Physical Education Research Guide

Taking the time to carefully choose and refine your topic can save you significant time and effort later in your research.

Use these sources to gain familiarity with your topic, narrow your research question, provide context, and identify experts

Steps to Writing a Research Question

Writing a research question is one of the most crucial steps in the research process. 

Research Questions should be manageable, answerable, and worth investigating.

What to do: 

1. Choose a topic that interests you.
2. Find the best type of research question (examples below).
3. Find a good framework, PICO (Population, Intervention, Context, Outcome) is great for health and science research questions.
4. Use the FINER criteria to write your question.

F = Feasible to research, manage, and answer.

I = Interesting to you and other researchers in your field.

N = Novel and unique from other research in your field or on the specific subject.

E= Ethical in how you conduct the research and report out your research findings.

R = Relevant to work being done in the field, but also to the broader world scope.

Types of Research Questions:

Descriptive questions seek to explain when, where, why, or how something occurred.

Exploratory questions seek to learn more about a topic.

Predictive questions anticipate outcomes based on identified variables.

Interpretive questions interprets how a group reacts to a shared experience.

Comparative questions compare one event with another.

Relationship-Based questions seek to know how one variable affects another.