AN INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
LOOKING AT EXPERT RESEARCHERS’ QUESTIONS
Reading more expert researchers’ work will help you to learn how to undertake
classroombased research. Identify the authors’ research focus and locate their research
questions. In the final published paper this will seem like a straightforward linear process
moving effortlessly from identifying a focus through to formulating the question, but as you
now know this was probably not the case. The expert researchers will also have spent hours
reading relevant literature, thought long and hard about the purpose of their research before
finally framing the research questions. Consider the style of research questions that expert
researchers use in their work set out in Box 1.2.
Box 1.2 - An example of an expert researcher’s school-based research
Paper used: O’Brien, C. (2007) ‘Peer devaluation in British secondary schools:
young people’s comparisons of group-based and individual-based bullying’,
Educational Research, 49 (3), 297–324.
O’Brien sets out her research area early in the opening pages; this is to focus
on young adolescents’ perceptions of two distinguishable bases for being
bullied:
1. For group membership, such as one’s race or sex as a whole.
2. For individual, unique differences.
At the end of her literature review and before her methods section, she also
clearly states her research questions.
This exploratory study has a threefold aim:
1. Do students evaluate pejorative names differentially?
2. How do students justify their value judgements? On what dimensions are
group and individual-based name-calling perceived as similar and different?
3. Are appraisals comparable? Are we comparing ‘apples and oranges’?
Activity 1.2
Use the grid in Figure 1.4 below to help you clarify your thoughts about your
focus and research question.
14