What Is a Research Question?

Your research question is the sentence your whole dissertation answers to. Get it vague, and every chapter after it drifts: the literature review has no edge, the method has nothing to fit, and your advisor keeps asking what the study is really about.

Having coached 10,000+ students, we’ve found that weak questions fail in a handful of predictable ways, and all of them can be fixed at the wording stage, before you’ve collected a single data point. Below, I’ll explain what a research question is, show you the five most common types of questions, and walk you through writing and pressure-testing your own.

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What is a research question?

A research question is the specific question your study sets out to answer. It names what you want to find out, about whom, and in what setting, and everything else in your dissertation (the literature you review, the data you collect, the analysis you run) exists to answer it.

Think of it as the target in archery. Without one, you can shoot all day and never know whether you’re getting closer.

Here’s an example of a real research question, from a nursing master’s thesis:

In fifteen words, it names who (minority nursing students), what (their experiences of cultural insensitivity) and where (Northeastern Ontario). It also suggests the study will collect people’s accounts rather than measure anything, so you can start to picture the method from the question alone. Hold your own draft to that test: if a stranger couldn’t picture your study from the sentence, it isn’t finished yet.

Pro tip: Browse our research question examples collection for 2,500+ more real questions like this, sorted by field.

Research questions vs research aims

Students mix these up constantly, and it’s easy to see why: the two are tightly linked. But they do different jobs.

Your research aim is broad. It says what you hope to achieve, in a sentence that usually starts “To explore…” or “To understand…”. It doesn’t ask anything.

Your research question narrows that aim into something answerable. It picks out the specific thing you’ll find out, precisely enough that your methods and analysis follow from it.

Here’s a made-up pair to show the difference:

Notice how the question keeps the aim’s setting and narrows “affecting” down to one thing you can track: how often bleaching happens. That’s the relationship you want between yours. Research objectives sit between the two, as the steps you’ll take to answer the question, and I cover how all three fit together in this article on research aims, objectives and questions.

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Types of research questions

There are several ways to classify research questions, but five types cover almost every question you’ll meet in a dissertation. What matters most is that each type implies a different kind of study, so naming yours early tells you what your methodology chapter will need to justify.

Type	What it asks	Usually answered with
Descriptive	What is there, or how much	Surveys, interviews, documents
Comparative	Whether groups differ	Group comparisons, case studies
Relational	Whether two things move together	Correlation or regression
Causal	What one thing does to another	Experiments
Exploratory	How or why something happens	Qualitative interviews, case studies

Here’s each one in turn, with a real question from a successful, published dissertation.

Descriptive research questions

A descriptive question asks what is happening, how common something is, or what it looks like. It doesn’t try to explain anything. Take this one, from an education thesis about pre-service English teachers:

Notice the phrase “a group of”. It admits up front that the study is about one set of people, not every trainee teacher everywhere, which is exactly the right scope for a descriptive study. Descriptive research questions often get written off as too basic, but I’d rather see a precise descriptive question than a vague causal one. If yours is descriptive, make sure it’s very specific and well scoped.

Comparative research questions

A comparative question asks whether two or more groups differ, and on what basis. The groups and the thing being compared both need to be in the sentence. A public health doctorate gives a clean one:

As you can see, both groups are named, and so is the single outcome being compared. The setting, Washington, DC, lives in the title rather than the question, which is fine as long as it’s stated somewhere prominent. When you write yours, check you can name both sides of the comparison and the one measure you’ll compare them on.

Relational research questions

A relational question asks whether two variables move together, without claiming that one causes the other. This one is from a doctorate on library instruction:

“Relationship” is the careful word here. Plenty of things could explain why students who attend library sessions earn higher grades, and this wording doesn’t claim the sessions caused it. The question even names its test (“statistically significant”) and its population precisely. If your data can show things moving together but can’t rule out other explanations, ask about a relationship, not an effect.

Causal research questions

A causal question asks what a change in one variable does to another. It’s the strongest claim a question can make, so it needs a design that can support it. From an information science PhD:

The word “impact” is only safe because the study behind it is an experiment. Each participant watched one video with accurate subtitles and one with errors, in a random order, so the study could compare the same viewers’ judgments with and without the errors. The question is also followed straight away by a hypothesis predicting which way the effect would go. Use a causal verb like “impact” or “affect” only if your design can carry it, and if it can’t, go back to relational wording.

Exploratory research questions

An exploratory question asks how or why something happens, usually where nobody has mapped it yet. The answer is an account of a process or an experience, not a number. An example from a social work thesis:

The question doesn’t assume what “tension” means. It asks the social workers to define it, which is what makes it exploratory rather than descriptive. But it’s still precise about who (social workers) and where (palliative care settings). An exploratory question is open about the answer, never about the scope, so keep the who and where tight.

Keep in mind that a question doesn’t have to fit one category perfectly. Many sit between two, and that’s fine. What matters is knowing which way yours leans, because that decides the design you’ll have to defend.

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How to write a research question

A strong research question has five qualities: it’s focused, clear, feasible, rooted in a gap and aligned with your aim. Here’s what each one means in practice.

Focused

A strong research question has a single focus. Don’t cram several questions into one. If you find an “and” joining two different things you want to know, split them into separate questions (or sub-questions), each with its own focus. When in doubt, narrow beats broad.

Clear and specific

Say exactly what you want to find out, in words your advisor can understand on first reading. Name the population, the variable and the setting, as the examples above do. And cut the jargon: a question that needs a glossary to parse is hiding something vague.

Feasible

Even a fascinating question is worthless if you can’t answer it with the time, access and skills you have. So think through the methodological implications while you’re drafting: what data you’ll need, where it will come from, and how you’ll analyze it. A great question about hospital staff goes nowhere if no hospital will let you in.

Rooted

Your question should grow out of a clear research gap and a real research problem. Without one, you risk spending a year answering a question the field has already answered and agreed on. Make sure your gap is clearly argued in your literature review, and that your question links directly to it.

Aligned

Your research aim and research question should be tightly linked, as in the coral reef example earlier. Read them side by side. If the question drifts somewhere the aim doesn’t mention, revise one of the two until they match.

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Going from topic to research question

Most students start with a research topic, not a research question, and the hard part is getting from one to the other. Here’s how a broad interest can narrow, step by step, into a question a doctoral student really asked.

1. Topic: School leadership. This is a subject, not a question.
2. Problem: Superintendents keep leaving their jobs. Now there’s something to explain, but nothing to measure yet.
3. Variables: Does grit, or commitment to the organization, have anything to do with who stays? Now you have things you can measure.
4. Population and setting: Active superintendents in the southern United States. Now it’s a study someone could run.

And here’s where that kind of narrowing lands, in an education doctorate:

Notice how each step added one thing: a problem, then measurable variables, then a population and a place. Then the final wording asks about “relationships”, not whether grit makes superintendents stay, which fits a survey of serving superintendents rather than an experiment. When you narrow your own topic, add one element at a time and check at each step whether you could say what data would answer it.

Research question frameworks

Two frameworks come up again and again in guides to research questions. One helps you check a question is worth asking; the other helps you structure it. Both started in health research, and both are useful well beyond it.

FINER is a checklist: a good question is feasible, interesting, novel, ethical and relevant, as Willis sets out in Respiratory Care. Run your draft through all five before your proposal goes in. In my experience, feasibility is the one that catches students out, because it’s the one you can’t fix with better wording.

PICO is a structure for the question itself: population, intervention, comparison and outcome. It fits questions that compare a treatment or exposure against an alternative. The Maryland question above maps onto it neatly, with an exposure (living in a high-disadvantage area) taking the intervention’s place:

PICO fits exploratory questions awkwardly, since there’s often no intervention or comparison at all. For qualitative work, Cooke, Smith and Booth proposed SPIDER (sample, phenomenon of interest, design, evaluation, research type), originally as a tool for searching qualitative literature. You don’t need either framework to write a good question, but running yours through one is a quick way to spot a missing element.

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How many research questions?

It depends on your program, so check your handbook or ask your advisor first. Some programs expect one overarching question broken into sub-questions; others expect a short set of research questions on an equal footing. Most of the dissertations we see state two to four.

Whatever the format, each question should do different work. A useful test is to read your set back as a table of contents for your findings chapter. If two questions would produce the same section, you’ve written one question twice. And order them the way you’ll write them up: a descriptive question often has to be answered before a causal or exploratory one makes sense.

More questions isn’t more impressive. Every extra question means more data, more analysis and more pages, so five or six is usually a sign of scope creep, not ambition.

Still have questions?

What is an example of a good research question?

“How do social workers employed in palliative care settings define and describe the term tension?” is a good research question, taken from a published social work thesis. It names who is being studied, in what setting, and exactly what the study will find out, so you can start to picture the method from the sentence alone. Our research question examples collection has thousands more real ones, sorted by field.

Can a research question be a statement?

A research question is phrased as a question, since that makes clear what you’re setting out to discover. Some programs also ask for research objectives or hypotheses, and those are written as statements. If your handbook uses different labels, follow its format, but keep at least one sentence that ends in a question mark.

Can a research question be too broad or too narrow?

Yes. “Why is mental health important?” is too broad: no single study could answer it. “What is the impact of sleep deprivation on the exam scores of 19-year-old men taking one chemistry course at one college?” is probably too narrow, because the answer tells nobody much beyond that one course. Aim for a population and setting big enough to matter and small enough to study.

Can a research question be a yes/no question?

It can, if a yes or no answer is informative. Quantitative questions often take that form because a statistical test gives a clear answer: one published doctorate asked, “Is there a statistically significant relationship between attending library instruction and GPA for first-time, full-time freshman?” The problem is a yes/no question that ends the study at “yes”. If the interesting part is how, why or how much, word the question to ask that.

Is a research question the same as a hypothesis?

No. A research question asks what you want to find out, while a hypothesis predicts the answer as a testable statement. A question about how subtitle errors affect viewers’ judgments of a speaker, for example, might come with the hypothesis that errors make those judgments more negative. Hypotheses belong mainly to quantitative studies; exploratory questions usually have none, because the point is to find out.

Can I change my research question later?

You can, and it often shifts a little after the literature review. But a real change ripples outward, so you may need to revise your literature review and methodology too. If the new question means different participants or different topics, check whether your ethics approval needs amending before you collect anything. Talk to your advisor before you commit to the change.

Are there other ways to classify research questions?

Yes. At Grad Coach we use five types: descriptive, comparative, relational, causal and exploratory. Some guides use four instead, merging causal and exploratory into “explanatory” questions about why and how, and others classify questions by method, as qualitative or quantitative. If your program uses a particular set of labels, use those. The labels matter much less than knowing what your question asks and what design it needs.

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