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PSYC/LING 375: Psychology of Language

Course Research Guide for PSYC/LING 375

Developing Your Research Question

A strong research question covers a well-defined and well-studied area of research. Strong research topics/questions are:

  • focused
  • clear and simple
  • manageable and measurable
  • consistent with assignment requirements
  • of interest to you

A broad topic has literally thousands of articles on it, and you won't be able to adequately cover it in your literature review. It will be far easier for you to research and write your literature review if you develop a strong, focused research question:

Do some exploratory research on your topic idea, in your course textbook, class notes, and PsycINFO to identify specific issues, arguments, and analytical approaches in your research area and then identify possible relationships between them. 

Ask yourself questions about your topic idea. What concepts, issues, or other aspects of this topic interest you? What have people said about it? What gaps, contradictions, or concerns arise as you learn more about it? What relationships are there between different aspects of the topic?

Focus your topic: Use the information from your exploratory research to identify a few of the specific aspects that interest you and then use the questions you had about those to create your research question.

Choose a current topic: Your goal is to summarize and evaluate current findings of an area of research. Pick a research topic about which articles are continuing to be published. Avoid defunct or little-known areas of research. 

Write about what interests you: Professors want students to write about topics that they care about. If you're interested in the topic, it will be more fun for you to write your paper and probably more fun for your professor to read it, too.

Ask your course professor for feedback on your research question.

Example

General topic: children's language learning

Do some preliminary research: Look up children’s language learning in my course textbook and online to identify aspects of this topic that interest me.

Brainstorm questions about your topic to focus it: What influences children's language learning? What specific processes are involved in children's language learning? What aspects of language learning are easier or harder? Can children learn multiple languages at once?

Write about what interests you: I decide I'm most interested in the ways that young children learn language, and specifically in how young children learn language from TV.

Narrower Topic: Can young children learn language from watching TV?

Testable Question: Do young children under 5 years of age learn words from watching TV? 

Picking Your Topic IS Research

Once you've picked a research topic for your paper, it isn't set in stone. It's just an idea that you will test and develop through exploratory research. This exploratory research may guide you into modifying your original idea for a research topic. Watch this video for more info:

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