\/em>research question, let us explore the types of research questions and their importance. Lewis-Beck et al., (2004) explain that there are three main types of research questions: what, why, and how. The \u201cwhat\u201d questions require a descriptive answer. While the \u201cwhy\u201d questions ask for either the cause of or the reasons for. Finally, the \u201chow\u201d questions are concerned with bringing about change with practical outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>Now, onto what makes a good research question. These are a few of many aspects to consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Relevance<\/strong> <\/em>\u2013 is the topic able to establish a clear purpose for the research in relation to the field. (Guide to Undergraduate Dissertations)<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Focus<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 is the topic specific enough to master with a reasonable amount of information and time given (Booth et al., 2016)<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Open-Ended Questions<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 does the topic invite deeper thinking and fostering further contribution to the broader field of knowledge<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Evidence<\/strong> <\/em>\u2013 is there evidence to be found for this topic (Booth et al., 2016) for both primary or secondary research<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lastly, according to (Salkind, 2010), choosing the <em>right<\/em> question is \u201cone of the most important decisions a researcher will make is deciding on a question that will be examined in the research process\u201d p.1262.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M., Bizup, J., &amp; Fitzgerald, W. T. (2016). <em>The Craft of Research<\/em>. University of Chicago Press. http:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/royalroads-ebooks\/detail.action?docID=4785166<\/p>\n<p><em>Guide to Undergraduate Dissertations<\/em>. (n.d.). Retrieved July 3, 2020, from http:\/\/www.socscidiss.bham.ac.uk\/research-question.html<\/p>\n<p>Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A., &amp; Futing Liao, T. (2004). <em>The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods<\/em>. Sage Publications, Inc. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4135\/9781412950589<\/p>\n<p>Salkind, N. (2010). <em>Encyclopedia of Research Design<\/em>. SAGE Publications, Inc. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4135\/9781412961288<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash Before we discuss what makes a good research question, let us explore the types of research questions and their importance. Lewis-Beck et al., (2004) explain that there are three main types of research questions: what, why, and how. The \u201cwhat\u201d questions require a descriptive answer. While the \u201cwhy\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt522"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}