Generating IdeasAssoc. Prof. Dr. Şehnaz Şahinkarakaş

How can we generate our focus of inquiry?

• Let’s work on an exercise!• Step 1: Brainstorming• Take out a piece of paper• Think for a few minutes about some topics that interest you and

jot down these topics in a corner of your paper• Select one of the topics and write it in the middle of your paper• For 5 minutes, write down the topics and ideas that relate to the

main topic; connect and cluster similar ideas • When you have finished, see if you have any patterns (e.g. age

group, gender, type of person, etc.)

• Look at your article and tell the focus of inquiry there

Step 2: Developing the Research Question• i) Writing your purpose statement:

• The topic of this study will be …………• This study needs to be conducted because ……..

• Some verbs to be used for purpose statement:

• Explore• Understand• Investigate• Identify• Evaluate• Describe• Interrogate

• Consider the following to write good purpose statement:

• How many participants?• Where (use pseudonyms)• What will you explore? – be specific• If exploring experience, then experience of what? Be narrowly

focused• If exploring perception, then perception of what? Be narrowly

focused• Avoid jargon use as much as possible

• A sample template for a qualitative purpose statement:

• The purpose of this ______________ (narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, case, etc.) study is (was? will be?) to ____________ (understand, describe, develop, discover) the _____________ (central phenomenon of the study) for ______________ (the participants) at (the site). At this stage in the research, the ___________ (central phenomenon) will be generally defined as ____________ (a general definition of the central concept).

• Look at your article and see how the purpose statement is written there.

• Now write your purpose statement using this template

• ii) writing the research question(s)

• Things to remember while writing research questions:• Align them with the research purpose• You can converse the purpose statement into a question• One point of inquiry in one question• Open-ended questions. E.g.

• What are the experiences of …….?• How does a participant describe …….?• In what ways does X play a role in Y?

• Be careful! Close-ended questions are quantitative. E.g.• Does X cause Y?• Do the participants like X more than Y?

• Sample research questions:

• How do 8th-grade students in Turkey perceive the new assessment system?

• What is the role of technology in speaking a foreign language?

• Find the research question in your article (if any)• Now write your research question(s)• Go through other qualitative articles and find out the research

questions.• Compare those research questions in the article with those of

yours