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How to Develop a Research Topic

What is a research question?

Once you have done enough research to narrow your topic to something manageable, you are probably ready to formulate your research question. A Research Question is a statement that identifies what you are going to study. If your writing assignment is informational only - it only requires you to gather, organize and present facts - you will not need a research question. But if your writing assignment requires you to take a stand or prove something, you need to begin by focusing on a question to be asked and studied. Why? College level research is not based on opinions. It is based on observable facts. Therefore, you can't start out by stating what is "true" and then finding evidence to prove it. You have to start out with a question, look at all the evidence and then draw a conclusion.

Where do I start?

To formulate your research question you might:

  1. Start with the topic that you have decided upon and then list all the questions that you'd like answered about it yourself. Brainstorm alone, with another student or with your professor on all the questions the topic raises in your mind.
  2. For beginning researchers, a good way to identify possible research questions is to look at previous studies on the topic. While reading the research studies, look for places where the authors of the studies mention "more research is needed" or "XYZ angle was not included in this study." These statements might indicate gaps in the current research.
  3. Another way to use existing studies is to identify a type of study that has been done on one population, but not another. For example, looking again at our active learning strategies for reading classes topic: what if there have been numerous studies on primary and secondary school learners, but none on post secondary learners? That might offer a new angle for research.
  4. A final way to use existing research studies to identify a research question is to look for indications of controversy. If numerous recent studies mention a particular angle of research on the topic is controversial, that indicates there is still a need for study on that angle.

Can I see some examples?

Initial Question What's the Problem? Why is it a Problem?  What's a Better Question? Why is it Better?
What active learning strategies are there to teach early chapter book readers?    Too Narrow This is too narrow because it can be answered with a simple list of strategies.  Questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no," list or statistics should typically be avoided. Amongst active learning strategies A, B and C, which produces the most improvement in early chapter book readers' comprehension based on standardized reading test scores? This question is specific - you will study three active learning strategies - and it provides the opportunity for an argument to be formed - one strategy will be proven best based on test outcomes. 
What are the effects of using active learning strategies to encourage early chapter book readers?  Too Broad This question is so broad that the research methodology would be very difficult to design. If I can't even state the possible "effects," how do I know what I'm testing for? Amongst active learning strategies A. B, and C, which will best help students monitor their own comprehension? This question still allows the researcher to study an "effect" of using active learning strategies - the ability to self-monitor comprehension- but it has a very clear focus for which data should be collected, analyzed, and discussed.
How much time do young children spend reading chapter books per day in the classroom?  Too Objective This question may allow the researcher to collect data, but it does not lend itself to collecting data that can be used to create a valid argument. The data is just factual information. What is the relationship between the amount of time spent engaged in active learning activities associated with reading early chapter books and reading comprehension? This is a more subjective question that may lead to the formation of an argument based on the results and analysis of the data.

 

What is research methodology?

What is all this about being able to test and analyze? For most 100 and 200 level classes, you will not be asked to actually "do a study." You will typically be using the data gathered by other researchers as evidence to support your arguments. It still helps to have a general idea of what is involved in gathering evidence from a study. How this works depends greatly on your field of study. Biologists, economists, historians, literature scholars - they all have vastly different methods of gathering evidence that suit their fields. How scholars conduct research, then, is referred to as their "methodology", and it generally falls into two groups: qualitative and quantitative research. 

 

Qualitative research is most often used in the humanities (literature, history, religion etc) and focuses on relationships between people or texts. It seeks to to understand people's beliefs, experiences, attitudes, behavior, and interactions in a non-numeric way. For example, a scholar of literature might examine a wide body of medieval texts to answer the question: How was the LGBTQ+  community portrayed in the writings of a certain author? To answer that question, the scholar will examine a body of texts for all references to LGBTQ+ characters or interactions and how they were portrayed/perceived by other characters. They will then draw a conclusion based on that evidence on the perception of LGBTQ+ characters by that author in that time period.

Quantitative research is most often used by physical and social scientists (ex. biologists, psychologists, economists) and emphasizes objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through direct experiments, polls, questionnaires, and surveys. Quantitative research may also be done by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques. Your goal in conducting quantitative research study is to determine the relationship between one thing [an independent variable] and another [a dependent or outcome variable] within a population. Quantitative research designs are either descriptive [subjects usually measured once] or experimental [subjects measured before and after a treatment]. A descriptive study establishes only associations between variables; an experimental study establishes causality.

You will focus on methodologies at the 300-400 level, but having at least this introduction will help you understand why certain questions aren't really research questions - they can't be tested and they don't allow for analysis or conclusions.