Research questions, hypotheses and objectives of the study are an integral part of research process and all the three must be linked together. As a practice, research generally follows a major or minor research questions, hypothesis and objectives of the study.
Although nature and scope of the problem determines the research questions, hypothesis and objectives, yet it is not clear what should be the number of these.
What could be exact number of framing the research questions, hypothesis and objectives for the study?
Hello Manzoor,
The answer depends on:
1. The research approach (quants, quals, or mixed)
2. The research output: PhD thesis, MSc dissertation, etc.
Based on the above you decide the research scope and the research focus.
Any research can be initiated with just one research question, and then as the research develops the number increases. as a rule of thumb 5 to 10 questions at max is OK.
the upper limit is pragmatic because the more research questions one has, the more literature they need to produce, the more analysis they have to produce which makes impossible to manage too many questions.
This is why, for instance, when analysing qualitative data it is recommended not to exceed 30 to 40 codes, 20 categories and finally five to seven themes.
I advise my PhD students not to exceed 7 main hypotheses except in special circumstances where there is a strong justification.
I hope this helps.
Hello Manzoor,
The answer depends on:
1. The research approach (quants, quals, or mixed)
2. The research output: PhD thesis, MSc dissertation, etc.
Based on the above you decide the research scope and the research focus.
Any research can be initiated with just one research question, and then as the research develops the number increases. as a rule of thumb 5 to 10 questions at max is OK.
the upper limit is pragmatic because the more research questions one has, the more literature they need to produce, the more analysis they have to produce which makes impossible to manage too many questions.
This is why, for instance, when analysing qualitative data it is recommended not to exceed 30 to 40 codes, 20 categories and finally five to seven themes.
I advise my PhD students not to exceed 7 main hypotheses except in special circumstances where there is a strong justification.
I hope this helps.
In my opinion, the optimal number of hypotheses and research questions is a maximum of several hypotheses and research questions. Alternatively, the following solution can be used: - 1 main research hypothesis, - several auxiliary hypotheses related to the main hypothesis and possibly also: - a few, max. a dozen or so auxiliary questions, for which answers provided during the research will help to unequivocally undermine, confirm or refute certain previously stated research theses.
However, these hypotheses and research questions should not be more, because then the entire course of the research process may lose its clarity, transparency, and may impose too complicated a research process, in which the risk of errors during research and their interpretation increases. In the satiating of a very complex issue covered by research, a better solution may be to divide the research process into specific autonomous stages and for each of the phases to formulate one research thesis and possibly a few auxiliary questions instead of a complicated multi-stage research process to formulate a lot of thesis and research questions.
Best wishes
Surely there is a limit, depending on the case, regarding the main question of the thread. In addition, both relevant limits and good arrangement (concerning research questions, hypotheses and objectives) may result in an increased number of scientific papers.
For the MA thesis, as a rule of thumb, usually two questions suffice. However, for the PhD dissertation , the minimal level is set at four research questions.
PhD dissertations usually have an average of 4-5 research questions along with their corresponding hypotheses and objectives.
Is there any limit in setting up the number of research questions, hypotheses and objectives of the study for thesis, dissertations or writing papers?
I think there is no fixed limit as their quantity is depending on the research needs as shared by some RG members. Personally I think few questions / hypotheses / objectives should be fine because too many of these will make the research scope very large, complex & takes more efforts & longer time to complete. However, for papers / articles, one can control or break the thesis / dissertation into several smaller papers with fewer research questions, hypotheses & objectives for publishing.
I strongly support Ramdane's answer but would like to add that while you should have particular number of hypotheses but certainly you can have many sub-hypotheses to address the different dimensions of particular constructs.
Large number of hypotheses sometimes losses the track of the reader...,
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