A vital component of the online educator’s toolkit is a strategy for investigating the effectiveness of your own teaching, especially when you’re experimenting with new technologies and pedagogies. Whether you decide to carry out a major piece of research or a smaller SoTL study, such a strategy will usually involve one or more research questions, a research approach and one or more research methods.

Research questions are at the heart of all research, SoTL, and evaluation. Any form of research, whether it’s an evaluation of the use of iPads in a primary school or a study of the behaviour of seal pups in the Arctic, needs to be shaped by at least one research question that states what the investigator is trying to find out. The research question(s) will inform all stages of the process, from choosing data collection methods, to identifying participants and managing ethical dilemmas.

One way of deciding whether a research question is useful is to consider whether it is SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bounded)

• Specific – is it clear, concise and focused on a single issue or topic?
• Measurable – is it possible to collect and analyse relevant data?
• Attainable – can it realistically be answered with the time and resources available?
• Relevant – does it address a significant issue that is of interest to others?
• Time-bounded – can it be answered taking into account the time available?

In the above video, you’ll learn about how to write effective research questions. As you watch, think about how you might write a research question for a topic you’re interested in researching. This might be inspired by one of the SoTL podcasts you listened to on the previous step, form the basis for an investigation of an issue that is particularly relevant in your own context, or be directly connected with your own teaching.

© The Open University

© Video: Laurier Library. CC-BY