Establishing Your Research Questions
Your research questions provide the focus for the review and for the issue you are investigating. By specifying the major question(s) and sub-questions you make clear what you have to find out.
- If you are not focused on your specific research questions new lines of enquiry will continually seem to be relevant and you won't know when to terminate those threads which mislead you from your main investigation.
- When your reading and research is complete and you embark on writing your review from your notes, you will want to revisit these questions and use them as a framework for your write-up.
- You will usually pose between 1 & 3 research questions
- With your questions you are defining your research problem not just describing the topic of your research!
- Consider whether you are examining theory, practice or policy.
- Are you looking at quantitative research (for example providing data and comment on a new or controversial treatment), or qualitative research (for example studies determining criteria for allocating health care resources), or a mixture?