A well-formulated research question:
Most likely, you will start with an idea for research that is not fully fleshed out. You will need to review some literature before you can finalize your research question, methods, and next steps.
Research question formulation and searching the literature is an iterative process. You will likely circle back many times through this cycle as you learn more about your topic, revise your question, raise new questions or take a different direction based on what you find.
Use frameworks to help formulate your question. The process of generating a well-define and well-structured question will help you to reflect on your true information needs and aims for your study. Such a question will also help you to identify concepts that will become search terms when you are ready to search the literature.
The first and most popular framework is PICO, but there are many others. This chart shows a selection.
| PICO | Patient/Population/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome | Specific clinical questions |
| PEO | Population, Exposure, Outcome | Often used in public health |
| SPIDER | Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research Type | Qualitative and mixed-methods studies focused on samples rather than populations |
| SPICE | Setting, Perspective, Intervention/exposure/interest, Comparison, Evaluation | Qualitative topics evaluating outcomes of a service, project or intervention |
| ECLIPSE | Expectation, Client group, Location, Impact, Professionals, Service |
Policy/service questions. What needs to be changed or improved? |
| PCC | Population/Problem, Concept, Context | Mixed methods, scoping reviews. Can help you frame important concepts |
For more examples of question frameworks:
The acronym FINER will help you evaluate the quality and feasibility of your developing research question. Use it like a checklist to help you determine whether your research is feasible to do and whether the answers you hope to find are exciting and needed.
Hulley, S.B., & Cummings, S.R., Browner, W.S., Grady, D.G., & Newman, T.B. (2013). Designing clinical research. Wolters Kluwer.