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Writing Purpose Statement and Research Questions

The document discusses how to write good qualitative and quantitative research questions. For qualitative questions, it provides guidance on writing a purpose statement that includes the study purpose, central phenomenon, participants, and research site. It also discusses writing a central research question and sub-questions that explore specific aspects of the central phenomenon. For quantitative questions, it describes three main types - causal questions about relationships between variables, descriptive questions about frequencies or amounts, and predictive questions trying to predict outcomes. The document provides templates and examples for writing different types of qualitative and quantitative research questions.

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70 views

Writing Purpose Statement and Research Questions

The document discusses how to write good qualitative and quantitative research questions. For qualitative questions, it provides guidance on writing a purpose statement that includes the study purpose, central phenomenon, participants, and research site. It also discusses writing a central research question and sub-questions that explore specific aspects of the central phenomenon. For quantitative questions, it describes three main types - causal questions about relationships between variables, descriptive questions about frequencies or amounts, and predictive questions trying to predict outcomes. The document provides templates and examples for writing different types of qualitative and quantitative research questions.

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Randomity
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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https://masscommtheory.

com/2011/05/05/writing-good-
qualitative-research-questions/

Writing Good Qualitative


Research Questions

Complete these sentences:


▪ “The topic for this study will be…”
▪ “This study needs to be conducted because…”
How to write a good qualitative purpose statement: a
statement that provides the major objective or intent or roadmap
to the study. Fulfill the following criteria:
▪ Single sentence
▪ Include the purpose of the study
▪ Include the central phenomenon
▪ Use qualitative words e.g. explore, understand, discover
▪ Note the participants (if any)
▪ State the research site
A good place to start: The purpose of this ______________
(narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic,
case, etc.) study is (was? will be?) will be to ____________
(understand, describe, develop, discover) the _____________
(central phenomenon of the study) for ______________ (the
participants) at (the site). At this stage in the research, the
___________ (central phenomenon) will be generally defined
as ____________ (a general definition of the central concept).
Research questions serve to narrow the purpose. There
are two types:
Central
▪ The most general questions you could ask
Sub-questions
▪ Subdivides central question into more specific topical questions
▪ Limited number
Use good qualitative wording for these questions.
▪ Begin with words such as “how” or “what”
▪ Tell the reader what you are attempting to “discover,”
“generate,” “explore,” “identify,” or “describe”
▪ Ask “what happened?” to help craft your description
▪ Ask “what was the meaning to people of what happened?” to
understand your results
▪ Ask “what happened over time?” to explore the process
Avoid words such as: relate, influence, impact, effect, cause
Scripts to help design qualitative central and sub-
questions:
Central question script (usually use only one):
▪ “What does it mean to _________________ (central
phenomenon)?”
▪ “How would ______________ (participants) describe
(central phenomenon)?”
Sub-question script:
▪ “What _________ (aspect) does __________ (participant)
engage in as a _____________ (central phenomenon)?”
Sources
1 Cresswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design:
Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. Principles of qualitative
research: Designing a qualitative study. You can download the
entire document here.
Writing Good Quantitative
Research Questions

There are three main types of questions that a researcher can ask
when writing a quantitative study. They are:
← Causal
← Descriptive
← Predictive
Causal Questions
Causal questions are exactly what they sound like – a question
that tries to compare two or more phenomena and determine (or
at least suggest) a relationship between the two (or more).
For example: “Does reading the How To Write A Research Paper
eBook increase the average research paper grades in a class?”
(The answer, of course, is yes. Everyone gets an A++).

Quantitative questions rely on an independent variable or one


that remains the same (the students reading the eBook, in the
example above). These questions often involve the manipulation
of an independent variable and the comparison of the outcome of
this manipulation.
Generally the script for a causal question follows this formula:
Does the ________________ (change) in
_________________ (independent variable) produce change
(increase, decrease, not affect) the _______________ (a
dependent variable)?

Descriptive Questions
Once again, these are pretty much what you would expect them to
be: descriptive research questions ask “how often?”, “how much?”,
or “what is the change over time or in a different situation?”
questions.
Generally the script for a descriptive question follows this
formula:
How often do ________________ (participants) do
________________ (variable being studied) at
________________ (research site)?
For example: “How often do college students need to use the
bathroom during a test?” (Obviously the research site is implied
here – at college).
Many times descriptive questions involve the degree or existence
of relationship that exists between two or more variables. The
script for a descriptive relationship question usually follows the
below formula:
What is the relationship between ______________ (variable)
and ____________ (variable) for _________________
(participants)?
For example: “How often do college students need to use the
bathroom during a test as compared to during a normal class?”
Descriptive questions usually lead to further questions that your
study was never meant to answer and it is a BIG MISTAKE to
suggest so. In the example above one could deduce that if college
students use the bathroom quite a bit more during tests that they
may be cheating, or just more nervous, but you don’t know that!
Don’t speculate until the very end and say exactly that: “This
could mean may different things. However, more study is
required to determine the reason(s).” The answer “why” is an
entirely different study and almost always a qualitative one.

Predictive Questions
Predictive questions are questions that try to predict (no way!)
whether one or more variables can be used to predict an outcome.
Predictive questions and studies are always highly controversial,
be sure to cover all your bases when trying to predict something,
more often than not there are about 3,000 variables that come
together to create an outcome and trying to link only a few of
those to always get the same outcome can be a huge mistake
(especially in social science).
Generally the script for a predictive question follows this formula:
Does ________________ (cause variable) lead to/create
_____________ (outcome variable) in ________________
(setting)?
For example: “Does the color of a person’s hair lead to higher
grades in school?”
As a general suggestion, especially early on, stay away from
predictive studies. They can be some of the most fun, but more
often than not people get far too excited and overstep the bounds
of their study. For example, in answering the above question, you
come to the conclusion that yes, people with black and very dark
brown hair always get higher grades in school. But unless you
explore the ALL possible variables you can’t claim that. Maybe IQ
changes someone’s genes and smarter people always have darker
hair. Maybe due to the “dumb blonde” stereotype teachers always
give preferential treatment to non-blondes. You just don’t know –
be very careful in these types of studies. (Obviously the example
was meant to be humorous, but you get the point).

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