Clarifying and Strengthening Your Question

High-Level Process
This process is designed to help a person who has a rough sense of what they want to study but is having a difficult time refining their thinking and finding the right words to ask their question. That is, this process works best if you have a specific enough sense of your interest in your "gut" that when asked "Is this what you really mean?" you can answer yes or no. If you don't have this degree of intuition, the process can still be a useful way to explore a "question space."

Take a stab at writing your question down - don't obsess over it, just get something close on the screen. Then, use the following process to interrogate your question to clarify and strengthen it:


 * Never delete anything! Always cut and paste a new copy of the question for each edit you're going to try
 * Identify substantive ideas / constructs in the initial question statement - each of these is enclosed in parentheses in the example below
 * Experiment with substituting other values for identified variables [for example, try changing (pre-service) to (in-service)]
 * Try synonyms for terms [for example, try changing "beliefs" to "opinions" or "perspectives" or "knowledge"]. What are the subtle yet significant differences between possible terms like mediate and facilitate, beliefs and opinions, information and knowledge?
 * Zoom in / zoom out on individual variables [for example, try zooming out from (pre-service teachers) to (all teachers); or try zooming in from (pre-service teachers) to (pre-service teachers who have not yet taken methods courses)]
 * Further aggregate / unbundle entities [for example, unbundle (K-2 teachers) from one group into three groups (K, 1, and 2 teachers)
 * Be both careful about and conscious of the politics of your word choices; weigh the benefits of using terms of art versus the cost of inheriting the history of the word [for example, "direct instruction" or "learning objects"]
 * Try to purposefully misread your question. Can you legitimately interpret it in ways other than you intended?
 * Ask yourself about the possible answers to your question. If your question can be answered with a single word like "Yes" or "No" (e.g., 'Do teachers utilize Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms?') or with a number or percentage (e.g., 'How many hours of homework does the average high school student really have each night?'), you need to make your question more expansive (e.g., 'How do teachers utilize Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms?' or 'How does homework impact students' use of time away from school?').

Sample Question Refinements

 * Kim, 2010
 * TJ, 2010
 * Kathie, 2010
 * Mary, 2010
 * Nari, 2009