What is a Research Question?

Here at We All Count, we spend a lot of time talking about research questions. Step 3 of the Data Equity Framework is Project Design, and that’s where you want to embed equity while crafting your research question(s), but in order to that, you need to know what a research question is.

A data project research question defines what information you want from the data, written in a way that is concrete, measurable and can be answered with data.

Research questions are used in corporate marketing, public policy, academia, UX design, mission-driven organizations and more. Basically, any time you’re trying to get specific answers from data, you have a research question. Some data projects are made up of many research questions, while others are trying to answer just one.

Example: If we’re working for an organization that is trying to improve the school performance of students by making sure they have access to a healthy breakfast, one of our research questions might be:

“Did math test scores increase for the students who participated in our breakfast club at least once a week?” — This question is specific, measurable and can be answered with data.

Things that are not research questions:

“Is our program working?” — This question is too general, it’s more related to the overall…