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Given that I had never conducted graduate-level academic research before, I hadn’t considered the amount of consideration and care which had to go into developing your research questions. Out of naivety I had assumed the more important part of academic research was the study and its conclusions, but as I’ve come to learn over the past two weeks the quality of a graduate-level research question is equally as important. What I’ve come to conclude is that a strong research question is like a strong foundation in construction: If you don’t have a solid research question (foundation) it doesn’t matter what you do with the rest of the house (research design, literature review, data collection, validity, hypothesis) as you still risk collapse. I came to this conclusion after reviewing the resources in the Writing Centre which explained that a strong research question should include:
- Clear and specific points;
- Lead to an answer which is not open-ended (cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”); and
- Allow your research to be narrowed-down and focused (Bell, n.d.)
Finding these three points above allowed me to better understand what a strong research question should deliver to a graduate-level research project.
In the words of Jane Agee in their article Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process: “Good research questions do not necessarily produce good research, but poorly conceived or constructed questions will likely create problems that affect all subsequent stages of a study.” According to Dahlberg and McCraig (2010) effective research questions often need refinement as your research continues, and they point out this is especially true in qualitative research (p. 34). Creswell and Cresswell’s research explores this further (2023), explaining that effective research questions are often broad so that they can be narrowed down as research progresses (p. 129). To me this implies that research questions should initially be broad, and the researcher should not be afraid to narrow the question further as they learn more. I’ve also learned that strong research questions should be open-ended (p. 131) so that they are not too easily answered by a simple yes or no answer, allowing for deeper analysis and inquiry. And while strong research questions should be broad enough to allow for further definition over time, they should also “focus on a single phenomenon or concept” (p. 130), focusing on a single problem so that your research provides insight to the reader. Just as with our construction analogy, research questions require precision and focus, but also need flexibility to adapt as the research project progresses.
For my learning colleagues, what do you think about this analysis of good research questions? Do you agree that effective research questions need to be balanced between clear and specific versus open for refinement, or do you believe that one is more important than the other?
References
Agee, J. (2008, June 12). Full article: Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518390902736512
Bell, T. (n.d.). LibGuides: Developing your essay: 2. What focus will you take in the work? https://libguides.royalroads.ca/developing_essay/focus
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2023). Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (Sixth). SAGE Publications.
Dahlberg, L., & McCaig, C. (2010). Practical Research and Evaluation : A Start-to-Finish Guide for Practitioners. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446268346