Dr. Judith Hanks discusses ways to narrow the focus of research from broad topics to specific research questions. She outlines two approaches: starting with a topic and title then developing questions and data collection, or beginning with data collection and allowing questions to emerge during analysis. Refining questions involves considering agency, feasibility, and what researchers truly want to understand. Classrooms provide rich research contexts if questions are carefully focused. Developing good questions involves curiosity, imagination, and flexibility to changing understandings.

1. From Research Topics to
Research Questions:
narrowing the focus
Dr Judith Hanks, University of Leeds, UK
24 January 2016

2. Overview
 Thanks (Mark, Asli, Kenan… everyone else!)
 Ways of identifying the focus of research
 Ways of approaching RQ formation
 Refining Research Questions
 Agency & Identifying possible co-researchers
 The importance of reading
 The importance of curiosity and imagination
 The importance of data collection/generation
 Complexity vs reductionism

3. The problem with orthodox
research
“…orthodox research does not provide what
teachers want to know; teachers seek
understanding and illumination rather than
explanation and definition.”
(Burton, 1998: 425)

4.  So what is it that you want to know?
 What puzzles you about your language
learning/teaching/teacher training
experiences?
 What assumptions are you already
making?
 Challenge those assumptions!

5. Mark Wyatt ended last week’s Webinar with a series
of questions about practitioner research: who, what,
where, how, when and why.
He talked also about ‘noticing something in the
classroom’ that triggers a research focus.
Today, I am going to take these points further,
focusing particularly on:
 Who
 Where
 How
Underpinning the whole talk is the importance of ‘Why….?’

6. Who is research for?
“… in order to understand precisely what takes place in
our classrooms, we have to look at these classrooms as
entities in their own right and explore the meaning they
have for those who are involved in them in their own
terms”
(Tudor, 2001: 9)
=> Practitioners => Practitioner Research

7. Where to conduct research?
“… many would-be researchers, in their jobs and daily lives,
are already in, or can find around them, situations which have
the advantage of presenting ready-made research settings.
What they need is to take the opportunities available.”
(Holliday, 2002: 27-8)
In our case, this often means the classroom.
But classrooms are immeasurably complex & dynamic social
systems.
So we need carefully refined RQs to keep us on-track.

8. How to formulate RQs:
Two possible approaches
There are many possible approaches to narrowing the
focus. Today I am going to talk about just two:
1. Topic -> title -> RQs -> investigations -> data -> writing
up
2. Topic -> data -> investigations -> data (again) ->
writing up -> RQs -> title

9. One way…
 Brainstorm: what are you interested in?
 Write down the title
 Underline key words
 What do you mean by each one?
 What has already been said about this? (Read literature)
 Consider: what is feasible?
 According to your interests/concerns
 In terms of scope/scale of the project
 Think about the data you will need (How to collect
data? Who can give you insights?)
With thanks to Lou Harvey (2016, personal communication)

10. •Brainstorm /
mindmap
•Analyse key
lexis – what do
you mean by
it?
•What has
already been
said about the
topic?
Title & topic
•What is
feasible in the
context?
•What is the
scope/scale of
the project?
Research
question(s)
•Analysis
•Writing up
Data
collection

11. Another way…
 Brainstorm: what are you curious about?
 What made you think of this topic?
 Could you write it up as a narrative?
 Or a ‘critical incident’?
 And then analyse what you have written?
 Agency
 Who needs to know about this topic area?
 Who has insight into this area?
 Who can help to find out?
 Collect/generate data
 As you analyse the data, imagine different possiblities
 From the analysis, narrow down: what is it that you are REALLY
interested in?
 Read: what have others already said about it?

12. Topic
Critical incident(s)?
What puzzles you?
Narratives?
RQ
Data collection &
analysis
Data
illuminating/contributing
to theory

13. Zeus has a headache… and
Athena is born!

14. Where does a research question
come from?
 Doesn’t spring fully formed from the head (unlike
Athena springing out of Zeus’ head in the myth)
 Good classroom research needs to be
 Collaborative
 Contingent
 Critical
 Open to opportunities
 Flexible

15. What problems can you see with these
draft RQs?
1. How can I motivate my learners?
2. How can we reduce language learning anxiety?
3. What are the benefits of Action Research/Lesson
Study/Reflective Practice/Exploratory Practice (etc)?
4. How can I improve my students’ academic writing?
5. Does error correction improve speaking skills?
How could you re-write them to make them
Researchable; Critical; Collaborative; Relevant??

16. An example
 Topic: Motivation
Eg: How can I motivate my learners?
 Whose motivation matters here?
 Why?
 What makes you think your learners aren’t motivated? Is it all of
them? Some of them? All the time? Some of the time?
 Why did you think of this topic? (Tell the story)
 Are you sure it is the learners’ who aren’t motivated?
 Revised RQ: What factors affect motivation in the classroom?
 Who can help you to understand the topic?
 What (exactly) do you/they need to know?
 How can you/they find out? (please don’t say ‘questionnaire’!)

17. Narrative for RQ on motivation
There were between 15- 20 students in each class but each
week this number diminished. They totally “hated” this lesson
and the book as well. Even many successful students I’d
known from the prep school were complaining about the
course’s “difficulty”. They said, “ We don’t like to listen to those
long lectures as we find them time-consuming and boring and
the reading texts are too long and there are millions of
unknown words” –although we practised how to handle such
texts many times. Most of the time they were physically in the
class but mentally they were absent. They never spoke in the
classroom or took part in the pairwork or groupwork activities.
They never showed up for the office hours and their exam
results were terrible.. We asked them to do a project on essay
writing and they all plagiarized or never turned their work in. I
thought the biggest problem was the coursebook. They couldn’t
catch up with the book and the course was too demanding for
them.

18. Analysis of narrative
There were between 15- 20 students in each class but each
week this number diminished. They totally “hated” this lesson
and the book as well. Even many successful students I’d
known from the prep school were complaining about the
course’s “difficulty”. They said, “ We don’t like to listen to those
long lectures as we find them time-consuming and boring and
the reading texts are too long and there are millions of
unknown words” –although we practised how to handle such
texts many times. Most of the time they were physically in the
class but mentally they were absent. They never spoke in the
classroom or took part in the pairwork or groupwork activities.
They never showed up for the office hours and their exam
results were terrible.. We asked them to do a project on essay
writing and they all plagiarized or never turned their work in.
I thought the biggest problem was the coursebook. They
couldn’t catch up with the book and the course was too
demanding for them.

19. Another example
 Topic: Student dislike of the coursebook
 Eg ‘Why don’t my students like the coursebook?’
 Refined RQ: ‘Why don’t I like the coursebook?’
(see Allwright & Hanks, 2009, for the full story)

20. Another example
 Topic: Language Learning Anxiety
Eg: How can I reduce my learners’ anxiety levels?
 What makes you think your learners are anxious?
 Who is anxious? Is it all of them? Some of them? Which ones?
 When are they anxious?
 Why did you think of this topic? (Tell the story)
 Is their anxiety perfectly reasonable (eg just before a test)?
 Is it possible to reduce someone else’s anxiety under these
circumstances?
 Revised RQ: What factors influence anxiety levels in language
learning?
 Who can help you to understand the topic?
 What do you/they need to understand?
 How can you/they find out about it? (please don’t say qu’aire)

21. To sum up…
“Unfortunately there are plenty of things in TESOL that I’d
like to find out about, but some of the questions are
impossibly big, others demand research skills that I don’t
have, and one or two are personal hobby horses. Finding
a topic is above all else a practical business, and three
things really matter:
1. deciding on something that you want to do;
2. that you can do; and
3. that is worth doing.”
(Richards, 2003: 240)

22. Refining RQs (ii)
What are you curious about?
 Who will your research involve?
 Who needs this research?
 Who can give insights?
What made you think of this topic?
 Was there a ‘critical incident’?
 Can you write a brief narrative about what set you
thinking?
 How about analysing what you have written?
How can you find out more?

23. Integrating research &
practice
Exploratory Practice

24. Learners and teachers as
researchers
“By positioning learners alongside teachers as legitimate
investigators of classroom language learning and
teaching, EP [exploratory practice] enhances the potential
for understandings in pedagogy and research alike.”
(Hanks, 2015: 19)

25. Refining RQs
“In the same way that hypotheses develop and adapt
throughout the research process, research questions can
also change. Initial questions lead the researcher to
investigate in a certain direction; but within this process
there will be unforeseen discoveries which raise further or
different questions.”
(Holliday, 2002: 36)

26. The importance of reading
At some point, we need to read about what others have already
said about this issue:
 We can read early on (right at the beginning)
 We can read during our data collection & analysis
 We can read towards the end of writing up
The best approach of all is to read at all three stages!!
Note: Don’t panic if you find someone else got there first – read
critically, and look for the gaps where your work can fit!

27. The importance of
imagination
Having collected some initial data…
 can you imagine all the different possibilities that might
have influenced this situation?
 How many different possibilities (which could explain
what’s going on) can you imagine?
 How many of those possibilities can you eliminate?
What’s left is the beginnings of a researchable RQ…
With thanks to Dick Allwright (2016, personal communication)

28. Reductionism vs Complexity
Dangers of reductionism:
 Can lead to trivial ‘answers’
 Being ‘more efficient’ might not actually be worth it
Can we accommodate complexity?
 Classrooms are richly complex social situations
 Wealth of data; wealth of opportunities
Consider: Who benefits from the research?

29. What’s the RQ for?
Classroom research is not about hypothesis-testing.
Not starting with a hypothesis about what will/won’t ‘work’.
Instead, we are trying to understand what is going on in the
classroom => RQ is a guide to help us keep focussed.
Therefore the importance of
 Thinking
 Reflecting
 Analysing
Must be open to the possibility of RQs changing; must also be self-
aware, (self-)critical, specific, feasible and above all, relevant.

30. Concluding remarks
 Classroom Research is deeply autobiographical, and is
rooted in social context.
 So give up any notions of ‘objectivity’ (it isn’t, and will never
be, objective); instead enjoy the subjectivity of the work: be
alive to the human and social aspects of the research.
 Stay focussed; stay critical. Be specific. Remain open to
other interpretations.
 Keep your initial RQs in mind, and be ready to refine them
as and when necessary.
 Data is going to be crucial to your research, so how are you
going to collect/generate data?

31. References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice: rethinking practitioner research in language teaching.
Language Teaching Research, 7/2 (pp 113-141)
Allwright, D. & Hanks J. (2009) The Developing Language Learner: An introduction to Exploratory
Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
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32. Gieve, S. & Miller, I.K. (2006) What do we mean by ‘Quality of Classroom Life’? IN S. Gieve & I.K.
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