Undergraduate Research

Resources for course-based undergraduate research experiences

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Research is a non-linear process that starts with asking a question and going on a quest to find answers and further understand the topic of interest.

Choosing a Topic

Your first step will be to choose a topic within the subject that you're interested in exploring.

Watch the following video on how you can identify a good research topic:

Key Takeaways

Make sure it is a topic that you can spend a great amount of time exploring
Consider the amount of time that you have to cover the topic and to do your research
Is there data available and accessible for the topic?

Developing a Research Question

Now that you have decided on a topic, what question(s) do you want to ask?

Consider using the following table to develop your research question:

Topic

The topic that you chose in the previous step

Underlying problems

What are the issues within the topic that you're interested in investigating?

Narrow it down

Out of all the problems, what are you interested in tackling?

Research question

What question do you want to ask? Be specific.

Social significance

Why is your question worth asking?

To clarify and refine your question, and ensure that it has all the necessary components of your research, you can use the following frameworks as appropriate to your topic:

PICO

SPIDER

P	Population/Problem	Who and/or what is my question focused on?
I	Intervention	What intervention is being implemented?
C	Comparison	What intervention is this being compared to?
O	Outcomes	What do you hope to accomplish, improve or affect?

S	Sample	Who is the group of people you're looking at?
PI	Phenomenon of Interest	Instead of an intervention, what behaviour, decision or idea are you investigating?
D	Design	What method(s) are you using (e.g., interviews or surveys)?
E	Evaluation	What is the outcome being measured?
R	Research type	Is your research qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods?

Alternatively for qualitative research questions, you can use the following self-test to clarify and refine your question:

	Is my question open-ended?
	Is there any vocabulary that may be too vague or jargon?
	If I am looking at a population, are they identified in my question?

Libraries & Cultural Resources

Research Guides