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
Hi!
I need help for my research question for my thesis. I was thinking along the lines and to do in in a qualitative method such as semi-structured interview because I am not confident with my quantitative analysis skills. Will that be okay? I understand that a mix of both is the best, but my current skills are not equipped with doing a quantitate analysis.
I have a few questions in mind, are you able to assist me in your opinion and how to improve them?
1) Will citizens be unhappy with poor government performance?
2) Good government performance information is likely to increase more cynicism in citizens
I missed this question Bryan. Your first question is easily answered. Who’s happy with poor government performance? The point is, you need not conduct a study about it. As for the second question, you could possibly do research on that topic. That is not a research question but a hypothesis.
Edgar, what do you want to do with Mathematics performance program? The answer will guide you in writing your problem statement.
Hi. Please help me in this one. Is Mathematics Performance Enhancement Program Among Students a good research title? What would be the possible questions for this one. tnx.
Dear Cari, just refer to your university’s research proposal manual for a description of the sections. Each university has its own unique format. Anyhow, subproblems are just mini-problems encompassed by your main questions. For example, if your problem statement is: Is there a relationship between BLLI and the reading levels of struggling readers? Your subproblem might be a question about the characteristics of struggling readers. When you cannot get the information you want for your study and it might be costly to obtain such information, you just write assumptions to level off understanding. You might assume that there is no difference between the reading skills of males and females. Lastly, limitations just define the extent of your study. For example, you might say that your study covers only first grade students, and not the everyone in the elementary level. May you find these tips useful in your study.
Thank you!!!
I need help! I am writing a research proposal and my topic is “Benefits Leveled Literacy Intervention system has on the reading levels for students identified as struggling readers”
I have a section where I have to write sub-problems, assumptions and limitations. I am not sure what to write for those three sections any ideas?
Welcome Arthur. I’m glad this article helped you in your action research.
I am about to begin an action research and your explanation of how to formulate research questions has made my task much clearer than before. Thank you very much for being generous with your knowledge.
Dear Penny. So what do you want to get out of your case study? What for is your case study? Why do you want to study the training on writing skills?
hellow ! can you please narrow this reseach topic for me “A case study of khomasdal campus third and fourth year students teacher training on how to teach writing skills in senior primary phase” or is it fine like that ? Thanks
Dear roselle, childhood behavior is too broad. You need to narrow this down further. Are you looking into their antisocial behavior, aggressive behavior, etc. Once you narrow this down, you can just go to Google Scholar and type your keyword there to start off a review.
hi! I would like to ask if this is a good research title for my thesis?
” Factors affecting early childhood behaviour ” and if you have any reference that you would like to share with me?thanks a lot:)
That’s too general a question Unity. Narrow it down into manageable bits.
Hi can you help me with the literature for this topic: how can education be used to reconstruct a society?
Dear raja, you can rephrase your question: Is there a significant difference in customer’s perception of McDonald’s food items before and after the company introduced healthier food items?
“How does the introduction of healthier items in McDonald’s menus from 2010-2015, measured by the nutrition count (provided by McDonald’s), have bearings on the image of Macdonald’s now in 2016?”
I am looking to develop a research question about the teaching the concept of packaging to grade 10 students. Whether having a practical setting of them actively packaging items than just sitting there listening to me teach the topic
It seems you are not quite clear on what you want to do Alicia. Are you comparing two teaching approaches?
My research proposal is:
In patients receiving medical care, what is the effect of animal-assisted therapy on physical, emotional, and observed behavior?
Using PIO/question template but it sounds like it is missing something. Any advice?
Does the question need a narrowed down population?
Do I have too many dependent variables?
Thanks!
Dear Andrea, your questions seems vague? What is your target population?
Gone through your work and its so wonderful how you handle it . i am working on my project proposal and am having hard time coming up with the best research question . help me out start with this if its good and its framing i will appreciate,,,, What are the implications of aligning investment decisions with overall strategy on company performance
Dear Cheks, asking for implications is too broad. What do you want to do or what outcomes do you want?
Dear Alou, you’re probably looking at a phenomenon on deteriorating performance of students in X high school. That’s a good start to review related literature on factors affecting academic performance.
“Why the level of students in X’s high schools is lessing?” will this make a good research question? thank you in advance.