Your research question states the specific issue or problem that your research will focus on exploring, answering, or resolving.
To develop a strong research question:
- Select a broad topic: Choose a subject area that you find interesting and relevant to your field of study.
- Conduct initial research: Read a few articles or background materials to understand the current knowledge and identify gaps or debates within your topic.
- Narrow your focus: Identify a specific aspect of your chosen topic that you want to explore further.
- Ask open-ended questions: Frame your research question using "how," "why," or "what" to encourage deeper analysis.
- Consider your audience: Think about who would be interested in your research and tailor your question accordingly.
- Evaluate your question: Check if your research question is clear, focused, feasible to research, and complex enough to require meaningful analysis
In general, a good research question will be:
- Clear and focused. In other words, the question should clearly state what the writer needs to do.
- Not too broad and not too narrow. The question should have an appropriate scope. If the question is too broad it will not be possible to answer it thoroughly within the word limit. If it is too narrow you will not have enough to write about and you will struggle to develop a strong argument (see the activity below for examples).
- Not too easy to answer. For example, the question should require more than a simple yes or no answer.
- Not too difficult to answer. You must be able to answer the question thoroughly within the given timeframe and word limit.
- Researchable. You must have access to a suitable amount of quality research materials, such as academic books and refereed journal articles.
- Analytical rather than descriptive. In other words, your research question should allow you to produce an analysis of an issue or problem rather than a simple description of it (more on this below).
- (Source: Monash University)
The Writing Center at George Mason University provides example research questions and explains problems of clarity, focus, etc. to help you better understand how strong research questions look.