Defining Research Questions
For this assignment you need to have chosen one topic for your team project. This topic will likely be very broad. Your next goal is to narrow down what you actually want to communicate about this topic:
To do so follow these steps:
- Brainstorm a list of stakeholders for your project. These can be individuals, groups or organizations who can be ultimately impacted by the topic you want to communicate about. Write down a list of at least 10 possible stakeholders.
- Pick one target stakeholders you are particularly interested in. Write down at least 3 exploratory questions they might have regarding your topic. Pay attention to the qualities of good research questions discussed in class.
For example:
My topic is human sugar consumption.
Possible stakeholders include: parents, school officials, nutritionists, the general public, policy makers, journalists, the sugar industry, supermarkets, ethnographers, bakers
I am particularly interested in parents as stakeholders. They might ask themselves:
- what are historic trends in sugar consumption among children and how does this correlate with consumption of other foods?
- if sugar consumption of my children is higher than average, what do kids in other cultures eat where sugar consumption is lower on average?
- how does sugar consumption for children compare to the consumption for adults and its possible effects on health?
Submitting the Assignment
WHAT - To complete the assignment you should: Add the following slides to your existing slide deck:
- One title slide saying "Assignment 2"
- One slide with the topic you picked
- One slide with the list of stakeholders you identified
- One slide with the stakeholder that is of most interest to your team
- One slide with 3 exploratory research questions for your topic and stakeholder
WHEN - Assignment 2 has to be finished before the next class on Oct 1st.
You will give a very brief 3min presentation in which you present your choices and questions.