What makes a research question effective?

In my opinion these three questions, if answered properly, can make the research question really impactful: 1. Why is this question important? 2. How are you contributing into the existing literature? 3. What is the real impact will it have if the question is answered properly? For all these three questions one needs clarity, focus, and the knowledge of past literature.

Effective research question/s come from clear research objectives. One has to ruthlessly focus on the research objectives in every phase of the research process including of framing research questions. My experience has been that many researchers (especially in early phase of their research career) tend to get distracted from their research objectives. Often, they tend to enlarge the scope of their research without realizing that they are digressing from their research objectives. Or they pick up unrelated issues that may seem to be important at the moment but not really connected to their research objectives. Its worthwhile to spend time on creating clear research objectives and then focusing on them in every phase of the research process.

But if a research question is "focused & answerable, feasible", it only aims to add detail and "innovations" to existing, received knowledge ("meaningful" to the dominant majority). This inherently eliminates the investigation of "anomalies" of the said received knowledge, and precludes truly "original" findings. In other words, it "adds legs to the table" without ever challenging the basis of the table, of The System and therefore it primary goal is not new understanding but to support that system and never rock too hard its foundations. This is how we got to the current world/global situation. This is not what "research" meant 60 or 70 years ago.

The single most important element of a research question or a hypothesis is that it must be testable - it doesn't matter how focused or relevant your hypothesis is if you can't actually test it. For example, one can't reliably test the hypothesis such as "belly rubs make ferrets happier than do back rubs", because non-human animals can't simply tell us whether or not they're happy if we ask them. However, ferrets are known to chirp when they're relaxed and feeling non-threatened, so one can test the hypothesis "ferrets receiving a belly rub will chirp more often than those receiving a back rub" as the occurrence of the chirping behaviour is something that can be measured and qualified/quantified.

Research question is only effective through meaningful methodology and study design. If a question is good, but is not well represented and answered through the research process, than either the question or the design need to be re-evaluated.

From my perspective, when selecting research questions, it's essential to align them with the purpose and approach of your study. Here are four types of research questions to consider: 1. Descriptive questions: Describe a phenomenon (e.g., "How do students use social media for academic purposes?") 2. Comparative questions: Compare groups or variables (e.g., "Differences in academic performance between online and face-to-face students?") 3. Relational questions: Explore relationships between variables (e.g., "Effect of motivation on learning outcomes.") 4. Causal questions: Identify cause and effect (e.g., "How does peer feedback improve writing skills?") Choosing the right question type is vital for effective research.

The research question can be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory. The exploratory research question aims to identify a person, thing, time, or place. "Is there any business opportunity for a digital lending product in the eastern part of Indonesia?" "WHAT do they think of a digital lending product?" The descriptive research question goes one step further by measuring and comparing. "What product features/functionality is most suitable for them?" "HOW significant is the difference between feature A and feature B?" The explanatory research question tries to explain the underlying reason. "WHY do people in the eastern part of Indonesia not use our digital lending product as much as expected?" "How might we drive more usage?"

Research questions can also be of the type where the researcher has an objective to know second order effects and mechanisms involved. For example, from the data of the US firms, one can find out that markups have increased in the last 50 years but the next order of business could be: 1. Why they’ve increased despite we see more and more competition around us? 2. Has profit share of the companies increased? If not, why? And so on… So the mechanism and second-order effects can really help in answering the bigger and deeper questions.

Well said about the SMART goals in the previous comment. I believe, its relevance, feasibility and fidelity makes a research question effective and essential.

Formulating an impactful research question is a multi-step process. Start by picking a broad topic of interest and generating questions based on curiosity and knowledge gaps. Conduct a preliminary literature review to uncover existing gaps and trends. Use keywords and databases for insight. Gradually narrow down the question's scope using frameworks like PICO or FINER. Confirm research feasibility, considering data, methods, and tools. Seek feedback from mentors or peers. Factor in practical constraints, like time and resources, for a viable question.

In my prespective, to formulate a research question, 1. Identify a Topic: Start with a broad subject area of interest to you. 2. Do Prior Research: Read about your topic to understand the background, recent papers , and unresolved problems. 3. Find a Niche: Look for gaps in the existing research, areas of controversy, or recent developments that haven't been thoroughly explored. 4. Define Your Question: Narrow down your topic to a specific question. This question should be clear, focused ,researchable , relevant. 5. Formulate a Hypothesis or Thesis Statement Remember, a good research question is the foundation of any successful research project, guiding your methodology and analysis.

A good research question should advance fundamental knowledge, informed by prior thought and investigation, including cultural perspectives. It should be neither too broad nor to specific, lending itself to a certain depth of thought and investigation, taking months to years to investigate, but not a lifetime nor a few days. "Importance" (aka "popularity" with the general public, or even other researchers in a discipline) is not particularly relevant; many fundamental insights have been derived from research that few other people sought to pursue.

I think knowing what we want our research to achieve is the starting point. Having identified an area of interest, we must decide what we want our study to achieve? How will it fill the gaps in literature? The answers to these queations the what and how of our study. Basically, defining research objectives helps in choosing research design and formulating research questions (RQs). RQs should be specific to the gaps our research aims to fill and in what context. Also, RQs must be answerable given the available set of resources, technical, temporal, & human. Lastly, it is an iterative process. A researcher may have to go back to the literature multiple times to ensure their questions address specific gaps, are relevant & answerable.

During the question formulation stage is a good time to "let the science sit in the driver's seat." You may be surprised by what you find; in fact, you may even disagree with it. That's exactly what this process is about -- looking at your question in the context of what related information is out there.

While it is advisable to revise the research question, I do not usually follow such a practice as it may lead people to the same rabbit hole. Instead, I would do the following: If I do not manage to answer the research question for whatever reason, I will clearly state it along with the challenges encountered and solutions attempted. This way, I leave a learning point for anyone trying to answer similar questions in the future. If, on top of the answer to my research question, I identify an unexpected finding, I will communicate it to the stakeholders and propose necessary next steps to follow up.

As a research question is refined, it may evolve into something that no longer addresses the original purpose for investigation or become bigger than what you originally intended.

While it is possible to revise a research question due to new information when collecting and analyzing data, i personally thought that revising research question means that i did not prepare enough hence others can question our research result. However, in case that we need to revise it, there are things to think about; 1. Alignment with research goals 2. Alignment with stakeholder

Considero que la revisión de la pregunta va a depender de las respuestas, si es una pregunta abierta, tipo entrevista, y las respuestas se alejan de la investigación, significa que éstas deben replantearse; si las respuestas van acorde a la investigación, pero revelan más de lo que se esperaba, allí se profundiza en la entrevista, se procura prestar atención a cada detalle y replantear preguntas que busquen obtener respuestas más allá de lo simple aparente.

Using a research question effectively is essential for conducting meaningful research. A well-crafted research question guides the entire research process, from defining the scope to analyzing data and drawing conclusions.

I've found that a solid research question guides itself. I don't have to work as hard in framing the discussion or assessing my work's relationship to other research. While crafting the question can be tasking, once you have it, using that question allows the research to move forward in a smooth way and often lends itself well to associated questions.

Part of research is doing it, but the more important part is sharing it - and in ways that people can consume. What I have seen in my experience is that research becomes lucrative when you are smart about creating multiple artifacts and dialogues around your anchor research question. Proposals for grant is one way to mobile resources. But you must get visibility for your research by producing snippets, annotated bibliographies, systematic reviews, method papers, news articles, blog posts, business proposals to generate consulting engagements, training assignments etc. You are limited or enabled by your creativity. This may seem like hard work, but I know it pays, and pays very well.

The right research question will bring answers that broaden the scope of your research. From it you identify gaps, points of improvement and closure of understanding. In this way, your object of study is round with a product greater chances of reaching other researchers who will be able to continue the research.

Una pregunta de investigación, se ajusta lo que se quiere investigar, a lo que se quiere lograr, a la metodología empleada. De ella depende los resultados de la investigación, el análisis de las respuestas y las conclusiones a las cuales se llegan.

In the context of research, questions are typically focused on identifying and understanding problems rather than proposing solutions. Research questions are designed to explore, analyze, and investigate issues, phenomena, or gaps in knowledge. Once researchers have a comprehensive understanding of the problem through their investigations and analyses, they can then proceed to propose potential solutions or recommendations based on their findings. This separation between problem identification and solution development ensures a systematic and evidence-based approach to research.

When creating collaborative research or writing a proposal for a client, it's helpful to understand how other people's ideas, issues, problems TRULY came about. A hypothesis can become misleading and a statement of an objective often doesn't capture the full extent of motivation or incentive. It's very important to dig into background which stakeholders may underplay, take for granted or are simply unaware of.

In a sentence "It's specificity and ability to give rise to more intriguing thoughts, theories and questions". Other important aspect is filling up the information gap which can be seen as a bridge between past and present knowledge meaning debunking the underlying assumption that makes a theory work and replacing it with proofs that are relevant and reproducible.

Within the context of mental health, using lived experience can help inform a research question. When a researcher is formulating a research question that involves impact-oriented research, it can be helpful to use lived experience as a base for formulating a question. Lived experience helps to contextualize research and allows for the research question to be specific. Reflecting on lived experience allows one to be more exploratory and analytical in formulating a question. Thus, using lived experience to inform the process of coming up with a research question can be rewarding and impactful to society.

In my opinion, I experienced that assumptions don't work in reality that's where research comes in. here you also need to consider no target customers/ users for research where it helps target customers and users from different POV