Title: Getting started with developing a research question
Course: EDPS0009: Researching Education and Society: Qualitative Methods 2020/2021 > Section: 2. Ethics

What is a research question?

A research question is first and foremost that: a question. When we plan a research project, we start thinking about what we are interested in and which topic we would like to investigate. But because a research topic is so broad and does not give us enough ideas on what we are trying to find out, we need to do some initial work to find out what is known about the topic and then find something that is puzzling or not clear or unknown. That will help us position ourselves and we can formulate a research question in a way that it is answerable.

We then plan our entire research in such a way that we can answer that question. So the research question really is at the core of any project.

Watch this Developing a Research Question [4:33] video that outlines some of the thought processes that we need to consider when planning for research.