Back in 2024, I attended a 3-day workshop called How to do Computing Education Research at IIT Gandhinagar. It was let by the fantastic Prof. Shriram Krishnamurthi. One interesting take-away for me was how he taught us to come up with a research question.
I don’t have a strong academic background so it was a fun exercise to use a systematic process to come-up with a strong, measurable research questions rather than to just think “what do I research about in this topic/area”. I am writing this 2 years later, but I think he did mention that this was sort of a “unstuck” me solution, rather than being stuck for long to comeup with a RQ, you can unblock yourself and start acting faster.
The process uses a tabular framework to map out a research initiative from its initial goals to its intended impacts. Basic idea is that once you can come up with valid “effects”, you can just ask things like “how much?”, “why?” etc. to the “effect” and they’ll be the starting points to your research questions. In other-words, RQs are simply the interrogative versions of the “effects”.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PURPOSE |
| The overarching, high-level goal or mission of the research initiative. |
| (Why are we doing this ultimately?) |
+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| INPUTS | CONSTRAINTS |
| The raw materials, resources, | The limitations, boundaries, obstacles, |
| existing knowledge, and baseline | or realities that define the scope of |
| data available at the start. | what is feasible (time, budget, buy-in).|
+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| ACTIVITIES | OUTPUTS |
| The specific interventions, methods, | The tangible, immediate products or |
| actions, or programs you will implement | deliverables resulting directly from |
| to achieve the purpose. | the activities (materials, workshops). |
+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| EFFECTS |
| *(THE CRITICAL STEP)* |
| The desired medium-to-long-term changes in behavior, knowledge, skills, or |
| attitudes among the target audience. **(Must be observable/measurable)** |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| CONTEXT |
| The background situation, landscape, or growing interest that triggers the need |
| for this research right now. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
| TRANSLATION PROCESS:
| Turn the desired "Effects" statements
| into interrogative questions.
|
V
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|| RESEARCH QUESTIONS (RQs) ||
|| ||
|| RQ1: To what extent did [Effect #1 statement] actually happen? ||
|| RQ2: To what extent can participants demonstrate [Effect #2 statement]? ||
|| RQ3: How effective is the intervention regarding [Effect #3] over time? ||
=====================================================================================An example
You can find the original example here
| Purpose: Introducing Responsible Computing (RC) topics such as ethics, sustainable development/design to undergrad CS students with the goal of making responsible decisions and artifacts that are not making any adverse effects on society & climate. | |
|---|---|
| Inputs - Curriculum w.r.t. Ethical regulations, sustainable & RC - Examples of publicly available artifacts for assessing - Current knowledge/practices/awareness of the students and teachers - Existing literature on teaching RC to CS students | Constraints Teachers’ lack of knowledge/awareness Variations of regulations as per international and national policies of different countries Limited time to assess the inherent violations in student’s work Receptance from teachers to justify the extra effort to adapt RC |
| Activities - Introduce current best practices for following RC in computing - Separate modular course spanning multiple semesters - Embed RC into existing CS curriculum to assess the impact - Assess within the course, after the course and after graduation (using techniques discussed in the earlier session). | Outputs - Reusable academic artifacts to help educators adapt RC - Pedagogies to teach RC for CS students - Creation of an RC community who act as an ally for these topics. |
| Effects Students will be able to identify irresponsible, unethical, un-sustainable practices in computing. (RQ1) Students will be able to create responsible, ethical, sustainable artifacts in computing. (RQ2) Students are able to apply ideas from RC in subjects where RC is not being actively measured. (RQ3) Students are intrinsically motivated to apply computing responsibly beyond academic assessments (RQ3) | |
| Context: There is growing interest among CS educators to teach responsible computing as a measure to minimize unethical computing practices and the harms of unsustainable software development |
RQ1: What is the extent to which students can recognize irresponsible, unethical, and unsustainable practices in computing?
RQ2: To what extent can students develop computing artifacts that are responsible, ethical, and sustainable?
RQ3: How effective is teaching responsible computing after 2 years of learning?