Developing Your Research Question

Your research question determines all aspects of your research design

Relationship Between Your Question and Your Methods

Today

• Refining our research question.
• Looking at Observation Tool Kit.
• Consultancy
• Reflection

A good research question

• Defines the investigation
• Sets boundaries
• Provides direction

Interesting Topic to Researchable Questions(angle)

• Theory/engagement with lit
• Experience
• Contemporary Issues
• Observations

Question fit for me

• Will it hold my interest?
• Can I manage bias/subjectivity?

Question fit for me

• Will it hold my interest?
• Can I manage bias/subjectivity?

Question fit for field

• Will the findings be considered significant
• Will it make a contribution?

Your question and the field

• What has been done?
• What are the debates?
• Where do you fit?
• Intellectual home?

Is it clear?

• Is the question well articulated?
• Are the terms well-defined
• Unchecked assumptions?

“While race structures are re-made daily through various human actions that include complex habits of body movement, social association, taste, speech variation, and economic distribution, my more restricted focus on race-label use as a key racializing practice echoes many scholars of language, who have long viewed talk as an everyday action that shapes the world as well as it describes it” (p.33) ; As an ethnographer interested in “race” at Columbus, I focused immediately on capturing each student self descriptions, seeking to discover how important “race” was solely to Columbus students’ identities …. "Pollock,2004,p.38"

“uncovering practices used to mark, mute, and negotiate social differences” (Thorn, 2005,p.64)

Angrosino, 2012

• A site that illustrates the issue
• Gatekeepers
• Pattern finding

Pause

Consultancy

• 3 mins - Presenter: Describe RQ
• 1 min - Group: Clarifying Q
• 4 min - Group: Fine tune
• 1 min - Presenter reflection