What are examples of research questions? This article lists 8 illustrative examples of research questions.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Well-written research questions determine how the entire research process will proceed.
To effectively write the statement of your thesis’s problem, you will need to remember certain principles that will guide you in framing those critical questions.
This article features some examples of research questions.
There are already many literature pieces written on how to write the research questions required to investigate a phenomenon. But how are the research questions framed in actual situations? How do you write the research questions?
The intention of the research activity should guide all research activities. Once this is clearly defined, the research has three primary outcomes.
The next sections discuss these three principles of framing research questions in more detail.
Intention of Writing Research Questions
You will need to remember specific rules and principles on how to go about writing the research questions. Before you write the research questions, discern what you intend to arrive at in your research.
What are your aims, and what are your expected research outcomes? Do you intend to describe something, determine differences, or explain the causes of a phenomenon?
Research has at least three essential research outcomes. These are described below, along with examples of research questions for each outcome.
Three Primary Research Outcomes
In quantitative research, there are at least three basic research outcomes that will arise in writing the research questions. These are
- come up with a description,
- determine differences between variables, and
- find out correlations between variables.
Research Outcome Number 1. Come up with a description.
The outcome of your research question may be as a description. The description contextualizes the situation, explains something about the subjects or respondents of the study. It also provides the reader with an overview of your research.
For instance, the school administrator might want to study a group of teachers in a school to help improve the school’s performance in the licensure examinations. The school has been lagging in their ranking and there is a need to identify training needs to make the teachers more effective.
Specifically, the administrator would like to find out the composition of teachers in that school, find out how much time they spend in preparing their lessons, and what teaching styles they use in managing the teaching-learning process.
Below are examples of research questions for Research Outcome Number 1 on research about this hypothetical study.
3 Examples of Research Questions That Entail Description
- What is the demographic profile of the teachers in terms of age, gender, educational attainment, civil status, and number of training attended?
- How much time do teachers devote to preparing their lessons?
- What teaching styles are used by teachers in managing their students?
The expected outcomes of the example research questions above will be a description of the teachers’ demographic profile, a range of time devoted to preparing their lessons, and a description of the teachers’ teaching styles.
These research outcomes show tables and graphs with accompanying highlights of the findings. Highlights are those interesting trends or dramatic results that need attention, such as very few training provided to teachers.
Armed with information derived from such research, the administrator can then undertake measures to enhance the teachers’ performance. A hit-and-miss approach is avoided. Thus, the intervention becomes more effective than issuing memos to correct the situation without systematic study.
Research Outcome Number 2. Determine differences between variables.
To write research questions that integrate the variables of the study, you should be able to define what is a variable. If this term is already quite familiar to you, and you are confident in your understanding, you may read the rest of this post.
Check this out: What are examples of variables in research?
For example, you might want to find out the differences between groups in a selected variable in your study. Say you would like to know if there is a significant difference in long quiz scores (the variable you are interested in) between students who study at night and students who study early in the morning.
You may frame your research questions thus:
2 Examples of Research Questions to Determine Difference
Non-directional
- Is there a significant difference in long quiz score between students who study early in the morning and students who study at night?
Directional
- Are the quiz scores of students who study early in the morning higher than those who study at night?
The first example research question intends to determine if a difference exists in long quiz scores between students who study at night and those who study early in the morning, hence are non-directional. The aim is just to find out if there is a significant difference. A two-tailed t-test will show if a difference exists.
The second research question aims to determine if students who study in the morning have better quiz scores than what the literature review suggests. Thus, the latter is directional.
Research Outcome Number 3. Find out correlations or relationships between variables.
The outcome of research questions in this category will be to explain correlations or causality. Below are examples of research questions that aim to determine correlations or relationships between variables using a combination of the variables mentioned in research outcome numbers 1 and 2.
3 Examples of Research Questions That Imply Correlation Analysis
- Is there a significant relationship between teaching style and the long quiz score of students?
- Is there a significant association between the student’s long quiz score and the teacher’s age, gender, and training attended?
- Is there a relationship between the long quiz score and the number of hours devoted by students in studying their lessons?
Note that in all the preceding examples of research questions, the conceptual framework integrates the study variables. Therefore, research questions must always incorporate the variables in them so that the researcher can describe, find differences, or correlate them with each other.
Be more familiar with the conceptual framework: Conceptual Framework: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Make One
If you find this helpful, take the time to share this with your peers to discover new and exciting things along with their fields of interest.
© 2012 October 22 P. A. Regoniel; Updated 01/11/24
Dear Muhamad, I’m not quite sure what your question is.
My question is A company of ”nestle” which Research’s that nestle is pure milk Then how can we prove that Nestle Milk pack is pure Milk ?
Dear Muhammad, if you are interested in knowing that Nestle milk pack is pure milk then you will have to use a standard that is considered pure milk. Alternatively, milk may be subjected to a lab test to confirm its purity.
A.O.A
My Question is How can we prove that Nestle Milk pack is pure …! If the Researcher has Reserch on it ?? ….!
Dear Mich, if you want to know if your product is overpriced or not, then you need to have a standard by which you can compare. The price of products is dictated by the law of supply and demand. And at the end of the day, the final measure of the price is the willingness of people to pay for that product.
Therefore, considering whether a product is overpriced or not is just a matter of consumer perception. You may then have to ask customers if the price of organic products is overpriced or not compared to what people think the price of an organic product should be. Another way would be to ask people how much additional cost they are willing to pay to buy an organic product. The average additional cost may be assumed as the price limit for a product that is not overpriced.
I hope that helps. Thank you for visiting SimplyEducate.me.
I need help with my research question that is being carried out for 5 weeks. Would this question be possible, “is organic prodcuts overpriced?” I need primary research whIch I am struggling with.
What is the correct way to phrase the research question about the age of consumers who no longer buy unhealthy beverages and the decline in sales of those beverages?
Dear Viera,
You may read the following article on how to write your question: https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2012/10/22/what-are-examples-of-research-questions/
If you cannot still frame your question, you may go see an example I provided to allow one to perform statistical analysis: https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2013/10/12/example-of-a-research-question-and-its-corresponding-statistical-analysis/
Thank you for reading the articles here.
Dear Heidi,
Indeed your question is still general. You need to ask the question showing the variables you would like to explore. To understand how this works, you may read my post: https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2012/10/22/what-are-examples-of-variables-in-research/
Hi, I was wondering if you could help me develop a research question. The topic I was interested in is overpopulation of humans. My teacher wants this to be very specific and I’m having a hard time developing a questions. Here are some I came up with: “How over fishing leads to destruction of bio ecosystems”, “What is the psychology behind overpopulation of humans”. Thank you for your time
I need help developing research questions and need to know if we can start it out with the word “if”. If teenagers had a healthier alternative to caffeinated and carbonated beverages, would that lower and/or eliminate obesity amongst youth?
Dear Viera,
Your question shows that you are clear on what you intend to do. If you are a student and asking the question starting with “if” is allowed by your school, go ahead and ask the question. The point in asking questions is for you to be able to pin down the question in your mind in answerable form. Being unconventional or innovative opens new doors that offer exciting discoveries. Please read https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2013/05/21/thinking-beyond-vs-outside-the-box/ for you to see what I mean. Alternatively, you may ask the question in its conventional form: “Is there a relationship between obesity and the type of beverage taken by the youth?”
Hello Sir,
Could you please help me with my research question. I am not sure if it has been already done. I am leaning towards qualitative research. The question I am formulating is : What teaching behaviors are strongly associated with high achievement among English Language Learners in elementary schools?
Is this reasonable. Thank you!
Dear Maria,
Looking for answers to your question is just a click away. Just go to Google Scholar and type a phrase with your variables, e.g. , relationship between teaching style and English proficiency. Here is a sample literature: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/3586356/abstract
Hi Sir! Could you please help me with my research. It is about relationship of vocabulary to student’s achievement in Math. I need some suggestions about this topic. Thank you!
Dear Clang,
You already have identified your topic. You are asking if the vocabulary of students has something to do with their Math achievement. You just have to define exactly what you mean by vocabulary. Does it have to do with their mastery of the English language? You need to read the article on variables here ( https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2012/10/22/what-are-examples-of-variables-in-research/ ) to get a better idea on how to define the variables of your study.
Dear Lovely,
There are already literature available that can explain why students struggle in reading. Here’s a good reading for you to start off your study: http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/literacy/articles/helping-struggling-readers/
The authors have identified four reasons and it would be great if you explore interventions to help struggling readers improve on their lot.
Thank you very much!
Hi Patrick,
I am doing a research on struggling readers at a particular school. Can this research question work? If not how can I improve it? Please help. “What are the causes and effects of struggling readers at X school?”
Dear Paul,
What you are saying that children guess many words is already your hypothesis. The issue has something to do with reading comprehension. You will need references about reading comprehension to direct your research towards your intended study.
Meanwhile, what would you like to do? Do you want to try your reading intervention if it will work? If you want to do so, your question would be “Is there a significant difference in reading comprehension between pupils who have undergone teaching style X and those who did not?” This of course requires a tool to measure reading comprehension.
I am looking at reading intervention at my school for children from grades 3-8. what would be my possible research question for this topic. What am seeing here is that children guess many words, having hard time to pronounce them and more.
Dear AAAAP,
I believe your study will be a reasonable one. Please read the following paper by Nonis and Hudson (2006): http://www.fatih.edu.tr/~hugur/study_hard/Academic%20Performance%20of%20College%20Students.pdf
That will help jumpstart your study. Thank you for visiting Simplyeducate.me.
I’m currently doing a project proposal for my Stat class. Is this a reasonable research question for a semester?
“Do students who go to school and work at the same time affect their academic performances?”
hi. in my country primary schools make up school development plans, which is a road map of the year. the plans are made towards the end of the year in preparation for the following year. however, most school do not follow their plans. as a researcher i want to find out why is this so. what do you think can be a research question .
Dear busi,
I missed your question but here’s my answer: Your concern is about the implementation of school development plans. Are schools required by the government to plan then execute their plans? If they are required then the issue is about the school’s compliance to the government’s directive. And there may be many reasons behind their inability to do so. Your initial question should be “What are the reasons for the school’s inability to follow their plans?” You will get a simple listing of all the reasons and you can then rank them accordingly to see which ones are preventing them from following their plans. It is possible that those plans were not backed up by the corresponding budget to carry it out. From this initial question, many other questions may arise for follow-up research.
Dear Betty,
Your question can be answered by reviewing existing literature. You should find a way to measure differences between strategies in implementing reading groups by comparing pupil performance under each strategy. Your question would be to compare differences between these strategies. For example, “Is there a significant difference between Strategy A and Strategy B in implementing reading groups among elementary pupils?”
I hope that helps. Thank you for visiting simplyeducate.me
Hi ..thank you so much for your article I was wondering if the following would be a good problem statement
What are effective strategies that will help to successfully implement reading groups in the elementary classroom?
Dear raliat, that is a good topic but first you have to define what you mean by broken homes as well as academic performance. You may read the following interesting article on your topic to see how the variables were measured: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079510/Children-broken-homes-times-likely-suffer-mental-troubles-says-Government-study.html