Table 4.1 Sample research questions: Strengths and weaknesses Sample question Certainly each question may have additional strengths and weaknesses not noted in the table. While reading the table, keep in mind that it only includes some of the most relevant strengths and weaknesses of each question. Let’s take a look at a few more examples of possible research questions and consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of each.
The goal is to make the research question reflect what you really want to know in your study. A standard format for an explanatory quantitative research question is: “What is the relation between and for ?” You should play with the wording for your research question, revising it as you see fit. Questions should ask about the relation between these variables. Structurally, quantitative explanatory questions must contain an independent variable and dependent variable. The editorial board of a journal wants to make sure their content will be useful to as many people as possible, so it’s not surprising that quantitative research dominates the academic literature. They are generalizable across space and time, so they are applicable to a wide audience. Why is that? Explanatory research tries to build something called nomothetic causal explanations.Matthew DeCarlo says “comup with a broad, sweeping explanation that is universally true for all people” is the hallmark of nomothetic causal relationships (DeCarlo, 2018, chapter 7.2, para 5). Most studies you read in the academic literature will be quantitative and explanatory. To do that, we need to use a quantitative explanatory question. Because these are descriptive questions, we cannot investigate causal relationships between variables. Descriptive questions may only include one variable, such as ours about debt load, or they may include multiple variables. Quantitative descriptive questions will often ask for percentage, count the number of instances of a phenomenon, or determine an average. If the scan reveals that the community requires more services related to housing, child care, or day treatment for people with disabilities, a nonprofit office can use the community scan to create new programs that meet a defined community need. Quantitative descriptive questions like this one are helpful in social work practice as part of community scans, in which human service agencies survey the various needs of the community they serve. We’re simply trying to describe how much debt MSW students carry.
We aren’t trying to build a causal relationship here. For example, “What is the average student debt load of MSW students?” is a descriptive question-and an important one. Probably the easiest questions to think of are quantitative descriptive questions. The type of research you are conducting will impact the research question that you ask.
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