Research

Question 1

Qualities of a good research question

Answer 1

1. Concise (straight to the point)
2. Clear (unambiguous)
3. Operationalisable (can be executed or implemented in practice)
4. Open-ended (not a yes or no)
5. Elegant
6. Timely (addresses issues of importance at the time)
7. Theoretically rich (leads to other questions)
8. Puzzle features (evokes attention and answers difficult questions)
9. Self-explanatory
10. Grammatically correct

Question 2

Categories of a research question

Answer 2

1. Descriptive
2. Explanatory
3. Exploratory

Question 3

Literature Review (before doing reseach)

Answer 3

• helps to establish what ha seen done before so you can frame your study against what’s known and avoid doing research on what’s been done
• helps identify where parts of what you’re trying to do has already been done
• helps establish need for study

Question 4

Literature Review (when selecting research aim)

Answer 4

• helps researcher formulate research question through providing background to study
• helps place research in context of existing literature
• assists in identifying prominent scholars in field of study

Question 5

Literature review (when planning research)

Answer 5

• helps researcher select appropriate methodology
• may expose researcher to methods that they were previously unaware of
• can prevent problems with execution of study through showing pitfalls previous researchers have encountered
• can contribute to selecting methods that can deal with problems anticipated in study
• guide justification for future research

Question 6

Literature review (when reporting on research)

Answer 6

• enables researcher to place findings of their research into context
• helps researcher interpret/make sense of findings
• may guide justification for future research on topic

Question 7

Credibility

Answer 7

Extent to which we can believe shag is said by a specific source to be true or hold scientific value

Question 8

Types of literature sources

Answer 8

1. Scientific books
2. Articles in professional journals
3. Standard referencing materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries)
4. Research reports and dissertations
5. Specialized index publications
6. Presentations
7. Internet
8. Radio/TV broadcast, newspaper, magazine, etc.
9. Personal interviews /correspondence
10. Other (government publications, unpublished documents, statistics databases, governing bodies)