2 Questions
Course Project: Research Questions Instructions
Write 1 qualitative and 1 quantitative research question.
Later in this course, you will use your research questions to write your Final Paper. Apply the following questions to your research questions to evaluate their quality:
· Do the questions address the topic identified in Module/Week 2?
(Topic: The ideas of Behaviorism as it relates to education.)
· Are the questions easily and fully researchable?
· What type of information do I need to answer the research questions? For example, the research question “What impact does a principal’s leadership style have on parent involvement in the PTA?” will obviously require certain types of information:
· Information on leadership styles
· Statistics on PTA participation
· Information about PTA participants and principal relationships
· Information about national PTA associations, national statistics reported about principal’s leadership styles, etc.
· Is the scope of this information reasonable? (e.g., Can I really research 30 online writing programs developed over a span of 10 years?)
· Given the type and scope of information I need, are my questions too broad or too narrow?
· What sources will have the type of information I need to answer the research questions (journals, books, internet resources, government documents, and/or people)?
· Can I access these sources?
· Given my answers to the above questions, do I have quality research questions that I will actually be able to answer by doing research?
Examples:
Use good qualitative wording for your qualitative research question.
· 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.
Use good quantitative wording for your quantitative research question. Below are 3 different types of quantitative questions.
Causal Questions
· Does the ________________ (change) in _________________ (independent variable) produce change (increase, decrease, not affect) the _______________ (a dependent variable)?
· For example: “Does reading the Research Question Instructions (increase) the average research paper grades in a class?”
Descriptive Questions
· 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 as compared to during a normal class?”
Predictive Questions
· 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?”
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