How common are explicit research questions in journal articles?

Mike Thelwall,Amalia Mas-Bleda

doi:10.1162/qss_a_00041

Abstract

Although explicitly labeled research questions seem to be central to some fields, others do not need them. This may confuse authors, editors, readers, and reviewers of multidisciplinary research. This article assesses the extent to which research questions are explicitly mentioned in 17 out of 22 areas of scholarship from 2000 to 2018 by searching over a million full-text open access journal articles. Research questions were almost never explicitly mentioned (under 2%) by articles in engineering and physical, life, and medical sciences, and were the exception (always under 20%) for the broad fields in which they were least rare: computing, philosophy, theology, and social sciences. Nevertheless, research questions were increasingly mentioned explicitly in all fields investigated, despite a rate of 1.8% overall (1.1% after correcting for irrelevant matches). Other terminology for an article’s purpose may be more widely used instead, including aims, objectives, goals, hypotheses, and purposes, although no terminology occurs in a majority of articles in any broad field tested. Authors, editors, readers, and reviewers should therefore be aware that the use of explicitly labeled research questions or other explicit research purpose terminology is non-standard in most or all broad fields, although it is becoming less rare.

Highlights

Academic research is increasingly multidisciplinary, partly due to team research addressing practical problems
Swales’ (1990, 2004) Create A Research Space (CARS) model structures research article introductions in three moves, which are subdivided into steps
When the terms are used in an article they usually (63%, from the 1,400 manual checks) refer to the article’s main research question(s)

Summary

Introduction

Academic research is increasingly multidisciplinary, partly due to team research addressing practical problems. The authors of a research paper need to know how to frame its central contribution so that it is understood by multidisciplinary audiences. One strategy for this is to base an article around a set of explicitly named research questions that address gaps in prior research. A paper that does not recognize or value the way in which the central contribution is conveyed may be rejected by a reviewer or editor if they are unfamiliar with the norms of the submitting field In the updated 2004 model, move 3 includes an obligatory step named “announcing present research descriptively and/or purposively” (that joins the steps “outlining purposes” and “announcing present research” from the 1990 model), whereas “listing research questions or hypotheses” is a new optional step.

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