Criteria for Crafting Robust Research Questions in Social Science Inquiry

Formulation of a good research question is a determinant to the quality and contribution of the research. Designing of questions in a study helps to define the scope of inquiry in terms of design, methodology and the like. On the other hand, formulating the research question can be frustrating and challenging for some researchers. As a result, it can deteriorate the quality of research. The study used Google Scholars and Research Gate to perform systematic literature reviews from journal articles. The study used Google Scholar and Research Gate to perform systematic literature review of journal articles. The search was conducted over two months, focusing on keywords including i“/ifeatures of good research questions,” “criteria for developing a good research question,” and “formulation of research question”. Keywords, databases and Boolean operator strategies (OR/AND) were utilised to target the relevant studies. A total of 30 journal articles were initially retrieved from the databases. The inclusion criteria included: (1) Peer-reviewed journals, (2) English language publications, (3) papers discussing criteria to be considered when developing research questions, (4) articles published between 2011 and 2025. Exclusion criteria were based on duplication and articles that did not address how to develop research questions. As a result, 22 articles were excluded, and only 8 articles were used for analysis. Furthermore, thematic analysis was employed to analyse the selected articles. Each article was examined carefully and relevant sections was manually coded. The results indicated that the acronym (FINER) to represent feasibility (F), interesting (I), novel (N), ethical (E), relevant (R) are the most essential criteria that should be taken into consideration while formulating research questions. Other criteria are manageable, appropriate, publishable and systematic. To make meaningful and impactful research, there is a need to consider essential criteria for developing quality questions.