---
name: research-question-development
description: Use when turning a research topic, practical problem, or tentative hypothesis into a focused, answerable research question.
---

# Develop a research question

Identify the topic, audience, decisions the question should inform, and constraints on data, time, and access. Inspect supplied background and distinguish established facts from assumptions. If crucial details are missing, state provisional assumptions and ask targeted questions while advancing what can be done.

Define the relevant population, system, context, phenomenon or intervention, comparison where meaningful, outcome, and time frame. Match the framing to the purpose: descriptive, explanatory, predictive, causal, interpretive, or methodological. Offer a small number of distinct candidate questions and explain their scope, feasibility, and what evidence would answer each. Recommend one with a rationale; propose subquestions or hypotheses only if they help answer it.

Check that the question does not assume its conclusion, promise causality from an inadequate design, or make a novelty claim without a literature search. Specify the observations, measurements, or sources needed to answer it and the main sources of uncertainty or bias. If current prior work matters, use available scholarly search tools and inspect sources; label an unsearched gap as a possibility, not a finding. Preserve existing citations and never invent references.

Deliver the question, key definitions, a feasible evidence path, limitations, and the decisions or missing information needed to refine it. This skill can frame a study; it does not establish that data exist, approval has been granted, or a result has been demonstrated.