Research questions

How to frame a research question

Research questions vary widely and from discipline to discipline, but in general they are:

1. Focused and concrete - they home in on a specific area for investigation. So for example, ‘How can students improve their learning of physics?’ is not a focused question. However, ‘What can I change in my teaching practice to enhance student examination performance in my mechanics module?’ has a clear focus for investigation.

2. Realistic - the question guiding your enquiry is something feasible for you to investigate. The question: ‘Do student attitudes towards physics become more positive or negative if they have had repeated instruction in physics topics using inquiry-based learning approaches, every three years from when they start school through to the end of their undergraduate degree?’ is a focused question, but not one that is easily answerable except by a large research team undertaking longitudinal study and with considerable grant funding.

3. Measurable. There are many questions we can ask but that we cannot easily answer in an investigation. ‘Why don’t more students study physics?’; ‘What impact on physics students internationally has there been as a result of the move from chalkboards to powerpoint presentations?’. ‘If all babies are exposed to Newton’s Three Laws using flash cards, will we see more enthusiasm for physics careers?’. You need to be able to collect data to answer your research question.

4. Informed by your literature review (often following an experience of some real-world situation) for example, a physics lecturer may notice that students consistently fail to perform well in their learning of a particular topic and want to investigate further how to support them in their learning. The literature review will identify gaps, strategies, potential solutions, that can be honed into initial research questions. You may have some ideas of your own, and discover from the literature that they have not worked for others, and get ideas for what to try instead.

5. Iterative. Research questions are not set in stone, and as the investigation proceeds will be further refined. Quite often we cast the net widely to begin with, and then narrow down to something more specific and manageable. For example you might start out with ‘how should mathematics best be integrated into the teaching of physics in higher education?’, and end up with ‘does the use of guided mathematical modelling interventions support more positive student attitudes towards the use of unstructured problems to assess their understanding of thermal physics?’ In empirical research the research questions to be answered are primarily concerned with drawing answers from observable data, although theoretical research also informs the design of the research process and the intervention constructed.

6. Ethical. You will need ethical approval for any investigation that involves human subjects. Particular care should be taken if delving into personal or sensitive data, such as student attitudes, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics, political views, backgrounds, grades, etc. The section on ‘Ethics and Data Collection’ explains more about this.