Choosing a Research Question Under Constraints
Marcus wants his Activating Identities and Futures project to explore 'why students don't care about sustainability.' He has 5 weeks, one supervising teacher who specialises in data, no budget, and access only to his own Year 11 cohort of about 90 students. He is passionate about the topic but has never run a survey. His first draft question is broad: 'What makes people care about the environment?' His teacher warns that a project must be researchable within his constraints and must show his own decision-making, not just enthusiasm. Marcus is torn between keeping the big question because it excites him and narrowing it to something feasible.
1. Evaluate Marcus's draft question against his constraints. What should he change, and why?
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The draft question is not researchable within his constraints.
Problems:
- 'What makes people care about the environment?' is too broad - it spans psychology, culture and policy, far beyond 5 weeks and 90 students.
- 'People' is undefined; he can only access his cohort, so the population must match his access.
- It invites opinion, not measurable evidence.
What to change:
- Narrow the population: Year 11 students at his school.
- Narrow the construct: e.g. 'What factors do Year 11 students report as influencing their engagement with sustainability actions?'
- Match method to skill: a short survey he designs, with teacher support, is feasible for a novice.
Why: A feasible question produces analysable evidence and lets him demonstrate decision-making (defining terms, justifying scope). Keeping the grand question guarantees thin, unverifiable findings. The judgement is that excitement should shape the purpose, while constraints shape the question.
2. Marcus worries that narrowing the question makes the project 'less meaningful.' How should he respond to that concern?
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His concern is understandable but rests on a false trade-off.
Reframe:
- Meaning comes from what the findings can do, not from the breadth of the wording. A focused question about his own cohort can produce findings he can actually act on (e.g. recommend a school initiative).
- A broad question often yields vague conclusions that change nothing - which is less meaningful in practice.
How to preserve purpose:
- State the big concern ('why engagement is low') as the motivation, then show how the narrow question is a defensible first step toward it.
- Connect findings back to the larger issue in his reflection, demonstrating that he understands the scope he chose not to tackle and why.
Judgement: Narrowing is a deliberate design decision, not a retreat. Documenting why he narrowed - time, access, skill - is itself evidence of the self-directed reasoning the project rewards.