Questions and Hypotheses

Developing research questions and hypotheses are perhaps the most important fist steps to the research process. This week, we will look more closely at this vital part of research and how you can go about developing quality research ideas, questions, and hypotheses. Let's begin by answering the following questions.

Provide an analysis of how your own experience, unsystematic and systematic observation, theory, and applied issues can help you to develop sound research ideas. See if you can generate a few research questions of your own here (perhaps with an eye towards developing one of these questions into your research proposal), and share the source of your idea with the class. Evaluate the quality of your research question based on the following criteria:

Is the question directly answerable?

Is the question empirically based?

Does the question use operational definitions to define variables?

Does the question ask something important?

How could you revise your original research question to better meet these criteria?

Finally, describe how a research question differs from a hypothesis.

A research question I have some personal experience with and would like to research more is

Discussion Question 2

In the KU Library, find a scholarly research report on a topic of interest. Briefly recap the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion sections of this study for your peers (using your own words). Using the criteria from the text, provide a brief evaluation of the quality of each section in your research report. Keep this information handy as you will use this to write up your annotated bibliography at the end of this unit. The article discussed here may be used in the Unit 2 Assignment as well as in the research proposal.

Maria

You are a psychologist working in a women's unit for a substance abuse agency as a member of the treatment team. Your specific job is to conduct individual sessions with clients who have problems that are untreatable in group therapy.