ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses into more detail about how to transform general research topic into researchable questions. It provides a useful conceptual understanding of the process of turning a research question into a measurable or quantifiable analysis. While there are many possible rungs (levels of abstraction) in the pyramid, this chapter discusses just four, to demonstrate how the initial topic or problem area can be transformed into researchable questions as people descend the pyramid to the ‘ground’ of actually doing the research. The four rungs are: concepts, dimensions (or constructs), indicators and variables. In explanatory research, researchers explore questions about how one variable affects another, or about the causes behind some social phenomenon. The terms ‘dependent’ and ‘independent’ are used to describe pairs of variables that are in a relationship with each other.