Guiding Questions

The purpose of a guiding question is to prompt exploration of an idea

in depth.
To write your guiding questions, you will need to do some initial research in
order to have a focus to create questions that are applicable to your topic.
Talking to a person who has experience with this topic would one way to gain
knowledge and direction. This person may also be your mentor.

Guiding questions have these characteristics:

They lead toward interesting problems or dilemmas, or help make decisions
about an important issue or problem
They probe deeply and challenge us to think critically and ask more questions
They explore important ideas, problems, and methods of inquiry that lie at
the heart of the topic being researched
They are open-ended (no “right answer”) but focus on a specific topic
They often start with why, how or sometimes what
They are succinct – they contain only a few words yet they demand a lot
They are the guides for the research of the senior project
They are meaningful (or can be meaningful) to you personally

Evaluating your guiding questions - ask yourself these

questions:
Do my questions require higher-level thinking or can they be answered with
simple facts? Rephrase the sentence if the answer is one or more facts. If the
question can be answered without further research and reading, the question
is not a quality guiding question.
Are my questions in a logical sequence?
Do my questions have answers that will require me to spend time
researching to find the answers? If you know the answers, this project is not
stretching you enough.

http://schools.shorelineschools.org/shorecrest/facs/spweb/pages/researchGuidin
gQuestions.html
Writing Good Qualitative Research Questions
Posted on May 5, 2011 | 4 Comments
Got a great handout a while back that I stumbled over today,
hopefully it’s as helpful to you as it was to me. Here are the steps for
writing good (mass communication of course) qualitative research
questions:

Specify the research problem: the practical issue that leads to a need
for your study.

Complete these sentences:

▪ “The topic for this study will be…”

▪ “This study needs to be conducted because…”
How to write a good qualitative purpose statement: a
statement that provides the major objective or intent or roadmap to
the study. Fulfill the following criteria:

▪ Single sentence
▪ Include the purpose of the study
▪ Include the central phenomenon
▪ Use qualitative words e.g. explore, understand, discover
▪ Note the participants (if any)
▪ State the research site
A good place to start: The purpose of this ______________
(narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, case,
etc.) study is (was? will be?) will be to ____________ (understand,
describe, develop, discover) the _____________ (central
phenomenon of the study) for ______________ (the participants)
at (the site). At this stage in the research, the ___________ (central
phenomenon) will be generally defined as ____________ (a
general definition of the central concept).

Research questions serve to narrow the purpose. There are

two types:Central

▪ The most general questions you could ask

Sub-questions

▪ Subdivides central question into more specific topical questions

▪ Limited number
Use good qualitative wording for these questions.

▪ Begin with words such as “how” or “what”

▪ Tell the reader what you are attempting to “discover,” “generate,”
“explore,” “identify,” or “describe”
▪ Ask “what happened?” to help craft your description
▪ Ask “what was the meaning to people of what happened?” to
understand your results
▪ Ask “what happened over time?” to explore the process
Avoid words such as: relate, influence, impact, effect, cause

Scripts to help design qualitative central and sub-questions:

Central question script (usually use only one):

▪ “What does it mean to _________________ (central

phenomenon)?”
▪ “How would ______________ (participants) describe (central
phenomenon)?”
Sub-question script:

▪ “What _________ (aspect) does __________ (participant)

engage in as a _____________ (central phenomenon)?”
Sources

1.Cresswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design:

Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. Principles of qualitative research:
Designing a qualitative study. You can download the entire document
here.
Student Guide: Choosing a Topic
Before you dive into your research, your group should
choose a topic that interests you. Picking your topic
might seem overwhelming at first, but there are many
ways that you can break down the process into
manageable steps.
Explore the Theme
Start by doing some introductory reading and exploration of the
larger theme before focusing too closely on any one topic. There
are various resources you can use to get a broad overview of the
many themes that can be explored.

Narrow your focus

Once you’ve learned about the theme in general terms, there are a
few different strategies you can use to narrow your scope:
Each team member can bring in an article about a current event
that seems to relate to the theme. As a group, see if there is any
overlap in all of the stories that everyone brings in and if there are
a few that interest the team the most.Ask yourself and your
teammates: As you were learning about the theme, what jumped
out at you? What gave you the most questions? What did you want
to learn more about?
Think locally: are there issues you learned about that you have
seen impacting your own communities? Try comparing and
contrasting these issues with what is happening in other countries
as a way to narrow your topic.Start with two or three topics that
interest your team, and then narrow it down to one by discussing
the pros and cons of the different topics.
Have each member of your team do some initial research and then
present on their chosen topic before you chose one.Try to pick a
topic that interests everyone in the team- the majority of your time
preparing for the Challenge will be spent researching your topic!

Develop a Strong Guiding Question

Now that you’ve narrowed your topic, you should develop a
guiding question for your research. A good driving question will
help you focus your research but should also be provocative, open-
ended, complex, and linked to the annual theme of Sustainable
Communities.
A project without a driving question is like an essay without a
thesis. Without a thesis statement, a reader might be able to pick
out the main point a writer is trying to make; but with a thesis
statement, the main point is unmistakable.
Driving questions should be:
▪ Open-ended: if your question can be answered with
a "Yes" or "No" then you will need to go back to the drawing
board and ensure that it does not lead to an easy answer;
▪ Challenging: your questions should require that
you gain new information outside of what you already know
or have learned in class;
▪ Interesting to you as the researcher so that you are
motivated to keep learning;
▪ Realistic: your question should be something that
 you can answer in the amount of time that you have available;
▪ Complex: A broad driving question requiring
multiple activities and open to many possible solutions will
keep you engaged. World Savvy’s possible topics list can be a
great place to start to develop a driving question for your
research.
▪ Here are some driving questions students have tackled in the
past: What is the connection between school lunches and
child obesity? How does the diet in American schools
compare to other nations?What are the underlying causes of
hunger and starvation in the Horn of Africa? How can average
people in Minnesota make a difference on this issue? Should
GMOs be used to combat global hunger? Are they safe?What
is the environmental cost of food on water? What can be done
to prevent contamination of our waters?