A research question is a sentence that defines what you will examine, within which population, and what the outcome of interest will be. Defining a clear research question is the first and most important part of the project.

A good research question is essential to guide your research paper, project or thesis. It pinpoints exactly what you want to find out and gives your work a clear focus and purpose. All research questions should be: Focused on a single problem or issue. Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources.

Qualitative research questions differ from quantitative research questions. Qualitative research questions seek to explore or describe phenomena, not provide a neat nomothetic explanation, so they are often more general and vaguely worded. They may include only one concept, though many include more than one.

A research question is the question around which you center your research. It should be: clear: it provides enough specifics that one’s audience can easily understand its purpose without needing additional explanation.

The research question serves two purposes: It determines where and what kind of research the writer will be looking for. It identifies the specific objectives the study or paper will address.

C. How long does it take to travel from the Earth to the moon? This is the weakest research question because it can be easily answered. According to a 2 second Google search, it takes about 3 days for a spacecraft to reach the moon from Earth.

What makes a question answerable? An answerable question is formed with your literature search in mind. It contains the “key concepts” or ideas that you can use to build your search. You will need to look for different types of information to answer different questions, and you may need to look in different places.

Qualitative Research Question Types

• Exploratory Questions. Questions that are designed to understand more about a topic are exploratory questions.
• Predictive Questions.
• Interpretive Questions.
• Descriptive Questions.
• Comparative Questions.
• Relationship-Based Questions.

The key qualities of a good qualitative research question are: Being able to discover problems and opportunities from respondents. Open-ended in nature. Easy to understand and digest with no need for clarification.

There are three basic types of questions that research projects can address:

• Descriptive. When a study is designed primarily to describe what is going on or what exists.
• Relational. When a study is designed to look at the relationships between two or more variables.
• Causal.