5 Steps to Develop a STRONG Research Question
A good research question is really like a lighthouse. It guides your research paper, pinpoints precisely what you want to find out, and gives your work a clear purpose with proper focus.
Here are some simple 5 steps to develop a strong research question:-
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Step 1 – Choose a broad topic.
Since you will be spending quite some time with it, go with a topic that sparks your interest. For me, I’m thinking of maybe something about social media.
Step 2 – Do some preliminary reading on the topic.
Ok, so I’ve read a lot of newspaper writings about how social media negatively impacts high school students’ academic performances. They also happen to be one of the most active age groups on social media.
Step 3 – Narrow down to a specific niche.
In this way, you can ensure that the research is within a feasible scope instead of something too broad to achieve in a given timeframe. Since academic performance is too broad, let me narrow it down to attention span.
Step 4 – Identify a research problem.
So we have already established that adolescents are one of the most active age groups on social media platforms. However, only a scarce amount of research has been done on social media’s effect on the younger generation’s attention span. This will be my research problem.
Step 5 – Write your research question!
Turning your research problem into a question sounds like this: What effect does daily use of Twitter have on people’s attention span in the age group of 16 to 20?
Since this is descriptive research, the research question is also descriptive. But there are also other kinds of research questions, and it all depends on the type of research you’ll do. Some of the examples include
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– comparative research, descriptive research, or correlational research.
Now that you have a research question, how do you know if it’s good or not? Here’s a checklist for you.
- A good research question should be focused on. Since this question focuses on a single problem of Twitter’s effect on high school students’ attention span, it fulfills the requirement of being focused.
- It should be researchable. That means the answer to your question can be found by collecting empirical data or through existing literature. In our case, we can go for a quantitative approach like using eye-tracking or mouse-tracking to measure the attention span.
- It needs to be feasible, so is it doable within a specific timeframe. However, your situation decides whether you have access to the data you need and the kind of respondents or not. But for this research question would fit more into the timeframe of a more extended project. So it wouldn’t be feasible for an assignment you have to hand in by the end of the month.
- Be specific. All the terms you use in the research question should have clear meanings. Notice how I don’t use “often” but “daily,” a specific age group instead of “adolescents.”
- The research question should also be complex enough. If a simple yes or no can answer the research question with yes or no, or with easily found facts, it’s NOT complex enough.
- Last but not least, make sure your problem is relevant to your field of study or society. Well, social media is pretty much all we use now, so that’s definitely relevant to society.
- It also targets currently unanswered questions and contributes knowledge that future research can build on.
Now keep in mind, in a research paper or essay, you’ll usually write only one research question. But for a bigger project, you can also develop multiple research questions around the same problem. For example, I can also ask: “Does the infinite scroll function on Twitter contribute to the effect on attention span?” Follow the steps and checklist, and you’ll end up with a research question as a solid foundation for your research!
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