How to formulate a research question?

Formulating a good research question is probably the most difficult part of your research project. Most of the time you start with a topic (energy policy, or human rights) or with a general problem (something is wrong with political participation, this production process, or human resource management). Sometimes the topic or problem you initially started with appears to be different from the one that is interesting. Be clear about the type of research question you want to answer. Several types of questions can be distinguished;

Normative questions are about what is allowed or what is good. These questions should not be confused with conceptual questions or descriptive questions (see below). In most cases normative questions implies philosophical (not empirical) research.

Conceptual questions are about the proper/useful/efficient meaning of words; ‘what is freedom?’, ‘what is equality?’ ‘Which types of markets can be distinguished’. Conceptualization is also a central part of research answering empirical questions, although conceptual questions in empirical research are often discussed and answered without explicitly stating a conceptual question.

Empirical questions are about ‘truth’ and ‘observations’. In science the goal of empirical questions is ‘inference’; generalization. There are several types of empirical questions, ranging from relatively simple to relatively complex.

Applied questions are not aiming at finding or creating generalized knowledge, although they may involve some (mainly descriptive) inference. Applied questions are asked simply because people want to solve a specific social, political or commercial problem. Researchers aiming to answering applied questions, apply existing knowledge to solve a real world problem. Applied research is research using some part of the research communities' knowledge (theories, methods, and techniques) for a specific purpose. Applied research is often opposed to pure research (which is here called ‘empirical research’). Applied research questions can only be answered if empirical research questions have been answered first. We distinguish between different types of applied questions;

Since applied questions differ from empirical questions, students planning to answer a design question are referred to the webpage about applied science.

A special (sub-)category of questions are ‘unanswerable questions’. All types of questions can be ‘unanswerable’ too (given the existing level of (your) knowledge). Although it is difficult to say in general terms which questions are ‘unanswerable’, do not hesitate to admit that they are.

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