Choosing a Research Question

1
Choosing a Research Question

• Week 3
• 506
• 2000

2
The Research Process

• Identify Research Question

Choose Method
Locate needed instrumentation
Develop Instrumentation
Develop data analytic procedures
Choose data analytic strategy
Implement Study
Communicate Findings
3
Type of Research
4
Developing a research Question

• Questions are the engine that drive the research
  enterprise
• method, sample, settings, variables all follow.
• Many papers get rejected because they do not have
  a discernible question.
• An assessment of the questions importance also
  determines publication - more than methodology or
  presentation style.

5
Choice of Question

• Internal Factors
• Curiosity - I wonder what would happen if?
• Compassion -
• Confirmability - easy replication
• Conformity - fad
• Predilection - skill, temperament, contacts or
  training

6
Choice of Question

• External Factors
• a question determined by someone other than the
  researcher
• cost - the data were cheap and easy to obtain
  (e.g., AWIRS)
• resource availability (opportunism)
• reward system - certain types of research are
  rewarded
• propinquity - what are the interests of potential
  collaborators

7
Significance comes from ...

• Activity Contacts with colleagues and
  organisations rather than thinking in isolation
• Intrinsic interest and motivation excitement and
  commitment

8
Lack of significance ...

• Expedience cheap, quick and easy
• Lack of interest in the question motivated by
  external outcome

9
Where do questions come from?

• Theory based questions (13) (highly regarded)
• tests of predictions
• comparison of theories
• Applied problem (3) (not highly regarded)
• problems defined by and limited to a single
  organisation or tightly defined problem
• Build on existing literature (84) (not highly
  regarded)
• use different subject population
• different operationalisation of 1 or more
  variables
• include different levels of a variable studied
  previously
• simultaneously study variables that have only
  been examined independently
• include moderators or mediators
• add an additional variable

10
The form of the question

• the description of a single variable
• operationalisation of a construct and aspects of
  its distribution
• not as common as it should be
• the interrelationships between variables
• is there an association between variables?
• is there a causal relationship
• under what conditions are they associated and in
  what way (moderator, or mediator)
• does variable Z add to the prediction of y after
  x has been extracted?

11
Choice of methodology

• The research question dictates the method
• is it true that 75 of students cheat?
• I believe that cheating is determined by peer
  group pressure - are there high rates of
  cheating among certain types of students?
• this is very applied and does not offer an
  explanation

12
Choice of methodology2 variables

• Are students of low moral fibre likely to cheat?
• introduces 2 variables if the variables are
  measured simultaneously there is little other
  than correlations can be done
• experimental methods of some kind are needed to
  infer causality

13
Choice of methodology 3 variables

• Do peers who vary in moral fibre influence
  cheating amongst individuals who vary in moral
  fibre
• this introduces a whole new set of issues that
  dictates methods and analysis
• does peer level of moral fibre influence cheating
  independently of individual level of moral fibre
• does peer level of moral fibre influence
  individual moral fibre which in turn influences
  cheating (mediation)
• is the strength of the moral fibre cheating
  relationship differentially influenced by level
  of peer moral fibre (moderation)
• how well can cheating be predicted from moral
  fibre of individuals and peers
• Such questions influence the decision on methods
  to observe or manipulate, to measure once or
  repeatedly

14
The unit of analysis

• Should we look at the individual level or at the
  unit level, (faculty, department, university) or
  a multiple levels
• why are there differences among faculties?
• are all the departments within a faculty the
  same?

15
Critical minimal criteria

• the ultimate goals of the research will be clear
  to sponsors and to consumers of the research if
  the following are specified
• the participants, setting and variables of
  interest (extent of generalisation)
• the nature of the relationship that is being
  investigated and when it is expected to be found
  (correlational vs causal)
• the form of the relationship (mediation,
  moderation)
• the unit of analysis (individual, group,
  organisation)