Developing Research Questions and Considering Design

Introduction

A dissertation is a significant piece of work and it requires many skills. Completing the dissertation requires careful planning and execution. The trickiest part of the dissertation is often viewed to be identifying the direction of your research and deciding what you want to do. Added to this, once you have decided upon your research aims and objectives and undertaken the project, communicating your research to other people can still be challenging. However, it is inevitable that you will have to communicate your project to people in either written form or via presentations, added to which people (family, friends, colleagues) will be interested to know what your work is all about, so it is good to be prepared to communicate this to other people.

Chapter 4: Developing a Research Idea

Many students worry about getting started, so in order to help with this, here are some questions to assist in the articulation of your research. These can be utilized throughout the dissertation process to check your own progress. If you can answer these questions, then you are ready to get writing, as you clearly know your project inside out. Now you are ready to communicate your research to the outside world.

If you struggle to answer these questions, do not panic. Book in to see your supervisor, return to the reading, and reflect on what you think is causing the biggest challenge. Sometimes it takes lots of attempts to get going, however keeping going is the most important tip!

The questions are divided into groups:

• Introductory context;
• Methods, design, and the analysis process;
• Results;
• Implications and future directions.

Introductory context:

• What are the motivations for your research?
• How did your research questions emerge?
• What (or who) was a big influence on your thinking and project design?
• What are the theories which underpin your research?
• Are there any past studies which have influenced your work?
• What do you think are the most original or innovative parts of your work?
• Explain your project in two minutes.
  

Finding your Way: It might be worth asking yourself these in the latter stages of the dissertation, too. Ask yourself ‘does my dissertation make the answers to these questions clear?’ If not then address these in the editing process.

Methods, design, and the analysis process:

Finding your Way: It is important to be able to defend your methods and research design. If you can answer all of these questions and your responses are in your dissertation, you will be on the right track. 

• How did you conduct the research? Explain the methods chosen and why.
• Did the project have a specific methodology? If so, explain what this was and the reason for selection.
• Are there any other studies that have influenced your research design and methods? If so, can you explain these?
• What was your sample? Tell me about this (why, who, access, limitations).
• Explain the process of how you organized your data (so, how did you sort it out and get it in order to be analysed).
• How did you analyse the data?
• If you started the whole project again, what would you do differently and why? (Hint, this helps you think about limitations!)
• If you started the whole project again, what would you do the same?
• What do you think are the most important ethical considerations in your research?

 

Results:

Whilst the answers to the questions in this category might be framed differently in your dissertation, they should be addressed within the analysis, discussion, and conclusion chapters of the dissertation.  
Remember that it is ok to be reflective and honest—the dissertation is a journey of discovery, it will not be perfect!
If you are unsure when to stop your analysis, try answering these. If you can answer these, then it is time to stop!

• Describe your main findings in a few sentences.
• How does the data collected answer the research questions?
• Do your findings challenge the literature? If so, how?
• Do your findings align with the literature in this field? If so, how?
• Which parts of your work did you find most interesting and why?
• What are the strongest parts of your research? Why?
• What are the weakest parts of your research? Why?
• Did anything go wrong? If so, did you learn from it and what would you do differently next time?

 

Implications and future directions:

Again, whilst the answers to the questions in this category might be framed differently in your dissertation, they should be addressed within the analysis, discussion, and conclusion chapters of the dissertation.  
Remember that it is ok to be reflective and honest—the dissertation is a journey of discovery, it will not be perfect!
If you are unsure when to stop your analysis, try answering these. If you can answer these, then it is time to stop!

• What do you think the implications are of your research?
• Are there any potential implications beyond academia? If so, what might these be?
• How do you think that your research could be followed up and taken further?
• How do you think you could share your findings?

 
Challenge yourself to return to these questions at the end of the editing process and utilize them as a checklist. Once you have ticked them, discuss your progress with your supervisor, as you are almost ready to hand in!

Developing Research Questions and Design Checklist