32 Consuming Research Articles: The Central Question

We’re going to start light – first, where do we even find the RQs and HYs? Step 1: Locate the central question. Turning it over to your student textbook authors:

Consuming Research Articles: The Central Question

Research questions and hypotheses (also known as RQs and HYs) are super important because they tell you what the researcher wants to answer! It could be “Why are the Cambus’s never on time?” or “Why is Catlett’s dining hall the most popular?” or “Does the presence of Spring Break improves student mood.”

To properly identify a research question and or hypothesis, you first need to know where you can find them.

There are three places:

1. The literature review (embedded or end)- Which is where the question is first stated.
2. The Results- Sometimes authors will re-state the research question in the results section in order to direct the reader to the answer to their original question.
3. Discussion- Where the study is discussed with other primary research. Sometimes authors will re-state or paraphrase their research question(s) and/or hypotheses when they compare what they found to previous research.

DocMC again!: Ok, now. Once upon a time, one of your textbook authors told me that I didn’t need to hammer on some of these concepts (particularly in the experiments unit) because ya’ll learned about independent and dependent variables “in like the 5th grade.” Well, low and behold, 2020 hits and my child was in 100% online school and I have a new, deep, somewhat reluctant understanding of what ya’ll may have learned in 7th grade. And d@mned if she wasn’t right. So, for fun, I’ll sprinkle in questions periodically from one of my son Gabe’s 7th grade science class quizzes. They might look a little something like this:

…Unit 1…Unit 2….Unit 3…Unit 4…Unit 5…Unit 6…Unit 7…Unit 8…Unit 9…Unit 10…Unit 11…Unit 12…Unit 13…Unit 14…Unit 15…Unit 16…

Unit 7: Should you believe those…Methods?

• • Research Questions and Hypotheses [you choose to ask]
  • Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research [brief overview]
  • You said it was called the What’s That Now? Article Navigation
  • Research Questions and Hypotheses [you choose to ask] – Breakout Section!