Chapter 5: Asking Research Questions
Asking Research Questions
Why start with a research question?
By starting from a place of curiosity—as scholars, or students, or even in our everyday lives—we become more open to following where the research leads us. This is important! There is a remarkable difference between research papers written by students who have started with the conclusion and simply looked for evidence to back up their preconceived ideas vs. students who begin their research with a genuine curiosity to discover something and be changed in some way by the process. In this chapter, you’ll be guided through the process of how to narrow your topic and develop an open-ended research question.
Questions for Reflection:
Set a timer for three minutes and free-write about something that makes you feel fire and fury—something that once you start talking about it, you get all fired up. Maybe your face gets a bit hot or maybe you start writing a little faster. Remember, in a free-write, the goal is to keep writing for the whole three minutes.
- After the time is up, read over your free-write. Are there any questions that arise while you’re reading? These questions can be anything! For example, what kind of actions need to happen to create change? Or, why am I so fired up about this? Or, what do people say who disagree with me? List these questions below your free-write or on a separate page.
Student Narrative
Every night while sitting in the family room with my father, we watch the news and try to stay up to date on the events occurring around us. Climate change stories have erupted lately; I increasingly notice broadcasters covering the issue. I think to myself that we live in an amazing, beautiful and serene environment in British Columbia. Our license plates flaunt “Beautiful British Columbia,” and the world recognizes the gorgeous terrain that surrounds us. I feel that beauty is at stake; climate change is the aggressor. Terms like rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extinction of species roam through my mind while I sit there, quietly, watching television. We are slowly but surely destroying the world around us. The world that had been sustained for millennia by Indigenous peoples, up until the industrial era. I fear my great-grandkids won’t be able to witness the heaven-like world I, at times, take for granted. Taking this fear, I harness it into action. I urge my parents to buy an electric vehicle and buy BC-grown groceries. I want to
know, in the end, that I did my part, and I did my best.
This inspires me to ask some potential research questions:
- How will climate change impact the frequency of recently experienced events (flooding, forest fires and heatwaves) in BC, and across the globe?
- How will economic factors fluctuate with more frequent weather events? Will prices of common goods rise? How will marginalized people with low-income suffer?
- How will the decrease in biodiversity due to climate change directly and indirectly affect British
Columbians?
Media Attributions
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- Think © Kirby Wu is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
