This document discusses formulating research questions based on a provided housing prices data set. Students are asked to look at the variable descriptions and data to develop an original research question that could be explored using the data. They should also specify what analysis method from the course so far could be used to answer their question. Examples of questions are provided to illustrate the type of questions that could be asked, but students should not use these exact questions and should try to be creative in developing their own unique research question.

1. Module 5 - Discussion: Formulating Research Questions
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This activity is a lead-in to the course project that comes in
Modules 8 and 9. You will be asked to do something similar to
this in another upcoming discussion and then in the course
project at the end of the course.
In a research project, the researcher normally has a research
question in mind and then develops a research methodology that
includes such things as determining the type of data that will be
needed to address the question, how the data will be collected,
and how the data will be analyzed. Due to time constraints, you
will take a different approach to developing a research question.
You will be given data that has already been collected and
asked to develop a possible research question from the data.
For this discussion, open the StatCrunch file
Housing_Prices_Categorical_Factors
. The variables in the file are explained in the file description in
StatCrunch. The following file tells you how to enroll in the
course StatCrunch Group and retrieve group files. You will need
to do that in order to view the Housing Prices file for this
discussion activity.
Look at the description of the variables in the file and the
variables themselves and develop a “research question” that
might be interesting to explore using this data set. Some
examples are:
Is there a difference in average selling price based on whether
the house is on the water front or not?
Do new houses sell for more than old houses? NOTE: For
something like this, you would have to define what you mean by
new and old.
Develop your own research question and post it in the

2. discussion. Be Creative! Don’t use one of the questions above
and don't use one someone else has already posted. Instead, try
to find something that might be interesting to you. In addition
to posting your question, also tell what method or methods you
would use to answer your question (of those studied so far)