Summaries for Chapter 1 of the NMQ (First Steps in Research - Second edition) handbook. These notes are ideal for students studying for their Honours degree in Education (BEdHons). I got 98% for this module using these notes and still use them in my PhD research today.
What is a research question and why is it important?
1.1 Introduction
- A research question guides and directs the research
- It should be original
- Research should not have been conducted on your research question before.
- It should be clear and centred
- Many sources should be integrated
- It should appear at the beginning of your research report
- Helps to maintain focus
- Helps formulate hypothesis/statement of purpose
1.2 Why do you need a research question?
Note: Your research question should never be used to “prove” something – It merely directs you to
appropriate research literature and other resources.
You need a research questions for 2 reasons:
1. It tells you what literature to read and how to narrow down your bibliographic search
o It helps the research librarian to get a clear idea of where to direct you
2. Provides you with a focus for your data collection
1.3 What are the qualities of a good research question?
1. Concise. It comes to the point, focuses sharply on the issue of interest, and is stated in a
cogent and specific way. In the example, the research question is posed in one sentence
and in one line.
2. Clear (unambiguous). It leaves no doubt as to what is being proposed for study; it is
understandable by even non-specialists (in this case, those outside the field of educational
research); it does not require further explanation.
3. Operationalisable. It can be executed or implemented in practice. In the example, the
researcher simply has to find measures of class size and measures of student achievement
– and then determine the relationship between them. In other words, such a study is
reasonably easy to implement.
4. Open-ended. It is posed in a way that suggests no obvious answer; it is therefore
intellectually honest, and does not expect or lean towards an obvious answer. It could be
that small classes (with few students) produce higher test results (the most common way to
measure achievement), but we do not know for sure. A good question therefore lacks bias
and allows for any kind of result to emerge from the study.
5. Elegant. It is posed simply and yet in a way that is parsimonious (limited words) and
conveys rich meaning. In the above example, the research question asks about a
relationship between only two variables – class size (the number of students in a class) and
student achievement (academic performance). It is as simple and elegant as that.
6. Timely. It is a mark of a good question that it addresses some pressing issues of
importance at the time. The implementation of a new curriculum needs to be understood;
the attitudes of teachers towards a new policy making corporal punishment illegal needs to
be probed; the growing levels of violence in schools need to be theorised about; and so on.
Of course, some research questions are timeless and some might not address an
immediate practical need but speak to a long-standing intellectual puzzle.
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