HW 02: Formulating a research topic

Using the literature and your codebook to build a feasible research project

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to help your research team move from a broad project topic to a focused set of research questions that can actually be studied with your dataset.

By the end of this assignment, your team will have:

Identified a cohesive research topic for your project.
Used the codebook to choose variables that match that topic.
Used research tools to learn what has already been studied.
Written four clear, testable research questions.
Connected each research question to variables that exist in your dataset.

You should not analyze your data yet. You may use the codebook or data documentation, but you do not need to open the actual data file for this assignment. Your goal is to choose research questions that are interesting to you, grounded in prior research, and feasible with your dataset.

Submission Instructions

Do the work for this assignment directly in Google Drive.
- Make a copy of this template.
- Place this copy in our HW02 Research Question formulation class Google folder.
- Name this file using your team’s last names only in alphabetical order. For example: donatello_raymond.
One person in the team submits the direct URL to this document to Canvas by the due date.
This is a group assignment. Both group members must contribute reasonably equally to this document.

Research Tools

You will use some or all of the tools below to help you explore your topic, find relevant sources, and check that your research ideas are grounded in variables that actually exist in your dataset. These tools should support your thinking, not replace it; your final research questions and written explanations should be based on what you learned from using them.

Litmaps: Search for your general topic or for the title of one article you already found. Litmaps shows related papers and citation connections, which can help you find articles that are close to your project idea. No account is needed for basic searching.
Open Knowledge Maps: Search for your topic area. Open Knowledge Maps creates a topic map that groups related research into clusters, which can help you see different directions your project could take. No account is needed.
Math 315 Research Assistant: Use this to search your dataset codebook and check whether your research ideas match variables that actually exist in your data. Use it to simplify or revise questions that are too broad, too vague, or not measurable.
Google Scholar: Search for your topic area or article titles. Google Scholar can help you find academic articles, citation information, and related sources, but you may need to use the library website to access full text.
Chico State Library Research Search: Use the library search to find full-text articles, books, and research databases available through Chico State. This is especially helpful when Google Scholar or another tool finds an article but does not give you access to the full text.

Assignment Instructions

Complete all required sections below.

1. Topic Area Statement

Write a short paragraph that introduces the general topic area your group wants to study. Your goal is to explain the broad area of interest and the basic setting or context for your dataset.

To help you understand the dataset, review the codebook or data documentation. If the documentation is long, you do not need to read every page. Use the table of contents, index, search function, or the Math 315 Research Assistant / NotebookLM to help identify the population, setting, context, and major topic areas covered by the data.

Your paragraph should include:

The general topic your group is interested in.
The population or units represented in the dataset. Are you studying people? birds? counties or mushrooms?
The setting, location, or context of the data.
A brief explanation of why you want to study this topic.

Do not list variables yet, and do not write your research questions in this section.

2. Research Tool Notes

In this section, briefly describe how your team used the suggested tools. Include:

the search terms you tried
which tool was most useful and why
one or two topic directions you considered
what the tools helped you decide, change, or rule out

Additionally you must include your Research Assistant chat logs.

In your Google Doc there are two additional tabs one for each group member.
Rename each tab with that person’s name
Copy/paste that person’s full Research Assistant chat log into their tab.

3. Personal Codebook

Create a short personal codebook for your project by taking screenshots of the parts of the full codebook that are most relevant to your topic.

Leverage AI here.

If your codebook is multiple pages long, I strongly recommend that you use the Math 315 Research Assistant for this step. It has your codebook already and can search for variables related to a topic of your interest faster than you can. But then it’s your responsibility to CTRL+F find the variable that the AI thinks is available and visually confirm that it exists.

Your personal codebook should include:

between 6 and 12 variables from your codebook,
variables that directly connect to your topic area,
at least one possible response variable,
several possible explanatory variables,
and enough information to understand what each variable measures.

Use screenshots from the original codebook or data documentation. Do not copy/paste long blocks of text, and do not rewrite the variable descriptions in your own words. The goal is to create a short, focused visual reference for the variables your group is considering.

Avoid these issues

Do not include a huge list of variables just because they seem interesting.
Do not manually rewrite the entire codebook.
Do not copy/paste large sections of the codebook.
Do not choose variables unless you can explain how they connect to your topic.

4. Structured Evidence Table

Use the research assistance tools listed in the table above to find sources that help you understand your topic.

You must include at least 4 sources. All 4 must be peer-reviewed scholarly sources. At least 3 must be primary research articles, and no more than 1 may be a scholarly review article. Background websites, government reports, dataset documentation, and news articles may help you understand the topic, but they do not count toward the 4 required sources.

Your sources should help you understand what has already been studied, what variables researchers have used, what relationships have been found, and what questions may still be worth asking.

For each source, complete one row in the table provided in the template with the following information:

Citation in APA format. You should be able to copy this directly from the journal articles (or helper tool)
Topic / population studied
What did this study find?
How does this connect to your project?

Each row should include a specific finding from the source. Do not just say that the article was “about” your topic. You need to explain what the article found and how that finding connects to your project.

5. Short Literature Synthesis

Write one to two paragraphs that summarize what your group learned from the sources in your evidence table.

Your synthesis should:

identify the main patterns or findings across the articles,
explain how the articles helped shape your thinking,
connect the literature to your dataset and variables,
and explain what your research team still wants to investigate.

This should not be four separate article summaries copied from the table. Your goal is to explain the story that the sources tell together.

No unsupported claims

Do not write phrases like “studies have shown” unless you connect the claim directly to a source in your evidence table.

Use AI to refine your writing

You are allowed to take a draft of your 1-2 paragraphs for this section and give it to the Research Assistant Notebook LM and ask it to help check it for consistency and clarity, and to make sure all claims are cited.

6. Final Research Questions

Write four final research questions for your group project.

2 primary research questions: one primary question for each group member.
2 secondary research questions: one secondary or backup question for each group member.

The four questions should be compatible with each other and should tell different parts of one cohesive project story. The secondary questions are not throwaway questions. They are backup options in case one of the primary relationships is not interesting, or not feasible once you begin exploring the data.

Each research question should:

ask about a relationship between an explanatory and response variable
be answerable using variables in your dataset
avoid causal language
be phrased as a testable question or hypothesis
be related to your topic area and literature review

Keep the research questions clear

A strong research question usually focuses on one main response variable and one main explanatory variable. You may eventually include other variables in a model, but the research question itself should stay clear and focused.

Avoid overly complicated questions

Do not write research questions that try to include several outcomes, several predictors, multiple subgroups, and interaction effects all at once. Complicated questions usually become harder to explain and harder to analyze.

Grading Criteria

Your assignment will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

The topic area statement is clear, focused, and connected to the dataset.
The personal codebook includes variables that match the topic and research questions.
The research tools were used thoughtfully to explore the topic and check feasibility.
The evidence table includes relevant sources with specific findings.
The literature synthesis connects the sources to the project instead of summarizing each article separately.
The four research questions are clear, testable, feasible, and cohesive.
Each research question identifies a response variable and explanatory variable.

Advice before you submit

Before submitting, you can copy your topic area statement, literature synthesis, and four research questions into the Math 315 Research Assistant and ask it to compare your work to the grading criteria below.

This is not required, but it can help you catch unclear wording, missing connections to sources, research questions that are too broad, or questions that do not clearly connect to variables in your dataset. Do not copy/paste the tool’s feedback into your assignment; use it to revise your own work.