How to Develop a Very Good Research Question

The research question is key to carrying out your research. Most times it builds the premise to determining the scope of what you are to research on.

To develop a good research question you should first understand the major types of research questions;

• the descriptive: this is the type of question that seeks to describe conditions or characteristics that exist. These type of questions seek to discover things that have not been described well enough before. Eg – what are the products created from the digestion of lactose
• Observational-relational questions seek to find whether two or more variables affect, or do not affect, each other under a given set of circumstances. eg if two cows are kept under the same conditions and fed the same amount of feed, will they gain the same amount of weight?
• Causal (cause and effect) questions: These type of questions seek to find if changing one variable in a known and or contained habitat has a measurable effect on another variable or set of variables within that same area or habitat eg does the total mass of a sample of sodium affect the speed at which it completely reacts with water?

So with the types of research questions out of the way see steps to developing an interesting research question;

Since a research question is the question around which you build your research it should observe the CFCCA acronym;

• Clear – provide enough clarity and specifics to be easily understood without further explanation
• focused – narrow enough to not be mixed up in the answer
• concise – expressed in as summarised words as possible
• complex – should not be answerable by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but should require analysis and clear indication of ideas and sources
• arguable – its premises and potential answers should be open to debate

Tips to Developing a Good Research Question

1. Choose an interesting research topic. Find a topic you are really interested in working on. That’s half the fun already.
2. Do some preliminary research around your topic. This should throw up some interesting ideas for your research question
3. Ask questions around the topic, ‘how’, ‘why’ etc. That throws up angles you can to unique research questions you can build your research around.

Browse through tens of thousands of research papers and materials on Afribary. Find interesting research questions.