Developing a Research Question
From PhillipsWiki
Statement of Purpose, Essential Question, Thesis Statement: They all amount to the same thing – a clear statement outlining your main idea and what you are trying to accomplish.
How to Develop Good Questions
Not all questions will lead to equally good research. The graphic on this page illustrates a 5-level taxonomy of increasing sophistication in research. The lower levels describe basic research. The highest levels of the taxonomy contain the higher-order questions requiring critical thinking. These questions lead to the creation of new knowledge.
- Fact-finding, or "journalism questions" -- Who, What, When, Where and How?
- Comprehension Questions These questions require awareness of a work’s organization and pertinent ideas and facts, and require the information to be examined and organized.
- Compare and Contrast Questions require the separation of the whole into parts, and the analysis of information.
- Synthesis Questions combine those parts into a meaningful whole. Synthesis is especially effective when it results in new insights.
- Evaluation Questions lead to research resulting in the development of opinions, judgments, criticisms, or decisions.
You will want to target your questions at least at the level of compare and contrast, and preferably at the fourth or fifth level.
Possible Question Stems
- What should the audience/reader do/feel/believe?
- Who are the major players on both/each side and how did they contribute to?
- Which are the most important?
- What was the impact of?
- Can I compare? How is X like or unlike Y?
- What if? Can I predict?
- How could we solve/improve/design/deal with?
- Is there a better solution to?
- How can you defend?
- What changes would you recommend to?
- Was it effective, justified, defensible, warranted?
- Why did this happen? Why did it succeed? Why did it fail?
- What should be? What are/would be the possible outcomes of?
- What are the problems related to?
- What were the motives behind?
- Why are the opponents protesting?
- What is my personal response to?
- What case can I make for?
- What is the significance of?
- Where will the next move(s) occur?
- How is this debate likely to affect?
- What is the value or, what is/are the potential benefit(s) of?
- What are three/four/five reasons for us to believe?
Question stems adapted from Carol Rohrbach and Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township School District
