How do I write a quantitative research question?

When composing your quantitative research question, it is important to consider your data and what questions it can answer. If you haven’t collected your data yet, your research question will help guide the process by specifying what needs to be measured. Quantitative research questions should be specific in language, clearly indicating which measures will be used in the analysis and the outcome for which you are testing.

There are three types of quantitative research questions:

• Descriptive: Descriptive quantitative research questions describe the characteristics of the data and are important for the audience to understand the overview of the data you’ve collected. These research questions can be answered by reporting the mean/median/mode and the shape of the data (or the distribution).
• Comparative: Comparative quantitative research questions compare groups (treatment vs. control group, for example) and can be answered with methods such as ANOVA and t-tests.
• Relationship-based: Relationship research questions aim to uncover trends and interactions between variables and can be answered with a multitude of statistical tests.

Need help in the research question design process? Request a consultation with the UGA Quantitative Methods Consulting Center! Please visit our website or email us at qmcenter@uga.edu.

With help from: Barroga, E., & Matanguihan, G. J. (2022). A Practical Guide to Writing Quantitative and Qualitative Research Questions and Hypotheses in Scholarly Articles. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 37(16).