Researchable Questions Lesson

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Lesson: Researchable Questions

Updated 8-31-09

First, read Farmer pp. 6-8.

On this topic, I have one story, 3 points drawn from my own experience, and a follow-up task.

A True Story

The closest I ever came to public tears during my entire doctoral program was on the day we had to present our dissertation research questions to the class and be publically critiqued. Each member of our 6-person doctoral cohort presented his or her question to the class in turn, using an overhead as a visual aid. Each person was grilled on what their study was really about and found to be lacking in some aspect of their question construction.

Now, the professor wasn't being intentionally cruel, but instead wise and tough. Still, on that day, after a year of full-time study, I thought I would never "get it" or be able to come up with a passable research question. I wanted to give up and go home.

Obviously, I was able to tough it out that day. I regrouped and rebuilt my courage. Eventually, through coaching from my professor and working with my peers, I worded my question properly and graduated in due course.

In my mind, forming the right research question is one of the most difficult aspects of research. At the same time, it is perhaps the most important, because if the question is inadequate, then the study cannot be conducted successfully.

Honoring Farmer's text
Dr. Farmer is nothing if not concise!

She provides a comprehensive description about the research question, but does not elaborate. I will embroider here a bit.

She lists these components: topic; affected population; outcome (dependent variable); intervention (independent variable).

Example:
Let's say the problem is that 5th graders at your school are copying their reports out of encyclopedias rather than researching authentic questions properly. You have read much literature around this problem, and decided to try double-entry drafts as a partial solution to the problem. The factors would then be:

topic: information literacy/gathering information
population: 5th graders at No Name Elem. School
outcome/dependent variable: note-taking behavior
intervention/independent variable: lesson introducing double-entry drafts

So, in the form of a question, this might become:

What is the effect of double-entry drafting on the notetaking behavior and information literacy of 5th graders at No Name Elementary School?

This is not grammatically beautiful but it works as a research question.

Three points from my experience

1. The most common problem with research questions is an overly ambitious scope.

     While conducting your literature review, the scope of your question is larger than when you're ready to design a study for data collection. Therefore, EDIT 6900 students may have larger scope questions for their Problem Projects than 7340 students for their Applied Projects. Likewise, questions that worked during the literature review process may need to be tightened for the AP itself.
     This problem is easy to fix. The solution may be to choose one aspect of the problem for a narrow focus. This may mean that you have to choose between two or more aspects that you like about a question. Remember that you can always come back and explore abandoned questions in subsequent studies.
    Any one of the four question aspects above can be narrowed - one or more or all of them.

2. Research questions imply certain methods.

     For example, "how" and "why" questions imply qualitative studies. Yes/no questions almost insist upon statistical methods. "What is the effect" can go either way - qualitative or quantitative. Literature review questions need to be open-ended - "how," "what."
     Therefore, it pays to think ahead about methods when constructing your question. In our class, I will try to steer your question based upon methods that you suggest to me, and based upon the predicted practicality of those methods. As a safety net, once the design is made, the research question can be adjusted.

3. Sometimes the research question doesn't match the method or the true purpose of the research.

    This is hard to catch until a problem is described fully and the methods are laid out in the form of a plan. I ask two questions to check this:

Does the research question address at least one true facet of the underlying problem presented in supporting narrative?
Will the data gathered have the potential to answer the question?

For this reason, the Researchable Question assignment requires you to give some context about the situation. It may not be possible to tell if data will answer the question until the Design is complete.

Your Task

Obviously, you must submit your Researchable Question assignment on or before 9/13 (for EDIT 7340; EDIT 6900 has til 9/27).

If you have time, it is helpful to notice the research questions of studies that you come across. It's a key piece of information to note about any study that you examine. Take the time to review a few.

If you would like to "try out" your research question for me in the next few days, I will be happy to provide feedback about it. Then, you can apply that feedback in your assignment coming up.

The best way to discuss any project-related question is via the eLC discussion board with your name on it. It's private between me and you, but best of all, it will keep all such questions strung together in one place. Use if freely - I plan to check postings each working day. If 2 working days go by with no reply, email me with a reminder.

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