This document provides guidance on developing an academic research question. It advises the reader to identify a focused topic within their area of interest and formulate specific questions to answer. The questions should clarify whether the research is exploratory, explanatory, or descriptive. Key issues in the topic area should be identified and the intended theoretical or practical contribution explained. Relevant articles on the topic should be reviewed to identify the main issues and inform the research. Effective research questions clearly address an important problem, have a provable outcome, and clarify the goals and intended use of the research. Hypotheses that predict research outcomes and guide the methodology should be explicitly stated. A good research question can be concisely explained to others.

1. Finding
your academic research question

2. Identifying a research topic
• Which area do I want to study?
– Make your topic as focused as possible
• Which questions do I want to answer?
– Make your questions as specific as possible
• Are my questions exploratory, explanatory or
descriptive?
– Set your empirical methodology in very concrete terms
– How will you demonstrate your argument?
– Which research techniques will you use?
• What are the most critical issues in this area?
– What type of contribution does it provide? Theoretical or
practical? Why is your research topic important?

3. Find your topic buckets to frame your
research
• Find Identify the relevant topic ‘buckets’ relevant to your
research
• What are the most significant articles within your buckets?
– These articles will form the back-bone of your research
(tip: check out Google Scholar which shows how often
certain articles were cited)

4. Ask yourself…
• What do I want to find
out/understand?
–why is it important?

5. Or your might want to ask
this…
• What is the problem you will
address?
– Your problem needs to be
provable and not assume end
state

6. Or maybe this…
• What are your goals?
– What will you do
afterwards?

7. Types of research questions
• How questions
• What questions
• Why questions

8. Hypotheses
• Hypotheses are predictive statements about
expected outcome of the research
• Hypotheses dictate the method and design of the
research
• Hypotheses are closely linked to your research
questions
• Hypotheses are predictive statements about
expected outcome of the research
• Hypotheses dictate the method and design of the
research
Hypotheses must be explicit

9. You know you have found your
research question when…
You can concisely and clearly explain
to an expert (academic/colleague)
what it is that you are researching

10. Got a tip on how to find a research question?
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