Carefully-selected SAGE Journal articles expand upon chapter material, and accompanying exercises offer practice in applying the concepts.

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Article 1: Sandberg, J., & Alvesson, M. (2011). Ways of constructing research questions: Gap-spotting or problematization. Organization, 18(1), 23-44.

Summary: It is fundamental to all research to formulate carefully grounded research questions. As many scholars have pointed out it is particularly important to produce innovative questions which will open up new research problems, might resolve long-standing controversies, could provide an integration of different approaches, and might even turn conventional wisdom and assumptions upside down by challenging old beliefs.

Questions to Consider

1. Create a qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research question for your current topic.
2. Sandberg and Alvesson (2011) discussed the difference between gap-spotting and problematization. What question generation methodology is appropriate for your topic?

Article 2: Shneerson, C. L., & Gale, N. K. (2015). Using mixed methods to identify and answer clinically relevant research questions. Qualitative Health Research, 25(6), 845-856.

Summary: In this article, we argue for the value of using mixed methods for identifying and answering clinically relevant research questions. We illustrate how qualitative research can be enhanced and driven through the use of quantitative methods, which can add scope, depth, and description to the research question, with data from a mixed methods study on the self- management practices of cancer survivors.

Questions to Consider

1. Shneerson and Gale (2015) discussed using a mixed method approach to answer research questions. Did they explain their rationale for approaching their research well enough?
2. What are some strengths and challenges in creating a questions and hypotheses for each research methodology? 

Article 3: Scheel, A. M., Tiokhin, L., Isager, P. M., & Lakens, D. (2021). Why Hypothesis Testers Should Spend Less Time Testing Hypotheses. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 744–755. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620966795

Summary: Before testing hypotheses, researchers should spend more time forming concepts, developing valid measures, establishing the causal relationships between concepts and the functional form of those relationships, and identifying boundary conditions and auxiliary assumptions. Providing these inputs should be recognized and incentivized as a crucial goal in itself.

Questions to Consider

1. How can the use of sub-questions strengthen your research question or validate a hypothesis?
2. In this article, the authors discuss non-conformity research, how can this thinking tie up loose ends in the research process?