9.2 Quantitative research questions
Learning Objectives
Learners will be able to…
- Describe how research questions for exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory quantitative questions differ and how to phrase them
- Identify the differences between and provide examples of strong and weak explanatory research questions
Quantitative descriptive questions
The type of research you are conducting will impact the research question that you ask. Probably the easiest questions to think of are quantitative descriptive questions. For example, “What is the average student debt load of MSW students?” is a descriptive question—and an important one. We aren’t trying to build a causal relationship here. We’re simply trying to describe how much debt MSW students carry. Quantitative descriptive questions like this one are helpful in social work practice as part of community scans, in which human service agencies survey the various needs of the community they serve. If the scan reveals that the community requires more services related to housing, child care, or day treatment for people with disabilities, a nonprofit office can use the community scan to create new programs that meet a defined community need.
Quantitative descriptive questions will often ask for percentage, count the number of instances of a phenomenon, or determine an average. Descriptive questions may only include one variable, such as ours about student debt load, or they may include multiple variables. Because these are descriptive questions, our purpose is not to investigate causal relationships between variables. To do that, we need to use a quantitative explanatory question.
Quantitative explanatory questions
Most studies you read in the academic literature will be quantitative and explanatory. Why is that? If you recall from Chapter 2, explanatory research tries to build nomothetic causal relationships. They are generalizable across space and time, so they are applicable to a wide audience. The editorial board of a journal wants to make sure their content will be useful to as many people as possible, so it’s not surprising that quantitative research dominates the academic literature.
Structurally, quantitative explanatory questions must contain an independent variable and dependent variable. Questions should ask about the relationship between these variables. The standard format I was taught in graduate school for an explanatory quantitative research question is: “What is the relationship between [independent variable] and [dependent variable] for [target population]?” You should play with the wording for your research question, revising that standard format to match what you really want to know about your topic.
Let’s take a look at a few more examples of possible research questions and consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. Table 9.1 does just that. While reading the table, keep in mind that I have only noted what I view to be the most relevant strengths and weaknesses of each question. Certainly each question may have additional strengths and weaknesses not noted in the table. Each of these questions is drawn from student projects in my research methods classes and reflects the work of many students on their research question over many weeks.
| Sample question | Question’s strengths | Question’s weaknesses | Proposed alternative |
| What are the internal and external effects/problems associated with children witnessing domestic violence? | Written as a question | Not clearly focused | How does witnessing domestic violence impact a child’s romantic relationships in adulthood? |
| Considers relationships among multiple concepts | Not specific and clear about the concepts it addresses | ||
| Contains a population | |||
| What causes foster children who are transitioning to adulthood to become homeless, jobless, pregnant, unhealthy, etc.? | Considers relationships among multiple concepts | Concepts are not specific and clear | What is the relationship between sexual orientation or gender identity and homelessness for late adolescents in foster care? |
| Contains a population | |||
| Not written as a yes/no question | |||
| How does income inequality predict ambivalence in the Stereo Content Model using major U.S. cities as target populations? | Written as a question | Unclear wording | How does income inequality affect ambivalence in high-density urban areas? |
| Considers relationships among multiple concepts | Population is unclear | ||
| Why are mental health rates higher in white foster children than African Americans and other races? | Written as a question | Concepts are not clear | How does race impact rates of mental health diagnosis for children in foster care? |
| Not written as a yes/no question | Does not contain a target population |
Making it more specific
A good research question should also be specific and clear about the concepts it addresses. A student investigating gender and household tasks knows what they mean by “household tasks.” You likely also have an impression of what “household tasks” means. But are your definition and the student’s definition the same? A participant in their study may think that managing finances and performing home maintenance are household tasks, but the researcher may be interested in other tasks like childcare or cleaning. The only way to ensure your study stays focused and clear is to be specific about what you mean by a concept. The student in our example could pick a specific household task that was interesting to them or that the literature indicated was important—for example, childcare. Or, the student could have a broader view of household tasks, one that encompasses childcare, food preparation, financial management, home repair, and care for relatives. Any option is probably okay, as long as the researcher is clear on what they mean by “household tasks.” Clarifying these distinctions is important as we look ahead to specifying how your variables will be measured in Chapter 11.
Table 9.2 contains some “watch words” that indicate you may need to be more specific about the concepts in your research question.
| Watch words | How to get more specific |
| Factors, Causes, Effects, Outcomes | What causes or effects are you interested in? What causes and effects are important, based on the literature in your topic area? Try to choose one or a handful you consider to be the most important. |
| Effective, Effectiveness, Useful, Efficient | Effective at doing what? Effectiveness is meaningless on its own. What outcome should the program or intervention have? Reduced symptoms of a mental health issue? Better socialization? |
| Etc., and so forth | Don’t assume that your reader understands what you mean by “and so forth.” Remember that focusing on two or a small handful concepts is necessary. Your study cannot address everything about a social problem, though the results will likely have implications on other aspects of the social world. |
It can be challenging to be this specific in social work research, particularly when you are just starting out your project and still reading the literature. If you’ve only read one or two articles on your topic, it can be hard to know what you are interested in studying. Broad questions like “What are the causes of chronic homelessness, and what can be done to prevent it?” are common at the beginning stages of a research project as working questions. However, moving from working questions to research questions in your research proposal requires that you examine the literature on the topic and refine your question over time to be more specific and clear. Perhaps you want to study the effect of a specific anti-homelessness program that you found in the literature. Maybe there is a particular model to fighting homelessness, like Housing First or transitional housing, that you want to investigate further. You may want to focus on a potential cause of homelessness such as LGBTQ+ discrimination that you find interesting or relevant to your practice. As you can see, the possibilities for making your question more specific are almost infinite.
Quantitative exploratory questions
In exploratory research, the researcher doesn’t quite know the lay of the land yet. If someone is proposing to conduct an exploratory quantitative project, the watch words highlighted in Table 9.2 are not problematic at all. In fact, questions such as “What factors influence the removal of children in child welfare cases?” are good because they will explore a variety of factors or causes. In this question, the independent variable is less clearly written, but the dependent variable, family preservation outcomes, is quite clearly written. The inverse can also be true. If we were to ask, “What outcomes are associated with family preservation services in child welfare?”, we would have a clear independent variable, family preservation services, but an unclear dependent variable, outcomes. Because we are only conducting exploratory research on a topic, we may not have an idea of what concepts may comprise our “outcomes” or “factors.” Only after interacting with our participants will we be able to understand which concepts are important.
Remember that exploratory research is appropriate only when the researcher does not know much about topic because there is very little scholarly research. In our examples above, there is extensive literature on the outcomes in family reunification programs and risk factors for child removal in child welfare. Make sure you’ve done a thorough literature review to ensure there is little relevant research to guide you towards a more explanatory question.
Key Takeaways
- Descriptive quantitative research questions are helpful for community scans but cannot investigate causal relationships between variables.
- Explanatory quantitative research questions must include an independent and dependent variable.
- Exploratory quantitative research questions should only be considered when there is very little previous research on your topic.
Exercises
TRACK 1 (IF YOU ARE CREATING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR THIS CLASS):
- Identify the type of research you are engaged in (descriptive, explanatory, or exploratory).
- Create a quantitative research question for your project that matches with the type of research you are engaged in.
Preferably, you should be creating an explanatory research question for quantitative research.
TRACK 2 (IF YOU AREN’T CREATING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR THIS CLASS):
Imagine you are studying health care disparities in communities of color and are interested in learning more about culturally appropriate interventions.
- Based on the research question you developed in the previous section, identify what type of research you would be conducting. Is this research project descriptive, explanatory, or exploratory?
- What factors justify your answer?