Research Organizational Research Methods

Question: How do you develop and refine research questions? Answer: When one begins any research project, the first crucial question is how one can refine on the topic of study into a question, which is answerable within the scope of the work being undertaking. The process of developing the research question is essentially very quiet simple (Edelson, 2002). First, it is important to ask yourself what question you need to answer in order to find out what you need to know. For instance, if after reading the literature you have come to believe that asking the students to engage in a peer monitoring will increase on their engagement, you might wish to ask the following research question: Does peer, student-monitoring increase on the student engagement. This is a tentative research question and you want to answer it as yes or no. the next step is to ask what questions need to be answered in order to answer on the research question. An example here are a few of these questions. What would the peer student mentoring look like in your situation? How much of the data is enough? Who can I ask? What kind of the data should I collect and when to collect it? In most of the time, it is important to talk through the research project with another trusted peer to discuss what it entails. However, when these questions have been laid out and you have the big picture of the steps you will take to complete the research the research project. A good research question is always carefully phrased, it has been stated clearly, complete and it represent on the all goals of the research project. Other considerations to note are the feasibility, which focusses on whether the study could be done. Another is the validity, which focus if the research study was completed will it tell us what we need to know. When one is fine-tuning on the research question, one should work in doing the following things. Delimit on the research through making sure that the scope of the research project can be manageable. Secondly, it is important to define on the terms since not all the research project define the terms alike. The last thing is to question the question (Creswell Clark, 2007). This means that you should analyse as well as evaluate the research question. Ask yourself if it is the right question and if you can successfully answer this question, it will definitely provide you with the information which you need to make a positive changes. Finally, one should be pragmatic where by which are the questions that needs to be answered in order to answer on the research question. Conclusion In the development of the research questions, it is important to identify on the issue, which you are focusing on and write question that relate to the conversation you have decided to join. Refining on the working research question can be achieved through replacing of the vague words as well as phrases with the use of more specific words and phrases. One should then ask whether you could refine on the research question by referring to the assumptions, which are shared, and the existing conditions. Lastly, testing of the refined question could be done through conducting the preliminary searches of library catalogs and databases. References Creswell, J. W., Clark, V. L. P. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Edelson, D. C. (2002). Design research: What we learn when we engage in design. The Journal of the Learning sciences, 11(1), 105-121. Service, R. W. (2009). Book Review: Corbin, J., Strauss, A.(2008). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Organizational Research Methods, 12(3), 614-617. Trochim, W. M., Donnelly, J. P. (2001). Research methods knowledge base.