How to Generate Research Ideas

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How to Generate Research Ideas
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Where do you find research ideas?

• (1) You
• What interests you?
• Personal experiences
• (2) The World Around You
• Asking why?
• Media radio, tv, movies, newspapers, magazines,
  etc.
• Observing and engaging in the world around you
• Common sense
• Real-life problems

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Where do you find research ideas?

• (3) Existing Research
• Replicate previous studies
• Improve previous studies
• Reconcile studies with conflicting results
• Future Research section
• Change methodological approach
• (4) Theories
• Generate a new theory
• Refine existing theory
• Update an older theory
• Connect two or more theories

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Where do you find research ideas?

• (5) Connections between fields, disciplines,
  sub- disciplines, perspectives, etc.
• Pick a topic and look at how different fields
  would approach it?
• How would different disciplines research the same
  topic?
• How would each perspective explain the topic?
• (6) Talking to others
• Ask laypersons what they want to know family,
  friends, etc.
• Talk to professionals who are experts on the
  issues
• Have conversations/discussions with colleagues
• Attend conferences
• Brainstorming sessions with others

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Where to ideas come from?

• Philosophers like John Locke and Henri Poincare
  say that new ideas are an association or
  combination between two or more simpler ideas.
• So we generate new ideas by combining simpler
  parts into the formation of a new complex whole.

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How to generate Research Questions

• Perspectivist Worksheets
• Types of Research questions
• Descriptive
• Relational
• Causal

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How to Translate Questions into Research
Hypothesis

• Some Guidelines
• Testable/Falsifiable
• Precise/Specificity
• Direction Magnitude
• Based upon type of research
• Descriptive
• Relational
• Causal
• Research Hypothesis vs. Null Hypothesis

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How to choose which idea to pursue?

• Some Guidelines
• Internal Motivations
• External Motivations
• Practical Concerns
• Importance
• Part of Program of Research

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How to conduct a Program of Research?

• A Program of Research is a game-plan for
  conducting multiple studies on a single topic
  that comprehensively addresses all the
  implications and extensions of a single research
  idea.

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Advanced sources of information

• McGuire, W. J. (1997). Creative hypothesis
  generating in psychology Some useful heuristics.
  Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 1-30
• Special Issue of "Personality and Social
  Psychology Review" on Theory Construction, 2004,
  Vol8, No.2