Research Questions and Hypotheses

All dissertations answer at least one research question (and/or hypothesis). A poorly constructed research question (and/or hypothesis) will not only be much more challenging to answer, but will also make it difficult for the person marking your dissertation to understand what you are trying to achieve.

The purpose of this Research Questions and Hypotheses section is to help you understand the different goals of research questions/hypotheses, the different types of research questions/hypotheses you can answer, how they should be structured, and whether you should create research questions or hypotheses.

The first factor you need to consider is the broad type of dissertation that you are following, whether a quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods dissertation. At this point, we only take you through quantitative research questions, which you may choose to answer in quantitative dissertations. However, please leave feedback if you would like to know when we launch sections helping you learn about hypotheses (research and null hypotheses), qualitative research questions and mixed methods research questions.