In choosing the topic consider the following:
• Does the topic motivate you to research and discover?
• How might the research impact future studies?
• Will you be able to fulfill and evidence the outcomes outlined in the assignment?
The next step is to identify a research gap. On the basis of research gap generate a research question(s):
- How and why questions are preferred
- Causal question: how A impacts B
- Exploratory questions are ok if the field is understudied
- The research aims to address proposed question
- Questions should be researchable
- Operationalization
After that, you can start thinking about what kind of research is the most suitable for the chosen topic.
There exist different types of research – explore, explain, describe.
Exploratory: when topic is not yet well-studied or you do not know about the topic well enough yet.
Descriptive: to describe or define particular phenomenon (e.g., Policies, marketing, relevance part/context).
Explanatory: why questions, cause-effect, testing hypothesis with pre-existing theory.