Example 01

Title: STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL COUNSELOR

ROLES AND FUNCTIONS

Research questions :

 What are first-year college students’ perceptions of the

relationship between their high school laptop experiences and

their readiness for college?

 What are first-year college students’ perceptions of the uses of

technology for instructional purposes by high school teachers?

 What are first-year college students’ perceptions of the uses of

technology for instructional purposes by college professors?

Research methodology

A qualitative research approach for this study was chosen because

qualitative methods are especially useful in discovering the meaning

that people give to events that they experience (Merriam, 1998). In

qualitative research, the researcher is the primary research instrument.

What the researcher brings to the investigation from his/her own

background and identity should be treated as his or her bias (Maxwell,

2005). Since qualitative research is interpretative research, researcher

biases, beliefs, and assumptions can intrude into the analysis of data

(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Social researchers should attempt to

neutralize or bracket their biases through full disclosure (Altheide &

Johnson, 1994; Locke, Spirduso, & Silverman, 1987).

Example 02

Title : Tracking the use of DRUGS and THE ACADEMIC

PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN NIGERIA HIGHER

INSTITUTIONS

Research Questions

1. To which extant does peer group influence contribute to drug

abuse among higher institution students in Nigeria?

2. What are the effects of drug abuse on the academic performance

of higher institution students in Nigeria?

Research Design

This research adopted the descriptive survey research design. The

population for this study consisted of the entire students’ in the selected

higher institutions in Nigeria.

Research Instruments

The research explores data from both primary and secondary sources,

and these include the use of questionnaire, interview, daily news paper

and Journals to elicit information from the respondents.

Example 03

Title : Improving EFL Learners’ Critical Thinking Skills in

Argumentative Writing

Research Questions :

To what extent does the integration of CT skills in teaching L2 writing

help students improve their CT in their argumentative essays?

The research design adopted in the present study is the true

experimental design). The design included a control group and an

experimental group. The experimental and control groups were given

the pretest and post-test in order to investigate possible causal

relationship between the treatment and the results.

Example 04

Title : The Effect of Higher Order Thinking Skill Instruction on EFL

Reading Ability

Research question: Does teaching higher order thinking skills improve

EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability?

METHOD Design This quantitative study employed a quasi-

experimental design with pre-test, treatment, and post -test format on

experimental and control study groups.

Participants The participants of the study included 236 male and

female students at university of Tabriz majoring in Electrical

engineering (n=45), Civil engineering (n=42), Agricultural engineering

(n=45), Geography (n=34), Social science (n=40), and Chemical

engineering (n=30). The non-random convenience sampling was

applied to select the participants from the available general English

classes of the researchers. They were all 17 to 27 years old, having

Persian as their formal language. Mother tongue of some of

participants, however were Turkish or Kurdish.

Practice

1. does daily use of Twitter impact the attention span of under-16s?

2. How do the US and the UK compare in health outcomes and

patient satisfaction among low-income people with chronic

illnesses?

3. Is there a statistically

significant difference in writing achievement between the post-

test results of EFL students exposed to podcast and traditional

writing instruction and those exposed to traditional writing

instruction only

4. what are tHe attitudes of the students toward the use of podcast

instruction to improve writing abilities?

5. How often do British university students use Facebook each

week?

6. What percentage of American men and women exceed their daily

calorific allowance?

7. What proportion of British male and female university students

use the top 5 social networks?

8. What is the relationship between gender and attitudes towards

music piracy amongst adolescents?

9. What is the difference in the weekly photo uploads on Facebook

between British male and female university students?

10. What is the role of store managers in employee satisfaction

of hourly workers at Staples?

11. How does a President’s leadership style impact employee

engagement at Saint Leo’s University?

12. Is there a link between hours of television viewing and

violent behaviour in children aged 8-14?

13. What are the most important factors that influence the career

choices?