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Research Topic and Question

  • 17 Lessons
  • 45min
  • 4.7 Reviews

This module is here to help you find a compelling topic to study. You will learn how to construct research questions to guide your inquiry and identify what matters to you and your community. The module is divided into four sections, each building upon the previous one to help you grow and refine your research topic and questions.

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Course Features
  • 17 lessons
  • 4 Sections
  • 45 mins on-demand video
  • 6 downloadable resources
  • 10 Knowledge Checks
  • 10 Self-paced Learning Activities
  • Access on mobile and PC
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What you’ll learn

  • Discover: Get acquainted with choosing a meaningful research topic that will have a lasting impact.
  • Connect: Learn how to determine project context and scope. 
  • Engage: Learn the art of asking research questions based on your interests and values.  
  • Become: Dive into research from different perspectives and disciplines.

Learn the Art of Academic Research

Gain the skills to navigate, evaluate, and synthesize scholarly literature, ensuring your research is grounded in credible and relevant sources.

Build a Strong Foundation for Your Literature Review

Learn how to effectively identify key themes, trends, and gaps in the literature, positioning your work at the forefront of academic conversations.

Boost Your Research
Confidence

Through interactive activities, this module equips you with the tools and strategies to conduct thorough, impactful literature reviews that stand out.

Here’s What’s Covered

:Explore These Resources to Enhance Your Research Skills

In this section, you’ll learn how to pick a research topic that reflects what you care about, what you want to learn more about, and what matters in your community. You’ll also learn how to recognize a problem, situation, or issue that’s worth investigating in a specific context and within a specific timeframe. As you can see, the first step in research is identifying a problem or area of study. For the researcher, this means that they’ve discovered a gap, which could be theoretical or practical, that could be addressed by exploring concepts or their relationships or by proposing projects or action plans.

This leads to another question: is research limited to the investigation of problems, or can it also involve exploring successes? The answer is that there’s no such limitation. Research can also explore success stories to see if they can be replicated. Understanding the mechanics of what benefits communities allows us to come up with and test new strategies in other areas.

After completing this section, you will be able to:

  • Differentiate between general topics and researchable problems by defining a research topic within specific contexts, time frames, and theories.
  • List research topics that address community needs and that contribute to broader social or economic change.
  • Select a research topic that aligns with your interests or community needs
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In this section, you will explore your research interests and issues that matter in your community, as you work towards writing a research question that will guide your project. You will define your research context and project scope, and consider the target population, geographic location, and timeframe for your study.

You will also practice with tools that help align your research with social and economic issues.  Throughout this section, you will reflect on how your values, beliefs, and experiences inform your research. 

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Define the scope of your research, including the target population, geographic location, and timeframe. 
  • Reflect on the context of your research, including social, economic, cultural, political, and historical factors that may impact the outcomes of your study.  
  • Describe the importance of your research topic for a chosen community or population. 
  • Apply tools, such as PICOT, to inform the writing of your research question so that your research aligns with your interests and values. 
Go to Section

In this section, you will learn how to craft a research question for different types of studies, including both quantitative and qualitative. Your research question will include key elements, such as: the topic, a potential intervention or solution to your problem, research scope, target population, as well as possible benefits and outcomes of your research. By exploring examples and practicing different approaches, you will develop questions that align with your research interests, values, and disciplinary assumptions.

After completing this section, you will be able to…

  • Reflect on how your personal and disciplinary lens shape the research questions that guide your inquiry.  
  • Identify the characteristics of questions aligned with quantitative and qualitative types of research.  
  • Write research questions that incorporate your research topic, intervention, scope, target population, and anticipated outcomes. 
  • Develop questions that reflect your research interests, ethical commitments, and disciplinary assumptions. 
Go to Section

In this section, you’ll learn from experienced scholars conducting research with humans, wildlife, and micro-organisms in the lab and on the land in mountainous regions and semi-arid environments. You’ll hear about their research – what motivates them, their research questions, target populations and context, and the impact of their work on local and global communities. You’ll gain insights into what research can look like and hear stories first-hand from TRU Scholars making a difference in our communities.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Describe examples of different types of research.  
  • Determine how to select a research topic that resonates personally.  
  • Identify factors that inform a research study, including how different factors influence the questions asked and the project context and scope.  
  • Connect with researchers from a variety of disciplines and topics.  
  • Notice disciplinary differences between researchers, including how questions are phrased and the methods chosen to investigate a problem or issue.  
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