08/01/2018
RESEARCH TIPS: FORMING A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION
Any inquiry starts with a question, but not all questions are research questions. Very often, students formulate questions that are so trivial to be considered worthy of intellectual investigation or too broad to have relevance at all. What then constitutes a good research question?
A research question must be CLEAR, FOCUSED, CONCISE, COMPLEX and ARGUABLE.
Examples of good research questions and their inappropriate counterpart are presented below:
CLEAR: How are jeepney drivers addressing the potential negative impact of the modernization program of the government?
NOT CLEAR: Why is the government's modernization program disadvantageous to the jeepney drivers?
FOCUSED: How is glacial melting affecting penguins in the Arctic Circle?
NOT FOCUSED: What are the effects of global warming?
CONCISE: How does knowledge about carbon footprint shape environmentally responsible behavior?
NOT CONCISE: What are the factors to consider in developing environmentally responsible behavior?
APPROPRIATELY COMPLEX: What are common traits of those suffering from diabetes in the Philippines, and how can these commonalities be used to aid the medical community in prevention of the disease?
TOO SIMPLE: How are doctors addressing diabetes in the Philippines?
ARGUABLE: How does economic status shape the perception of Filipinos on the tax reform law?
NOT ARGUABLE: What is the opinion of Filipinos on the tax reform law?
Steps to form a good research question:
1) Choose an interesting general topic--if you're an ABM student or college student majoring in a business course, you may consider the 5-6 (predatory lending practices) ban by the Duterte Administration
2) Conduct preliminary research on the general topic-- search for relevant news and journal articles, which you may find in GoogleScholar)
3) Consider your audience-- for the most part, your audience is your research instructor or your panel. Hence, both the substance and form of your research question should be academic. However, you should also consider the sector that will be affected by your study (example: jeepney drivers for a study on the impact of the modernization program)
4) Start asking questions-- after doing the first three steps, start asking yourself the "how" and "why" question. We strongly suggest that you avoid asking the "what" question since this will only give you a descriptive study, which only has a minimal social implication.
5) Evaluate your question-- assess your question based on the criteria and examples presented above
6) Hypothesize-- After you’ve come up with a question, think about what the path you think the answer will take.
Lastly, the type of approach that you are going to take will also matter in forming the research question. If you intend to do a quantitative study, your variables must be clearly defined. On the other hand, if you're planning to do a qualitative study, your research question must be open-ended.
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