MDIA5031 Chap.2 Research Questions and Scope

Research Questions and Scope

Research Questions and Scope focuses on topic, boundary, verb and method. A research question converts curiosity into a decision about evidence; It names a phenomenon, sets a boundary, and uses a verb that a permitted method can answer; Questions framed as “how” or “in what ways” often suit interpretive projects;

questions about recurring categories may suit content analysis; A broad topic such as health misinformation is not yet a question because it does not specify a platform, population, corpus, period, or analytic relationship;

Scope is an argument about what can be learned with the available time and access; Tightening a project is not making it trivial; It means choosing a small corpus that can be examined systematically and explaining what that sample can and cannot represent;

A useful feasibility test checks access, ethics, volume, method fit, and the time needed to collect, transcribe or code; The final wording should remain answerable by evidence, avoid assuming the conclusion, and connect to a gap established in the literature;

What this chapter covers

• 01

  Research Questions and Scope: central decision route

• 02

  Topic evidence and boundary boundaries

• 03

  Verb decisions and difficult cases

• 04

  Method limits and transparent reporting

• 05

  Research scope in the project audit trail

Apply the research questions and scope decision rule

Key terms

Research scope

The explicit boundary around the phenomenon, population, context, corpus and period a study will examine.

Feasibility

The practical ability to complete collection and analysis ethically with the available access, time and resources.

Question verb

The action expressed by a research question, which signals the kind of evidence and analytical claim required.

Research Questions and Scope FAQ

Assessment move

A research question converts curiosity into a decision about evidence; It names a phenomenon, sets a boundary, and uses a verb that a permitted method can answer; Questions framed as “how” or “in what ways” often suit interpretive projects;

questions about recurring categories may suit content analysis; A broad topic such as health misinformation is not yet a question because it does not specify a platform, population, corpus, period, or analytic relationship;

Scope is an argument about what can be learned with the available time and access; Tightening a project is not making it trivial; It means choosing a small corpus that can be examined systematically and explaining what that sample can and cannot represent;

A useful feasibility test checks access, ethics, volume, method fit, and the time needed to collect, transcribe or code; The final wording should remain answerable by evidence, avoid assuming the conclusion, and connect to a gap established in the literature;

A useful narrowing sequence identifies the communicative object, the actors or audience, the setting, the period and the relationship of interest; Read the final wording as if you were the method: if no observable material could answer the verb, revise it;

Then test whether the answer would matter to the literature rather than merely describe an available dataset; Read the proposed question against three possible answers; If a simple yes or no would satisfy it, the wording may not invite enough analysis;

If no available evidence could settle it, the claim is too ambitious; If several methods could answer entirely different versions, clarify which meaning, pattern or account the project actually seeks; Try the question on one imaginary answer and one contrary answer;

Both should remain possible under the wording; otherwise the project has built its preferred conclusion into the question before evidence is examined; Keep the final verb consistent across the title, question, method and conclusion so the project does not change purpose silently;

A question asks whether social media causes distrust, but the project can only analyse posts; Repair it; Replace the causal claim with a question about how distrust is represented or framed in a defined corpus, then state the corpus boundary;

The topic still covers every platform and audience; What is the next narrowing move; Choose the communicative setting, actors, period and phenomenon whose relationship can be examined with the available method; Compare the selected verb with the obtainable corpus, then narrow any promise the evidence cannot answer;

The scope account must show why the bounded evidence can answer this question and no broader one; Research Questions and Scope decision vocabulary: delimitation answerability operationalisation temporality platform-specificity attainability falsifiability causality discoverability granularity relationality tractability phenomenon-boundary time-window actor-group comparison-axis evidence-noun question-verb scope-creep access-test