Evaluating the question

No matter how excited you may be about an initial research question you need to analyze the question carefully before committing yourself to it. Regrettable, sometimes one's initial question is not a good basis for research. A common flaw is that the problem or question is defined too broadly.   To illustrate, suppose a student became concerned about crimes involving women and decided to investigate the topic of "women and crime." We call this initial idea a "topic" because it simply describes a broad area for possible research. In this form, it is not a problem or a question, but it can serve as a starting point for specifying a question for investigation.

As the student got into this topic, he or she would soon discover that this topic covers a number of more specific topics.   These include:

What kinds of crimes are committed by women (theft, beer-making, prostitution, etc.)?

Which kinds of crimes are committed against women (beating, rape, etc.)?

What variables are associated with criminal behavior of women (age, economic level, ethnicity, etc.)?

What kinds of punishment are given for each kind of crime (fines, imprisonment, etc.)?

Do punishments differ for women from different ethnic or social backgrounds?

What effect does punishment of women criminals have on the women? Their children? Their families?

Any of these questions could become the basis of a research project. As with most beginning researchers, you will probably go through this kind of process, starting with a broad topic, and then working toward a specific question that you can investigate. Some ways of doing this are listed in Box 4.2.

Box 4.2. Ways of converting topics into researchable questions Discuss your ideas with fellow students. Ask your instructor or research advisor to review your ideas. Seek comments by experts; using the "women and crime" example, you might ask police or judicial officials for their opinions. Do a preliminary review of the literature on you topic. Try to state the topic or question in a clear, single sentence; if you can, you probably have a good idea of what you want to investigate.

Practical considerations

In selecting a question to investigate, two other things to consider are:

• Whether you can do the work required; and
• How excited you are about the project.

In addition to being too broad, many first-time researchers under estimate the work required to complete a research project. You can avoid this kind of mistake by realistically estimating the amount of time and effort that will be required to do your research. If you were conducting a survey, some questions to ask include: