Because of all their influence, you might worry that research questions are very difficult to develop. Sometimes it can seem that way. But we’ll help you get the hang of it and, luckily, none of us has to come up with perfect ones right off. It’s more like doing a rough draft and then improving it. That’s why it is better to think about developing research questions instead of just writing them.
Steps for Developing a Research Question
The steps for developing a research question, listed below, help you organize your thoughts.
Step 1: Pick a topic (or consider the one assigned to you).
Step 2: Write a narrower/smaller topic that is related to the first.
Step 3: List some potential questions that could logically be asked in relation to the narrow topic.
Step 4: Pick the question that you are most interested in.
Step 5: Change that question you’re interested in so that it is more focused.
MOVIE: DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS
As you view this short video on how to develop research questions, think about the steps. Which step do you think is easiest? Which do you think is hardest?
Practice
Once you know the order of the steps, only three skills are involved in developing a research question:
- Imagining narrower topics about a larger one,
- Thinking of questions that stem from a narrow topic, and
- Focusing questions to eliminate their vagueness.
Every time you use these skills, it’s important to evaluate what you have produced—that’s just part of the process of turning rough drafts into more finished products.
