Faiz writes
"Prof Standing,
My name is faiz rasool. I am a Blind student of Sociology In University of karachi, Karachi, Pakistan. I am writing a thesis presently, and in Pakistan it is not easy to find goood good suggestions. So thank you for setting this blog.
My question is that sometimes I find the notion of research question, research objectives, and theoretical review questions confusing. Can you write someting something to that can help in distinguishing between these three different yet related ideas?
i think my question is very basic. But I want to learn, and i have to learn somewehre somewhere."
I can see how this could be confusing as all three are interconnected.
Research objectives are higher level than research questions but they are linked. For example a research objective could be to investigate and examine the nature of the urban/rural divide and to make recommendations to alleviate this divide in some way. So research objectives are like research aims, they are high level and communicate a purpose and outcomes for research.
I think you mean by "theoretical research questions" the type of questions that summarise the theory on a topic. For example, a theoretical or literature analysis could be conducted to determine where the research gaps are, where most research is conducted and so on. For example, if we look at the literature on the urban/rural divide from a sociological perspective we could say there is a research gap on what the barriers are to explaining the divide and how they can be overcome?
These review questions can be developed into our research questions. Research questions are more specific and on the same topic could be as follows:
What are the differences in income between urban and rural populations in Pakistan?
How do the levels of access to health information differ between urban and rural areas in Pakistan?
Can the infant mortality rates in rural areas in developing countries be explained by levels of income, education and access to health information?
The latter is a bigger question than the other two.
So to summarise, research aims and objectives are high level and use words like investigate, examine, reduce, improve etc. Research questions are more specific and involve the how, what, where, why type questions.
I hope this helps?
www.CompletePhD.com
"Prof Standing,
My name is faiz rasool. I am a Blind student of Sociology In University of karachi, Karachi, Pakistan. I am writing a thesis presently, and in Pakistan it is not easy to find goood good suggestions. So thank you for setting this blog.
My question is that sometimes I find the notion of research question, research objectives, and theoretical review questions confusing. Can you write someting something to that can help in distinguishing between these three different yet related ideas?
i think my question is very basic. But I want to learn, and i have to learn somewehre somewhere."
I can see how this could be confusing as all three are interconnected.
Research objectives are higher level than research questions but they are linked. For example a research objective could be to investigate and examine the nature of the urban/rural divide and to make recommendations to alleviate this divide in some way. So research objectives are like research aims, they are high level and communicate a purpose and outcomes for research.
I think you mean by "theoretical research questions" the type of questions that summarise the theory on a topic. For example, a theoretical or literature analysis could be conducted to determine where the research gaps are, where most research is conducted and so on. For example, if we look at the literature on the urban/rural divide from a sociological perspective we could say there is a research gap on what the barriers are to explaining the divide and how they can be overcome?
These review questions can be developed into our research questions. Research questions are more specific and on the same topic could be as follows:
What are the differences in income between urban and rural populations in Pakistan?
How do the levels of access to health information differ between urban and rural areas in Pakistan?
Can the infant mortality rates in rural areas in developing countries be explained by levels of income, education and access to health information?
The latter is a bigger question than the other two.
So to summarise, research aims and objectives are high level and use words like investigate, examine, reduce, improve etc. Research questions are more specific and involve the how, what, where, why type questions.
I hope this helps?
www.CompletePhD.com
Posts
rof Standing,
ReplyDeleteYour post is very helpful. The way you have explained these thre related notions, is very helpful for a student who is just starting to learn the craft of doing and writing research
I am thankfull for your guidance.
Best Regards,
faiz
Hi Prof Standing,
ReplyDeleteI would be grateful if you can write something on 'writing a discussion chapter'. Thank you
Is very useful drawing thread driver for theoretical review process. Is a graphic that represent scientific related areas in which the researcher planning to go deeper, based-on their objetives. As professor Craig say: research objetives are higer level than research question but are linked. Thread driver could help to showing this relationship.
ReplyDeleteThread driver is like a conceptual map where researcher make a relatioship between research areas (or scientific topics) related. Topic represent node and the arcs represent the relationships in between. So, research questions (from theroretical point of view) could be formulated as hypothesis. For instance, suppose that there is a relationship between decision-making modelling and knowledge representation; the hypothesis could be: the actual knowledge representation techniques, methods and tools is enough to accomplish knowledge representation in decision-making context. Or, researcher could formulate more specific research question in order to identify a gap between knowledge representations in decision-making context. The aim of the first one could be the identification of the state of the practice that supports the future research (applied research). The other one will create a bridge to fix the gap (basic research).
At the end, researcher will formulate conclusion. Theses conclusions represent the theoretical-references framework. This framework establishes three main points:
1. Theoretical foundation for the future research (which theoretical aspects should be used “as is”)
2. The gap that researcher plan to fix up with the investigation
3. Which aspects will be part of the solution (research hypothesis)
Kind regards,
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteI am Master student. Now, I need to write thesis, but I don't know clearly about theoretical Gap and pactitioner Gap. Could you help me explain them ?
Thanks very much for your help.
Best regard,
how research objective lead to the answer than research question
ReplyDelete