Since 2017, the Right Question Institute, a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been working in collaboration with Brandeis University to adapt the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) so researchers may formulate better, more transformative research questions.
As co-principal investigator on this National Science Foundation-funded work, I have worked with hundreds of doctoral researchers in both public and private institutions of higher education. I have learned more about how a powerful, simple, and discrete strategy for producing, working with, improving, and using questions may help catalyze more effective, transformative research. The emerging findings from this work are promising and have led to the development of the Question Formulation Technique for Research (QFT-R). The QFT-R is a customized version of the technique designed to aid individual researchers in generating, identifying, and sharpening research questions.
As a result of this project, I have seen how doctoral students, after a one-hour experience with the QFT-R, feel more confident in their ability to ask questions, feel as though they are more effective and efficient at formulating research questions, and value differently the role of question formulation in the research process.
One aspect of the work I continue to develop and advance this academic year is how to teach doctoral students to formulate research questions that will have societal impact. Historically, the incentive structure in higher education does not reward the advancement of societally impactful research. Some of these structures are beginning to change and adapt; a 2018 editorial in Nature captures well how some newly established journals and adapted funding models are now better at rewarding research that effects more immediate, societal change. The National Science Foundation’s inclusion of broader impacts criterion in the grant process also indicates how large foundations and agencies now prioritize and value research that can effect positive change on the ground so all individuals may benefit from the groundbreaking work conducted at research universities. Organizations, such as Advancing Research in Society, provide resources and opportunities so academics and researchers can better engage in societally impactful research with stakeholders and demonstrate the impact of their research.
Further, a growing emphasis on the role of interdisciplinary research for tackling some of the most intricate, global challenges we face underlies this discourse on how to conduct research, not simply for society, but also with society. Indeed, it is essential that diverse perspectives are included in the research process if it is to benefit society, and including many different stakeholders during the question formulation process might lead to more holistic research that better targets underlying problems affecting society.
While there is some systemic change and the discourse on effective research is evolving, there is still a need to deliberately foster learning environments where researchers have the opportunity to hone the necessary skills for this changing landscape. These skills include:
- Facilitating interdisciplinary research.
- Thinking about broader impacts and societal impact.
- Including many diverse stakeholders in the process.
And what better place in the research process to foster these abilities than during question formulation?
An Active Learning Session on Interdisciplinary Research Approaches to Question Formulation
To this end, in collaboration with Dr. Dan Rothstein, Luz Santana, and Dr. Dan Perlman, I designed a learning experience for doctoral students, from many diverse disciplines, where doctoral students do the following things:
- Experience an abbreviated version of the QFT-R as an individual experience
- Identify their research topic.
- Produce their own questions on their research topic while following four rules for producing questions.
- Improve their questions.
- Prioritize their questions.
- Learn about interdisciplinary research and name its value.
- Learn about broader impacts.
- Experience the QFT as a group by considering the Question Focus, “Broader impacts of my research.”
- Work on their initial research questions, keeping in mind their new thinking on broader impacts.
- Name stakeholders that may support their work in new ways.
- Share their emerging thinking with someone else in the room.
- Reflect as a group on new thinking and learning.
When I facilitated this strategy at Northeastern University, the session effectively engaged students in developing their own questions on their research topic. They also created questions on a shared topic with interdisciplinary teams and used this thinking to refine their own questions to be more societally impactful and reflect new perspectives.
Students’ Reflections on Broader Impacts
For many students, thinking changed during the course of just one session. Reflecting on what the National Science Foundation calls broader impacts, one student said the session “gives me the concept of broader impacts of research, and why it matters.” Another student said it “helped me to deepen what I can do to broaden the impacts of my research.” Yet another said it “helped me to think about broader impacts and the big picture of my work.”
The session did not simply teach what broader impacts are. It provided students the space to advance their own research in the context of broader impacts while also providing them with a tool they could use on their own or collaboratively. One doctoral researcher found that “it helped because it pushed me to think about broader impacts for some questions that I first thought were too specific to have any broader impact.” One student had not previously given much thought to broader impacts before the session, reflecting, “I didn’t actually think about broader impacts before, so this workshop brings me some new information.”
Students’ Reflections on Interdisciplinary, Collaborative Research
Other students noted how their thinking had changed as a result of working on interdisciplinary teams of students. One student found that the session “allowed me to discuss work with others outside [of my] department” and that it “reframes [my] existing research project in a new light.” Another found that the session “made me notice similarities in issues shared by multiple disciplines.” Indeed, doctoral students loved the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines. A repeated theme in their feedback was that they appreciated “talking to people with different backgrounds,” that they liked the “teamwork,” “mingling with other PhD students,” and “collaborating with different backgrounds, getting different viewpoints.” When provided the opportunity, these doctoral students excitedly engaged in a process through which they could learn and think with fellow researchers, no matter their discipline.
Students’ Reflections on How the QFT Supports Their Work
Reflecting on the process, doctoral students found the experience to be eminently practical. One researcher plans to share the strategy with lab mates, and another named how they will try a “brainstorming session” in their lab using the QFT. Other students noted the interdisciplinary, collaborative usefulness as well. “QFT is useful when discussing with colleagues to find and determine a new research direction,” one student wrote. Another wrote that they “want to be able to invite questions about my research from people outside of my discipline,” and another said it “might force discussion/thought among colleagues and force us to come up with new answers or find new resources to work with.” Indeed, questions can invite the collaboration of many stakeholders and support researchers as they think both divergently (on new possible directions for the research) and convergently (as they prioritize the most strategic, impactful path forward for the research).
More Impactful, Inclusive, and Joyous Research
Graduate studies can be grueling — and research can be especially challenging for budding academics. Through providing doctoral students more opportunities to collaborate across fields during question formulation, perhaps we are not only giving them strategies to effect greater change during their career. We may also be giving them opportunities to foster greater joy in their research and learning process today. In just the course of a one- or two-hour session, doctoral researchers learned a strategy they can use on their own or collaboratively to craft more societally impactful research questions. It is encouraging that students reported feeling inspired, feeling as though they had new ideas and appreciated the opportunity to collaborate, and feeling that they had new tools available to them that they could immediately use and share to support their research. Just as one doctoral researcher remarked how the QFT-R pushed their thinking on broader impacts, I too have been pushed to think anew on the potential broader impacts that could be achieved in a world where all stakeholders in the research process are asking better, more transformative questions.