According to Schipke (2022), a good research question should be open-ended. A question that only requires a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer should, of course, be avoided. The question should be of interest to the reader, but I think it should be of interest to the person who is posing the question, and there should be enough available resources in order to do the study and answer the question well (Schipke, 2022). If the question is too broad or too narrow, it could become challenging to answer the question as there will be too much information to be able to cover the question and answer it properly (too broad) or not enough information to answer the question fully (too narrow).
Furthermore, developing a good research question requires challenging the status quo of what is currently thought of as ‘true’ or is accepted as ‘correct’. One assumption is that the question is meant to find the gaps in the prevailing knowledge of current research (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). However, merely spotting gaps (called gap-spotting) does not lend itself to challenging current theories. Instead, it only further supports the current literature and credits it as being acceptable. It does not upset the apple cart. Many researchers use gap-spotting as a primary method of conducting research in order to get published. This is under-problemizing the current literature (2011). On the other hand, published articles that completely disrupt what has been accepted as ‘true’, over-problemize the research (2011). This is upsetting the apple cart. Alvesson and Sandberg (2011) propose in their research that in order to generate a good research question there needs to be a balance between the positive and negative, that is, between under or over problemizing the current research. Problemizing entails coming up with a novel research question through a logical self-reflection of our own perspectives and assumptions and challenging them but stipulate that problemizing and gap-spotting are not mutually exclusive. Gap-spotting requires some scrutiny, but it “does not deliberately try to identify and challenge the assumptions underlying existing literature in the process of constructing research questions”(2011, p. 252) the way the problemization method does.
To sum up, a good research question needs
- to be open-ended
- to be interesting to the reader
- to be interesting to the writer
- to have enough research available to review
- to challenge the status quo
- not to merely be gap-spotting
- to be problemized through critical self-reflection and challenge our assumptions
References:
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). GENERATING RESEARCH QUESTIONS THROUGH
PROBLEMATIZATION on JSTOR. JSTOR. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41318000
LibGuides: Writing: WRT 202 (Schipke): What makes a good research question? (2022). Central
Connecticut State University. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://libguides.ccsu.edu/c.php?
g=1177888&p=8615785
I enjoyed reading your post about what makes for a good research question. Alvesson is a favorite author of mine on the topic of research.