Research Design and Search Strategy
Learn to design a research strategy, formulate effective research questions, and systematically search for evidence.
The quality of your research is largely determined by the quality of your research question. A well-formulated question guides your search strategy, helps you evaluate sources, and shapes your analysis.
Formulating Research Questions
A good research question is specific, focused, and researchable. It should be neither too broad (impossible to answer comprehensively) nor too narrow (insufficient evidence available). The PICO framework, developed in medicine, is useful for formulating research questions across many fields.
Broad question: "Does social media affect teenagers?" PICO question: "Among high school students (P), does daily social media use exceeding 3 hours (I), compared to use under 1 hour (C), correlate with higher rates of reported anxiety (O)?" The PICO question is specific, researchable, and guides the search strategy.
Systematic Search Strategy
- Identify key concepts from your research question
- Generate synonyms and related terms for each concept
- Identify appropriate databases for your topic
- Construct search strings using Boolean operators and controlled vocabulary
- Document your search strategy for reproducibility
- Refine based on results — too many? Narrow. Too few? Broaden.
Record every search you conduct — database, search string, date, number of results. This makes your research reproducible, helps you avoid duplicating searches, and is required for systematic reviews.
Ready to test your knowledge?
3 questions · Grade 9 level