Assessment: Research Question Task

First, review the 3 resources noted below.

  1. This infographic about fantasy cover art illustrates one way of reporting data.  From the accompanying notes, you will get a good idea of the research method used, and you should be able to infer (that is, make an informed guess based on relevant evidence) the research question.
  2. This research uses the same pool of sources (cover art from fantasy titles published by Orbit in 2008 and 2009) but collects different data (details of the visual representations of heroines) to answer a different research question.  Again, you should be able to infer the question from the answer as represented in the infographic.
  3. Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature

    A meta-analysis is a form of research in which the researcher examines all of a certain type of artifact, in this case all the scientific articles on climate change published between November 2012 and December 2013 in peer-reviewed journals. The purpose of meta-analysis is to identify trends in the available data that would not be visible from any one article alone.  A meta-analysis is similar to another type of research that begins by examining all the artifacts in a certain category: the review of the literature (aka literature review).

 

Then, complete this writing task.

Pick ONE of the above examples of research (“Fantasy Book Covers,” “Heroines,” or “Scientific Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming: A Pie Chart”).

For the one you choose, state what you feel the research question was of the author in a single sentence.  Then briefly explain what the research method used was.  You may need to infer (that is, use evidence and logical reasoning to draw a conclusion about) the research method.