- The different ways that others have investigated the topic of interest can be learned
# Formulating the research question(s)
- As computer science work is generally intangible, part of the purpose of research is to make the idea visible by prototyping in formats that can be tested, critiqued and edited.
- CS students will often come up with a solution rather than a problem.
- Sometimes research questions or theories can be derived from this.
- Questions can be found in the ‘future’ work in other research papers or other sources such as blogs, conferences etc.
- An interesting question has to be theoretically sound too:
- A simple research question might be “Do IDE’s help a student to learn to code better?"
- The question can be reconstructed to critique the idea.
- To start with, the question asks ‘do IDE’s help?” which would lead to a binary Yes or No answer
- A research question is a question that a research project sets out to answer
- A good research question will send the researcher on a quest to identify or collect data that can be analysed and interpreted, such that it provides new insights.
- Originality: what is already known about the topic? Which debate does it add to?
- Relevance: what is the importance or relevance of the topic for stakeholders?
- Research question Rigour: is the question aligned with the methods? Do the research tools generate appropriate data to answer the question?
