Mapping the research question

I have written about this before (see here), but it is really important to ensure that all key components of a research question feeds into the project title, the aims, the objectives, and the research outcomes. 

When we ask a research question, we need to sit back and consider all the components we need to find out in order to answer it. We may break our question down into the sub-questions so we can be sure we are asking the 'right' questions to answer our question; so that our aims and outcomes will clearly get us to what we want to know; and that our literature review scopes the environment clearly so we can then construct a clear and unambiguous method to collect our data. Or we may ask a single question, and simply pull out the elements from the question itself that we know we need to explore fully. In this post we are exploring a single question.

Each of the question components will form a section of our literature review, so we can scope each idea, and then link it to the next idea. We build argument that way. Our methodology is designed to collect the data so we can measure fit with the research question, and determine just how well we have answered our question.

For example, the question (the image accompanying this post): "To what extent does quality career advice support the successful transition of Māori students into higher education?" contains seven concepts:

1. To what extent 
2. quality career advice 
3. support 
4. transition 
5. successful transition 
6. Māori students 
7. higher education

I think that having roughly six areas to define - one fewer than the student had originally proposed in the research question above - is probably about right. Remember that each of these sections must be thoroughly explored in the literature review, as we need a baseline to measure and make sense of our findings (once we collect them). Most of these elements need to be built into our collection methods and data collection questions; and then the corresponding data must be collected in order to answer the question. Then the structure of our findings may be written to mirror our literature (if it fits that structure). We can back-check our methods by auditing our research design to see if it will meaningfully collect our data from the participants in a way that answers our question. 

We can also see with this question that the research period needs to be of a good duration. We might need a five year study to answer this meaningfully: interviewing student participants as they leave secondary school, and following them through their tertiary training until they are successfully navigating the job market. We need to consider whether this is achievable in our own timeframe.

This is a lego-like process. Everything should fit together without loose ends. And if you want a great example of research having left many loose ends, check out the horror story here).

Sam