Research Question and Hypothesis Exercise

1. Start your assignment with an introductory paragraph about your research topic and why it is of interest and a research “puzzle.” You want to guide your reader from your research area to your research topic, then on to your general research question, and specific research question.
While there are many ways to frame a research question, at the graduate level, your research questions should be 1) open-ended and start with “How,” “Why,” “What,” or “To what extent;” 2) should incorporate the variables you seek to assess and their relationship; and 3) should indicate how you intend to test the nature of that relationship. You want to make sure that your question has an appropriate amount of complexity so that it requires a significant amount of research and analysis. A simple Google search should not be able to answer your research question.