Hey friends,
9 years ago, I started working on my first research study
I was reading lots of papers, I had many ideas, collected plenty of data and already did many analyses
Then one of my supervisors asked me: “Jamal, what are you trying to find out?”
And I couldn’t clearly reply (I actually needed to speak for 5 minutes to explain what I was doing)
And this is something I can see across many PhD candidates.
We typically have a broad topic. You might also have spent weeks reading lots of papers.
You might even have a research problem in mind. But turning all of this into one clear research question is something else.
First, what is a research question. It’s basically the question your study is designed to answer. It comes from a research problem, gap, observation, or something we don't yet understand
For example, you might hear someone say “I work on social media and academic performance”
This is a topic, not a research question (yet). A research question is the specific question your study is trying to answer.
For instance:
How does social media use affect the academic performance of university students?
Now you have something you can do research on.
You know more or less what you are studying, who you are studying, and what relationship or phenomenon you want to understand
That's the main difference.
So, next, what makes a good research question?
A good research question gives you a direction to go. It should be clear enough that everyone can understand what you are asking.
But it also needs to be answerable. We tend to find very interesting but too broad questions for most research projects
Which brings me to the next point: feasibility
Are you sure you can collect the data needed to answer your question? or do you have access to the participants, datasets, materials and enough time to do the required work?
Here are some steps you can go through to get started:
Step 1: Start with a research problem
A few months ago, I conducted a free course for PhD candidates with certificate about tips on how to move from research interest to research question. You can take it here if interested:
A good technique is to start with the problem.
What is happening that we don't fully understand?
Maybe previous studies have produced conflicting findings
Maybe a population has received very little research attention
Maybe a new technology has created a situation that researchers haven't studied properly yet.
For example:
Many universities are introducing generative AI tools, but we know relatively little about how PhD students actually use them during the research and writing process
That's a research problem
You can now start asking what you really want to understand about it
Step 2: Identify what you want to understand
This is where you move from the problem to the investigation.
Ask yourself: What am I actually curious about?
Perhaps you want to know how PhD students use AI, or whether AI changes writing behaviour, or why some students use it regularly while others avoid it.
Or whether AI affects the quality of academic writing.
Those are very different studies. For example:
How do PhD students use generative AI during the academic writing process?
This is mainly about behaviour and experience
But if we compare it with:
What is the relationship between generative AI use and academic writing quality among PhD students?
Now we are asking about a relationship between variables.
The topic is similar but the research questions are clearly not
Step 3: Define the scope
This is where many research questions become manageable.
You need boundaries. Think of this as Who? Where? When? What? when you tell a story
Let’s apply this to our AI example:
How does AI affect students?
is still too broad.
we could narrow it to:
How does generative AI use affect the academic writing practices of first-year undergraduate students in the universities in country X?
Now we have defined the population and context. The important thing is that you know your boundaries.
A PhD thesis doesn't need to explain everything about a topic. It needs to answer a researchable question well.
Step 4: Choose the type of research question
The type of question you ask should match the kind of research you want to conduct.
Descriptive questions
These ask what is happening. For example:
What factors influence the use of generative AI among PhD students?
Exploratory questions
These are useful when you want to understand experiences, perceptions or processes.
How do PhD students describe their experiences of using generative AI for academic writing?
Explanatory questions
These ask why something happens or what may explain a relationship.
Why do some PhD students use generative AI regularly while others don’t?
Comparative questions
These examine differences between groups, settings or conditions.
How does the use of generative AI differ between PhD students in the humanities and STEM disciplines?
Relationship questions
These are common in quantitative research.
What is the relationship between generative AI use and academic writing confidence among PhD students?
The wording is important because it gives you ideas for your research design
Step 5: Make the question specific and answerable
Now look at your question and remove anything you don't actually need
Let’s take:
How does technology affect the future of education?
That's a pretty big question.
Which technology? Which part of education? Which students? Which country? What do you mean by "affect"?
A more researchable version could be:
How does the use of generative AI writing tools affect the academic writing confidence of undergraduate students?
You can still refine it further depending on your study
Your goal is to have a research question that makes you think “I know what I need to investigate next”
If you don’t know then you need keep working on your research question
Research question examples
Here are some examples across different fields
Business
How does remote work influence employee job satisfaction in international technology companies?
Public health
What factors influence vaccine uptake among adults in urban communities?
Education
How does constructive feedback affect academic writing performance among undergraduate students?
Environmental science
How does urban green space affect local surface temperatures in rapidly growing cities?
Research management
What factors influence researchers' adoption of open-access publishing practices?
You can clearly see that these questions don't try to solve the entire field
But they define a specific thing to investigate.
Research question examples for qualitative research
Qualitative research questions often focus on experiences, meanings and processes.
For example:
How do early-career researchers experience the transition from PhD student to independent researcher?
Or:
How do university researchers describe the challenges of balancing research and teaching work?
Or:
Why do researchers choose to post their work on social media?
Then you get research designs that use interviews, focus groups, observations or qualitative analysis of documents
Research question examples for quantitative research
Quantitative questions usually involve measurable variables, relationships, differences or effects.
For example:
What is the relationship between sleep duration and academic performance among university students?
Or:
Does participation in research training improve PhD students' publication productivity?
Or:
Is there a difference in research productivity between academics working remotely and those working primarily on campus?
These questions give you variables that can be measured and analysed.
Common mistakes to avoid
A common problem is asking a question that has an obvious answer
If the answer can be found with a quick Google search, you will need to go deeper.
Also be careful with questions that have too many questions. For example:
How do researchers use AI, why do they use it, what are the benefits and risks, and how does it affect research quality?
That's actually several studies. Take only one that is the most important to you/the field
Next, I often see the confusion between Research question vs research objective. These two are related. But they aren't the same at all:
A research question asks what you want to find out
A research objective explains what you plan to do to investigate it.
For example:
Research question:
How does generative AI affect the academic writing practices of PhD students?
Research objective:
To examine how PhD students use generative AI during different stages of academic writing.
A simple way to remember it:
Question = what you want to know.
Objective = what you will do about it.
Research question vs hypothesis
A hypothesis is also different again.
A research question asks something you want to investigate.
A hypothesis makes a prediction you can test
For example:
Research question:
What is the relationship between sleep duration and academic performance among university students?
Hypothesis:
Students who sleep longer will have higher academic performance
By the way, not every research project needs a hypothesis. In qualitative research, exploratory studies and some descriptive research can rely only on research questions without testing formal hypotheses
Your final checklist
Before you finalise your research question, read it one more time and ask:
Is the question clear?
Is it specific enough?
Does it address a genuine research problem?
Do I know exactly what I am trying to understand?
Is thi something I can manage?
Can I collect the evidence needed to answer it?
Would the answer be something useful to the field?
And maybe the most important test:
Can I explain what I would actually do next to answer this question?
If the answer is yes, you're probably getting close.
If the answer is no, don't rush into writing the methodology, just go back to the question.
As mentioned earlier, you can take this free course I conducted some time ago for PhD candidates that shows how you can start exploring the structure of your field to get to your question:
Well that’s all for this week
Let me know what you think and let’s continue the conversation in the community
See you next week,
Jamal
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