Finding a research question

In the last few months I have been involved in multiple research communities. I have noticed that many researchers ask about a good research question and/or title for their studies. Most of the time these questions remain unanswered and they do not find the help they are hoping for. This is not surprising as only by extensive reading in the field one can decide what is worth researching. Finalising a research question is not a straight forward step and a researcher needs to take a sufficient time to narrow it. According to Bryman (2008) a researcher should have very clear research question as it influences many aspects of the research including; literature search, type of data, analysis approach and writing up.

During my PhD, I have changed my research plan and objectives several times before settling on what I wanted to do. In my experience focusing the research question depends on two things which are; reading previous literature and adopting a research paradigm.

When writing a research proposal a researcher is expected to have an idea about the area of the study and how they are going to approach it. At that stage a researcher can describe the area of interest identify a research problem and bring evidence of why researching that area is important.  However, when writing a thesis, a researcher is required to show a more focused research problem presented as clear aim and objectives or research questions and to provide a strong justification of choosing that area.

An extensive reading of previous studies and looking at what has been written around the topic is the way to identify the gap in the knowledge, the originality of the research and it may draw the researcher attention to some aspects that are more important to what he/she initially planned to research.

As previous literature is key to identify an area to research, it is not enough on its own and one needs to adopt a specific research paradigm to be able to formulate the appropriate research question. Researchers who adopt a positivist paradigm and believe in ultimate truth will be looking for prediction or control and as a result their research questions will include terms like; what, cause, relationship, and may often include a hypothesis. On the other hand researchers who adopt a  constructivist/interpretivist view and believe in multiple realities will be looking for interpretations, understandings and exploring views and their research questions will include terms such as why, how, perceptions and views.

In my PhD research I explored patient educator interns' experience of learning during internship. My initial interest in the topic stemmed from my previous experience as a patient educator. By reading about the topic I decided to focus on the period of internship which represents the transition to work place. Deciding on what to study specifically was greatly influenced by choosing a constructivist paradigm. This choice led to study the participants' experience by exploring their views. I therefore excluded many research ideas which I had considered at early stages but did not fit with the constructivist paradigm, such as exploring the effectiveness of the internship training programme.

It may be tempting for researchers to be advised exactly on what to do so they can start their research. However narrowing the research question is the responsibility of the researcher as it is not merely choosing a topic but it includes a deep understanding of previous literature and awareness of personal perspectives.

Further reading 

BRYMAN, A. 2008. Planning a research project and formulating research questions In: Social research methods. 3rd ed. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SILVERMAN, D. 2010. Selecting a topic In: Doing qualitative research : a practical handbook. 3rd ed. ed. London: SAGE.