How to Write a Dissertation Research Question That Gets Accepted

Here's how to write a research question that won't get rejected by your dissertation committee. There are four factors that make the difference between a research question that gets approved and one that gets sent back for revision with a whole bunch of other comments. Avoid yes or no questions. Questions like does social media harm teenagers Are dead ends. Instead, ask how or what factors? Instead of whether a bad example is does remote work affect productivity? Do you see how broad that is? And if you do get an answer, it's just a yes or a no, which isn't very helpful and doesn't exactly reflect real life either. So a good example looks like what workplace factors influence productivity outcomes in remote software teams. Now you can see that's a lot more specific, but it also leaves room for nuance and exploration rather than a simple yes or no point. Number two Find your G and don't reinvent the wheel. Your research needs to build on existing work while also adding something new. Now that something new is likely going to be a very tiny slice of the knowledge pie. One way to find your gap is to look at recent studies and look for the phrase future research should examine or something similar. This gives you a good indication of what already published scholars believe merits future research. Your study could actually look a lot like an existing study, but adapted to cover something that was missed in that or previous studies that describe the same topic. So here are three ways to find your gap. Number one, you could do your study with a different population. For example, if most of the studies on your topic are conducted in urban populations, you could look at the same topic with similar methodology for rural populations. Or you could study different age groups that have been studied previously. Number two, a different context, for example Post pandemic or emerging markets. Number three, a different method. You could do a qualitative follow up to a quantitative study or vice versa. If you're struggling to get your research questions approved, join our free Dissertation Help community where we'll actually give you the support, support and the guidance that you need to graduate. Just click the link in the description to join. Number three is choose something you can actually finish. The biggest mistake I see is students who are genuinely passionate about their topic, but they try to tackle way too much for a dissertation. For example, you might want to study the impact of social media on mental health, but that's a whole series of studies, not a single dissertation. The fix is being extremely specific about your population, your context and what you're measuring. So instead of social media and mental health, try Instagram use and body image perceptions among college aged women at private universities in the Midwest. If your research question sounds like it could be a book title, it's too broad. You need the laser focus to finish in the next 12 to 18 months. And after that you can expand the scope of your studies in future research. And, and that could be research that you're actually getting paid for too. Number four is ensure alignment. Your research question should align with your title and your purpose statement. And you might have heard that before from your committee, but what does that actually mean? Basically, they need to be variations of the same sentence. Where a lot of people get tripped up is their committee says these need to be aligned. And the doctoral candidate says, but they're all talking about the same thing. When you're writing a dissertation, you need to use incredibly precise language. That's part of the adjustment to dissertation writing that people go through. And so that's why when I edited dissertations, I would bring out a sheet of paper and have everybody write their title, problem statement, purpose statement, and research questions down. And if those were all variations of the same sentence, then I knew that their committee wouldn't have any problems with alignment. If those varied, then I know that it would likely be sent back for revisions because of lack of alignment. So here's what that looks like. Now this is going to sound a little bit boring, but I want you to stick with me because this is actually the key to getting your research questions approved. So let's take a title, for example. Employee Perceptions of Remote Work Policy Effects on Team Collaboration in Healthcare Organizations. Okay, so then your problem statement is going to be basically the same thing. It's going to be your title and then fill in is or are unknown. So basically we don't know this. Right? So the effects of remote work policies on team collaboration in healthcare organizations are unknown. Right, so then your purpose statement is going to be. The purpose of this study is to explore then your title again. So the purpose is to explore employee perceptions of how remote work policies affect team collaboration in healthcare organizations. Right? Because it's the same thing that we're repeating over and over. And so now your research questions, it's going to be another variation of that same sentence. What are the perceptions of employees at healthcare organizations regarding the effects of remote work policies on team collaboration? Now I know that's a mouthful, as all dissertation titles are, but I want to drive this home for you because people get stuck on this for months and I don't want you to get stuck in that revision loop with your committee where you keep revising and then you keep getting comments back and then you revise again and your committee says it's still not good enough. I want you to fly through the dissertation writing process as quickly as possible. So again, to write a research question that gets accepted by your committee, it needs to meet these four four one that it's open ended, number two that it fills a specific gap number three that it's narrow and doable with its specific focus and number four that it's aligned with the rest of your proposal, like your title Problem Purpose Statement. If you want more support crafting your research questions or getting your dissertation accepted, join us at the Free Dissertation Help Community. We have free live masterclasses, live Q&As, and a vibrant community of other doctoral candidates who are here to support to you. Just click the link in the description to learn more.