Activity 2.2.1: Formulating your Research Question - Conteptualisation

How can you identify the research problem, develop your research question, and narrow it down to a big enough study?

Conceptualisation is a process that is often overlooked when identifying a research topic and problem that is defensible and researchable. Moving quickly from the research topic to data collection will likely end up in unconnected pieces of information that hold little value for the researcher or the target audience. Importantly, this will also lead to a lack of analytical focus and clarity (Aurini, Heath, & Howells, 2021).

FIRST STEP OF CONCEPTUALISATION: DEFINE TOPIC (WHAT YOU WANT TO STUDY)

Being a researcher is an inherently curious endeavour that may begin with any inspiration you have in your discipline, subfield, profession or a particular event. It could also start with any questions or interests that you have in various topics (Aurini, Heath, & Howells, 2021). However, decisions (and sacrifices) will have to be made to ensure a coherent research design.

It is helpful at this stage to conduct some initial “digging” or preliminary literature to provide some background and inspiration. This is a crucial first step, but not a last step, that saves time and limits mistakes when choosing a topic, in the process of writing your literature review or defending your research proposal to a reviewer (Aurini, Heath, & Howells, 2021).

Aurini, Heath, & Howells (2021) provide a toolkit to assist in generating ideas: Having consulted these sources, the authors suggest that you first identify key theories, terminologies, concepts, methods, data and interpretations presented in the literature. Second identify what is not known, missing or problematic in the literature. It is important to continuously critically examine the literature throughout the process (Aurini, Heath, & Howells, 2021).