Defining scientific questions

This is where the previous lesson ended. You must define the scientific questions or challenges to be resolved. These target exactly what you want to know. They may focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research problem.

A solid research question should be specific enough that you can answer it thoroughly using appropriate qualitative or quantitative research methods. It must also be complex enough to require extensive investigation, analysis and argumentation. Questions that can be answered with “yes/no” or with readily available facts are not complex enough for a thesis or dissertation.

The process of developing your research question follows several steps:

• Choose a broad topic
• Do pre-reading to educate yourself on current debates and issues
• Narrow down a specific niche you want to focus on
• Identify a practical or theoretical research problem that you will address

When you have a clearly defined problem, you must formulate one or more questions. Think about exactly what you want to know and how it will help solve the problem.

Both qualitative and quantitative research require research questions. The type of question you use depends on what you want to know and the type of research you want to do. This will shape your research design.