(Photo Credit: Desi Zavatta Musolino) The main way to demonstrate and maintain your focus is to develop appropriate research questions or hypotheses. There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes an ideal research question/hypothesis. Nevertheless, a sensible rule of thumb is that you are able to provide a clear rationale for the question/prediction being posed.
Essentially you have to take each research question/hypothesis in turn and justify its inclusion. More often than not, this justification will have emerged from your literature review e.g. this research question approaches a particular topic from a new angle, it taps into current debate etc (NB: You should be able to provide a similar rationale for your research as a whole). Also, again don’t forget ‘practicality.’ Is the question over ambitious given your ‘time-scale’, ‘word limit’, ‘resources’ etc?
Developing simple and straightforward research questions does not mean you cannot undertake sophisticated research.
ü What am I hoping to explore in the course of my research? ü What is the thinking behind my study's research questions/hypotheses? ü Can I access a wide range of background material?
ü Will it be relatively straightforward to access my target population? ü Ethically, am I on safe ground?