Research Question Generator

Every example below is invented to show the shape of a good question. Each one names a population, a setting and a focus, and none can be answered with yes or no. Use these research question examples as models, not as questions to hand in.

Psychology

• Quantitative: What is the relationship between hours of part-time work and perceived stress among juniors at a public high school in Ohio?
• Qualitative: How do student athletes at a Division II university describe the mental health support offered by their athletic department?

Nursing

• Quantitative: What is the difference in catheter-associated urinary tract infection rates before and after a nurse-driven catheter removal protocol on two ICUs in a Texas teaching hospital?
• Qualitative: How do new graduate nurses in their first year at a rural Georgia hospital experience night-shift work?

For clinical questions with an intervention and a comparison, the PICOT Question Generator structures the question element by element.

Education

• Quantitative: To what extent does weekly retrieval practice predict unit test scores in 9th-grade biology classes at one suburban district in Illinois?
• Qualitative: How do community college students in Arizona decide whether to take developmental math online or in person?

Business

• Quantitative: How does offering free shipping thresholds relate to average order value for small online retailers on a single e-commerce platform?
• Qualitative: What do restaurant owners in New Orleans identify as the main reasons servers leave within six months?

History

• Qualitative (source-based): How did African American newspapers in Chicago frame the Great Migration between 1916 and 1925?
• Comparative: How did New Deal relief programs in Oklahoma and Kansas differ in who they reached during the Dust Bowl years?

Environmental science

• Quantitative: How does tree canopy cover relate to summer surface temperatures across neighborhoods in Phoenix?
• Qualitative: How do residents of a Louisiana coastal parish describe their decisions about whether to relocate after repeated flooding?

Learning how to write a research question is mostly learning how to narrow. George Mason University's Writing Center suggests choosing a topic, doing preliminary reading, considering your audience, asking open-ended "how" and "why" questions, and then checking that the question is clear, focused, concise, complex and arguable; its guide on how to write a research question walks through examples. Here is the same process applied to one invented topic.

1. Start with a broad topic

Social media and teenagers. Fine as a starting point, far too big to answer.

2. Read what's already known

Skim a few recent articles or your textbook. You might notice that sleep comes up again and again. Now the topic is social media and sleep in teenagers.

3. Name who and where

Pick a population you could actually reach and a setting: 11th graders at two public high schools in Austin, Texas.

4. Choose what to measure or explore

Quantitative: social media use after 10 p.m. and self-reported sleep duration. Qualitative: how students describe their bedtime phone habits.

5. Turn it into an open question

"What is the relationship between social media use after 10 p.m. and self-reported sleep duration among 11th graders at two public high schools in Austin, Texas?"

Then test it. Can you get the data in the time you have? Would anyone outside your class care about the answer? If not, narrow or adjust again. The research question generator does steps 3 to 5 for you, and Narrow it and Broaden it repeat step 3 until the scope fits.

Many research methods courses, especially in health sciences, test questions against the acronym FINER: Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical and Relevant. East Tennessee State University's medical library lists FINER (and the longer FINERMAPS) in its guide to formulating a strong research question. Your course may use a different checklist, so follow your rubric.

What each letter asks

• Feasible: Can you reach enough participants or sources, in the time you have, with the skills and money you have?
• Interesting: Do you, your instructor and your field want the answer?
• Novel: Does it add something, even if only a new population or setting?
• Ethical: Could it be done without harm, and would an institutional review board (IRB) approve it? Studies with people, especially minors, usually need approval.
• Relevant: Would the answer matter to practice, policy or future research?

How the tool uses FINER

Each question's Researchable because note looks at it through a FINER lens. It does not claim the question is novel or feasible; it can't search the literature or know your access. Check novelty with a library database search, and check feasibility with your instructor.

Every question comes with three notes, and automated checks flag common problems under Things to check.

The three notes

• Researchable because: why the question could be answered with evidence a student can collect or access.
• Still to decide: what is missing, such as sample access, ethics approval, time or definitions.
• To tighten it: one concrete way to make it more specific.

The automated checks

• Yes/no questions. "Does homework help students?" is flagged, with a suggestion to ask how, what, to what extent or in what ways.
• Too broad. A question that reads as too big for one study gets a nudge to add a population, setting, time frame or one variable.
• No population. If the question doesn't say who it is about, the tool asks you to add a group or say that it is deliberately broad.
• Causal wording. "Effect" or "impact" in a qualitative or non-experimental question is flagged, because those designs can't show cause.
• Claims that something works. A question that assumes its own answer (such as "…is effective…" or "…significantly improves…") is flagged so you can phrase it as what the study will compare.

These checks help you spot problems; they don't replace your instructor, supervisor or an ethics review. Under Decisions that would sharpen these, the tool may also list choices you could make, such as which state or age group.

Under More options, Academic level offers Any level, Undergraduate, Master's and Doctoral. The level changes the ambition of the questions, not just the vocabulary.

High school

Leave the level on Any level and describe your class in the topic, for example "AP Research project on school start times". Keep the scope small: one school, one grade, data you can collect with a survey or from public records. Studies that survey other students may need approval from your teacher or school.

Undergraduate

Narrow and feasible with modest data. Typical for a psychology methods course, a nursing evidence-based practice project or a capstone: one population, one setting, a semester's timeline.

Master's and doctoral

More complex designs and an expectation of an original contribution. The tool still can't judge novelty, so a literature review comes first.

Setting your discipline

Discipline includes Nursing & health sciences, Psychology, Education, Business & management, Social sciences, Humanities & arts and more. It shapes the conventions and terms the research question generator uses.

These are invented, but they are the patterns instructors see most.

Too broad

• Weak: How does social media affect mental health?
• Better: How do 10th graders at one Minnesota high school describe the role of Instagram in their friendships?

Answerable with yes or no

• Weak: Do later school start times improve grades?
• Better: What is the relationship between a district's switch to an 8:30 a.m. start and first-period attendance at its two high schools?

Already answered by a quick search

• Weak: What percentage of nurses work 12-hour shifts?
• Better: How do nurses on 12-hour shifts at one Florida hospital describe their recovery between shifts?

Assumes the answer

• Weak: Why is online learning worse than in-person classes?
• Better: How do final exam scores in an online and an in-person section of the same college algebra course compare?

Two questions in one

• Weak: How does sleep affect grades and what can schools do about it?
• Better: Split it into a measured question about sleep and grades and a separate qualitative research question about school policies.

Select Use this question and the tool saves the question, its approach and its population and setting on your device. The next research tools can then pre-fill from it.

• Research Objective Generator: one general objective and three to five specific objectives that match your question.
• Research Problem Generator: a problem statement explaining why the question matters.
• PICOT Question Generator: for nursing and clinical questions that compare an intervention with an alternative.
• Research Paper Title Generator: titles built from your question and method.
• Research Paper Introduction Generator and Abstract Generator: later, when you write up.

Put titles into the right capitalization with the Case Converter, and keep an eye on length with the Word Counter.

Yes. The research question generator is free, with no account or sign-up.

Your topic and any details you add, plus anything you saved from other research tools, are sent to our AI providers (Groq, with Google Gemini as a backup) only to generate your questions. The Study Corp does not save them. When you select Use this question, it is stored in your own browser so the next tools can pre-fill. When a research tool uses something you saved, it shows it at the top of the form with a remove link and a Clear everything saved on this device option.

Drafts, not final answers

The questions are drafts to refine. Check them with your instructor, and follow your school's policy on AI tools.