As always, the answer is it depends.

The answer would vary for mature researchers, engineers,

medical doctors, students...
What I understand is helping masters level students in public administration to choose a research
question. And in this instance, lots of things come into play. I am guided by the principle that the only
good research project is a completed research project. So the scope of the research project should
be something students can complete in the time allotted.
After that, there are lots of things to consider. Students should choose a topic they feel passion or a
great deal of interest about. Over the long haul, passion for a subject helps to sustain the
discouraging, often seemingly endless middle. Students should also consider data availability. It is
traumatic to be very far along in a project just to learn the data needed is too expensive, or just not
there. Students should also know whether they have have the skills to collect and analyze the data
for the question. If so, fine, if not, they will need to get the skills or go in a different direction. A
research question should also be a chosen because the answer would be a contribution. If it is
applied research, the practitioners in the field should find it useful. If the goal is a journal article, the
research question should push existing knowledge forward. There should be a gap in the literature
the research project can fill. This is one reason the literature review is so important. Only through an
understanding of the literature can a student see a gap and a potential research question.
The research question often begins with an interest in the field and is ill defined. After a careful
review of the literature the initial question usually becomes more focused and viable. There is no
reason to believe this process will be linear and smooth. Students should be prepared for
considerable confusion. Mastery of significant body of literature is often necessary before one can
see and define a gap. The creative connections that occurs as one accepts some degree of
confusion often lead to a clearer research question. In social scientific investigation, one never
expects complete certainty. Moments of clarity, however, often sustain the enterprise.
In A Playbook for Research Methods: Integrating Conceptual Frameworks and Project Management,
Dr. Rangarajan and myself discuss issues students have around finding a research
question/purpose. See my RG homepage for a link to the google books material. There is an
extended discussion and 12 examples using student research. We describe the initial process of
finding a research question/purpose as juggling. The discussion begins with students juggling
different interests until they define their research question/purpose. From there the framework,
methodology and findings are discussed. Successful research projects usually flow from a sound
research question/purpose.