research questions

Avatar for Eska

Hi forum folks, are there any humanities people out there who know about research questions? Things like, how many secondary research questions should you have, is five too many? It seems like a lot to me, maybe I should try to merge some of them. But I don't know... Does anybody out there have a clue?

Your wisdom would be muchh appreciated. XX

P

well, most people would opt for three to four questions. i think having an extra question would be okay as long as it is *focused* towards answering the primary question.

example?

PRIMARY QUESTION
is there a difference in the guidance approaches of a teacher and a mentor?

SECONDARY QUESTION
Q1 : what is the guidance approach of a teacher? (focused)
Q2 : what is the guidance approach of a mentor? (focused)
Q3 : how can the comparison between them be performed? (focused)
Q4 : how do the guidance approaches by a teacher and mentor differ? (focused)

Q5a : in which situation is the guidance approach employed by a mentor better than a teacher (not focused)

Q5b : how are the guidance approaches between a teacher and a mentor similar? (focused)

u can clearly see that Q5a is not focused towards the primary question because it emphasizes on the suitability of the difference in term of context and not the difference per se.

Q5b is still focused because similarity is practically the opposite of difference.

hope it helps.

Avatar for Eska

Yes that really does help. A lot! Thank you... Your examples are particularly useful. FAB!

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