Research questions
A research question is a promise. It tells your reader what the report will find out, and so what it will have to prove. Weak questions do not stay in chapter one: they leave you with methods that answer nothing and designs that answer everything.
This page takes you in seven steps from a worry about a place to one main research question (MRQ), a handful of sub-research questions (SRQs) and a method for each. Work through it in order. Every step ends with something you write down.
The worked examples come from the Guide to Effective Report Writing in Urbanism (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). This page zooms in on one link of the chain that Design your methodology shows whole.
Start from a problem, not a topic
Most groups start with a topic: energy, heat, housing, water. A topic tells your reader what you are interested in. It does not tell them what you want to find out, or why anyone else should care. Research moves from a topic to a question to its significance (Booth et al., 2016). Climb the ladder.
Invented example, written for this page.
I am studying [topic] because I want to find out [question] in order to help [a reader: residents, a municipality, a water board] understand [why it matters].
Adapted from the three steps topic, question and significance in Booth et al. (2016). If you cannot fill in the last bracket, you have a topic, not a problem.
Read your question and ask: so what? Answer in one sentence. Ask again of that answer, and again.
You have reached a problem when the answer names who gains, who loses and what is at stake in a place. If three rounds of so-what end in “it is interesting”, go back to the topic.
There are two common ways to find a question (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). You can fill a gap in what is known: nobody has mapped heat stress in this neighbourhood. Or you can question an assumption that others take for granted: that residents’ needs can be read from a heat map at all.
Gaps tend to give you feasible questions. Questioned assumptions tend to give you interesting ones (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). You can combine them: fill a gap, and say which assumption your answer puts to the test.
Sort the four statements, then open.
“The energy transition in South Holland.”Think first, then open +
A field of interest. No tension, no place for an answer.
“Energy poverty.”Think first, then open +
A real condition, but a symptom. Ask what produces it, where, and for whom.
“Renewable infrastructure clusters in peri-urban municipalities already burdened by noise and pollution, while city centres collect the subsidies.”Think first, then open +
A tension: burdens and benefits fall in different places. Summarised from the South Holland problem statement (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
“How can South Holland’s urban energy landscape be re-designed to advance socio-spatial justice while meeting the province’s 2030 decarbonisation targets?”Think first, then open +
The main research question that follows from that problem (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). You will take it apart in step 3.
Know what kind of question you are asking
The first words of a question decide what counts as an answer, and so which methods can deliver it. We use five types. The grouping is our synthesis of the methods sheets and the guide: other textbooks cut the cake differently, but every question you write should fall clearly into one of them. Open each type to see what counts as an answer and an example.
DescribeOpens withWhat · where · how much · whichAnswer and example+
ExplainOpens withWhy · how does · through which mechanismAnswer and example+
UnderstandOpens withHow do people experience · perceive · valueAnswer and example+
JudgeOpens withTo what extent is it fair · effective · sustainableAnswer and example+
ProposeOpens withHow can · which tools could · how shouldAnswer and example+
In Q3 the MRQ is almost always a propose question, because the studio asks for a strategy and a design. The SRQs earn that proposal: they describe, explain, understand and judge first. This division of labour is our reading of the worked examples in the guide.
Flyvbjerg (2001) argues that research on planning should ask where a development is heading, whether that is desirable, who gains and who loses, and through which mechanisms of power, and what, if anything, should be done about it.
Hold your MRQ and SRQs against these four. Between them they should touch all four. A set of questions that only describes and proposes, and never asks who gains and who loses, will produce a design without a politics.
Five invented questions. Name the type, then open.
“Why did the municipality place its new solar park on farmland rather than on industrial roofs?”Think first, then open +
Opens with why and asks for a cause or a sequence of decisions. Process tracing and policy documents can answer it.
“How many households in the neighbourhood rent from a housing association?”Think first, then open +
A count. Useful, but on its own it cannot carry a report.
“What does the canal mean to the people who fish from its banks?”Think first, then open +
Asks for meaning and experience. Interviews and observation, not maps alone.
“To what extent did the participation evenings change the plan?”Think first, then open +
Needs criteria first: what would count as a real change? Then evidence against them.
“How can the school route be redesigned so that children can walk it alone?”Think first, then open +
Asks for a design and names an outcome you can test. Research by design answers it, with the children and parents involved.
Write the main research question
The MRQ is the single sentence your whole report answers. We use one worked example throughout this section: a question about South Holland’s energy landscape. Read it in pieces first.
The example comes from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The colour split and the labels are our reading of how the question is built.
How can [place]’s [what you study] be [verb: planned, designed, governed, re-designed] to [outcome] while [condition]?
1 · Open with How, To what extent or In what ways+
Write the question at a conceptual level, opening with “How can…?”, “To what extent…?” or “In what ways…?” (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
These openers ask for an explanation or a proposal. “Is…?” and “Does…?” invite a yes or a no, and a yes or a no ends the inquiry.
2 · Say where+
Name the place. In our worked example it is South Holland, a whole province. A question that could be asked anywhere will be answered with generalities.
Name the scale at which you will work, because it decides which data and which actors you meet.
3 · Say what+
Name the thing you study and the thing you may change. In the example: the urban energy landscape, re-designed.
Use the key concept from your conceptual framework here. If you cannot, the framework is not ready.
4 · Say what outcome you care about+
Say who, where and what outcome you care about (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Here the outcome is socio-spatial justice, together with a carbon target.
This is where your objectives enter the question. Design is a means to that outcome and not the end.
5 · Make it the next sentence of your problem statement+
The MRQ should read like the inevitable next sentence after your problem statement (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Read your problem statement and your MRQ together. If the MRQ could follow any other problem, one of them needs work.
6 · Keep methods out of it+
The MRQ does not need to link to one specific method. It is answered by the whole journey: all your sub-questions, research and design together.
If your MRQ names a method, you have written a task, and probably a sub-question.
Each question below is the example MRQ, weakened on purpose in one way. Find the fault, then open.
“How can the urban energy landscape be re-designed to advance socio-spatial justice while meeting the 2030 decarbonisation targets?”Think first, then open +
The example MRQ with South Holland removed. Which landscape? Whose targets? Without a place the question cannot say which data, which actors or which scale to use.
“Is South Holland’s urban energy landscape just?”Think first, then open +
One word answers it. Ask to what extent, for whom, and by which kind of justice, then ask how it could change.
“How can South Holland’s urban energy landscape be re-designed?”Think first, then open +
Re-designed for what? Without an outcome there is no way to judge a design, and the evaluation has nothing to measure against.
“How can South Holland’s landscape be re-designed to advance justice, and which GIS indicators measure it best?”Think first, then open +
The second half is a sub-question about a method. Keep one question in the MRQ and move the indicators into an SRQ.
Test the question before you build on it
Everything else in the report will lean on this sentence, so test it now, while changing it is still cheap. Run your MRQ through seven tests. Open one at a time.
1 · Can evidence answer it?+
Ask: Could you, in principle, collect something that answers it: maps, documents, interviews, design tests?
Fails when: “Should cities be greener?” No evidence settles a general ought.
Fix: Add a place, an outcome and someone it is for.
2 · Is it open?+
Ask: Does it ask how, to what extent or in what ways?
Fails when: One word answers it: yes, no, twelve.
Fix: Rewrite with “To what extent…” or “How can…”.
3 · Can you do it in one quarter?+
Ask: Can your group reach the data, places and people within eight weeks?
Fails when: “…across the Netherlands”, or interviews with a ministry you cannot reach.
Fix: Narrow the scale, or swap a hard-to-reach source for one you can reach.
4 · Is it already answered?+
Ask: Have you searched for studies and reports on this place and theme?
Fails when: A provincial report already answers it, and you have not read it.
Fix: Build on what exists, or question one of its assumptions (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011).
5 · Does it name what is at stake?+
Ask: Can a reader tell who gains and who loses from the answer?
Fails when: The question is about a system with no people in it.
Fix: Name the residents, users or ecosystems that carry the outcome (Flyvbjerg, 2001).
6 · Can you ask it ethically?+
Ask: Who will you approach to answer it, and what does asking cost them?
Fails when: It depends on interviews with people in a vulnerable position, with no plan for consent.
Fix: Think about the people your question reaches from the start (Agee, 2009), and run the ethics check.
7 · Does it fit your theory?+
Ask: Does the key concept of your conceptual framework appear in it?
Fails when: The MRQ says “liveability”; the framework is built on spatial justice.
Fix: Align the words, or align the framework. See the conceptual framework.
Watch a weak question get stronger. Before you open each round, say what is still wrong with it.
Round 0“Heat stress.”+
Round 1“Is the neighbourhood too hot?”+
Round 2“What are the temperatures in the public spaces of the neighbourhood?”+
Round 3“How can the public spaces of the neighbourhood be redesigned to reduce heat stress?”+
Round 4“How can the public spaces of the neighbourhood be redesigned to reduce heat stress for the residents most exposed to it, while keeping them usable for everyday social life?”+
Invented example, written for this page. The neighbourhood is left unnamed on purpose: put yours in.
Unpack it into sub-questions
The MRQ is too large to answer in one go, so you derive sub-questions from it. Each SRQ keeps the place and the subject of the MRQ and unpacks one other part of it. Together they must add up to the MRQ. Watch the example run: the main question splits into four, and each one picks up a method.
Figure 1. One MRQ unpacked into four SRQs, each with its method (after Table 1 in Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
Answered with: GIS equity mapping and household survey
Answered with: Process tracing and semi-structured interviews
Answered with: Critical discourse analysis
Answered with: Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups
| Part of the MRQ | SRQs it produces | What the SRQs do with it |
|---|---|---|
| South Holland’s urban energy landscape | All four | Repeated in every SRQ. This parallel wording is what ties each SRQ visibly to the MRQ. |
| socio-spatial justice | SRQ1, SRQ2, SRQ3 | Split into three dimensions of justice, one per SRQ: distribution, procedure, recognition. |
| be re-designed | SRQ4 | Turned into a question about the planning and design tools that could do the re-designing. |
| while meeting the 2030 decarbonisation targets | SRQ1 and SRQ4 | Carried by the renewable infrastructure in SRQ1 and by the low-carbon solutions in SRQ4. This last row is our reading. |
The question and the four SRQs come from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The derivation shown here is our reading.
SRQ1 · Distributional justiceSpatial configuration · GIS equity mapping and household survey+
The question. To what extent does the current spatial configuration of renewable-energy infrastructure shape the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across urban, peri-urban, and rural communities in South Holland?
Method. GIS equity mapping and household survey
What the pairing gives you. A map shows where solar parks, grid corridors and biomass plants sit and who lives near them. A survey tells you what households living there experience.
What you hold at the end. Maps of exposure; survey results by area.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ2 · Procedural justiceParticipation in landscape design · Process tracing and semi-structured interviews+
The question. In what ways do existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalized neighbourhoods from influencing the evolving urban energy landscape?
Method. Process tracing and semi-structured interviews
What the pairing gives you. Process tracing follows a decision step by step through documents and records. Interviews tell you who could enter the process and who could not, and why.
What you hold at the end. A timeline of decision points; interview themes on access.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ3 · Recognition justiceNarratives of place · Critical discourse analysis+
The question. How are energy poverty, cultural identity, and heritage framed in policy documents and regional media narratives about South Holland’s energy landscape?
Method. Critical discourse analysis
What the pairing gives you. You read policy texts and media coverage closely for what they name, what they leave out, and whose voice they use.
What you hold at the end. Coded texts; a list of framings and silences.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ4 · Transformative design instrumentsDesign as a way to change · Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups+
The question. Which spatial-planning or design tools could reconfigure the urban energy landscape toward community-owned, low-carbon solutions?
Method. Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups
What the pairing gives you. You draw options, put them in front of the people affected, and record what they accept, change and reject.
What you hold at the end. Scenarios; workshop records; a log of feedback and changes.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
Each SRQ unpacks one dimension: spatial, technical, social, ecological or institutional. Use this when your MRQ is about a system with several parts.
The South Holland example: distribution, procedure, recognition, plus a design question. Use this when your conceptual framework is built on a theory with named parts.
Our suggestion: describe first, then explain or understand, then propose. Use this when the MRQ asks for a design and you need to earn it with evidence first.
- Few, feasible, tied to methods. Keep the SRQs few, feasible within your available time, and explicitly tied to the methods you will employ. In the example there are four, which suits a graduate timeline.
- One thing each. One SRQ, one dimension. If you write “and” inside an SRQ, split it.
- Parallel wording. Use parallel structure and clear keywords, so a reader sees how each SRQ feeds the whole.
- A reason to exist. If an SRQ does not clearly advance the MRQ, revise it or drop it.
- A method you can name. If you cannot say how you would answer it, it is still only a topic.
These rules follow Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, problem statement section.
Each SRQ below is one of the example SRQs, weakened on purpose. Say what is wrong, then open.
“Is participation good in South Holland?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2. Ask in what ways existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalised neighbourhoods, and name them.
“To what extent does the spatial configuration of renewable infrastructure distribute burdens and benefits, and why did the province choose solar parks?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ1. The second half is a different question with a different method. Split it, or drop it if it does not feed the MRQ.
“Interview twenty residents about the energy landscape.”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2. This is a method with no question. Ask what you want to learn and then say how interviews help.
“Who has power over the energy landscape?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2 that would repeat a stakeholder analysis already inside it. Two SRQs that need the same method and give the same answer should be merged.
Order the SRQs the way the report will answer them. Studies usually move from describing, to explaining or understanding, to judging, and only then to proposing. In a regional design studio the last SRQ is usually the design question.
The order is a plan, not a cage. If what you find in SRQ1 changes what SRQ3 should ask, change SRQ3 and write down why (step 7).
Give every sub-question a method
The MRQ is answered by the whole journey. The SRQs are the operational questions, and each links to particular methods. Make the links explicit in a table that maps each SRQ to its methods, the reason for the choice and the insight you expect (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Here are two worked examples.
| Lens | SRQ phrasing | Method (Table 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Distributional justice | To what extent does the current spatial configuration of renewable-energy infrastructure shape the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across urban, peri-urban, and rural communities in South Holland? | GIS equity mapping and household survey |
| Procedural justice | In what ways do existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalized neighbourhoods from influencing the evolving urban energy landscape? | Process tracing and semi-structured interviews |
| Recognition justice | How are energy poverty, cultural identity, and heritage framed in policy documents and regional media narratives about South Holland’s energy landscape? | Critical discourse analysis |
| Transformative design instruments | Which spatial-planning or design tools could reconfigure the urban energy landscape toward community-owned, low-carbon solutions? | Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups |
| SRQ | Methods | Rationale | Expected insight |
|---|---|---|---|
| What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood? | Exploratory observations, field notes, photographs | To capture everyday, unplanned and temporary uses of space in situ | A typology of informal spatial practices and their locations |
| How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces? | Short street interviews, in-depth interviews | To gather first-hand experiences and perceptions of local users | Common concerns, perceived safe and unsafe zones, and explanatory narratives |
| Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area? | Literature review, GIS mapping, thermal imaging | To identify indicators from existing research and map how they show up locally | Spatial correlation between heat retention and urban form |
| How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas? | Design prototyping, scenario development, feedback sessions | To test spatial interventions and assess their feasibility and acceptance | Iterative design strategies tailored to local environmental and social conditions |
Tables 1 and 3 from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. Wording lightly shortened in Table 3.
Four SRQs from the second worked example, on neighbourhood safety and heat. Decide on methods, then open to compare.
Which method?
What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood?Think first, then open +
What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood?
Exploratory observations, field notes, photographs.
Why: To capture everyday, unplanned and temporary uses of space in situ.
You learn: A typology of informal spatial practices and their locations.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces?Think first, then open +
How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces?
Short street interviews, in-depth interviews.
Why: To gather first-hand experiences and perceptions of local users.
You learn: Common concerns, perceived safe and unsafe zones, and explanatory narratives.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area?Think first, then open +
Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area?
Literature review, GIS mapping, thermal imaging.
Why: To identify indicators from existing research and map how they show up locally.
You learn: Spatial correlation between heat retention and urban form.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas?Think first, then open +
How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas?
Design prototyping, scenario development, feedback sessions.
Why: To test spatial interventions and assess their feasibility and acceptance.
You learn: Iterative design strategies tailored to local environmental and social conditions.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Open the type of your SRQ. One panel opens at a time. This navigator is our synthesis of the Methods sheets and of Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, so check it against both.
DESCRIBEwhat, where, how much+
Position: positivist or realist.
Methods: GIS mapping, secondary data, systematic observation, surveys, literature review.
Evidence: distributions, typologies, indicators.
Trap: official data at the wrong scale or out of date. Note the publication date and supplement locally.
EXPLAINwhy, through which mechanism+
Position: positivist, realist or critical.
Methods: document and policy analysis, process tracing, expert interviews, comparison.
Evidence: mechanisms and sequences you can trace.
Trap: claiming a law from one case. Claim a mechanism, and say where it may travel.
UNDERSTANDwhat it means to people+
Position: constructivist.
Methods: in-depth and street interviews, walking interviews, observation, discourse analysis, subjective mapping.
Evidence: themes, narratives, places that matter.
Trap: a few voices presented as the community.
JUDGEhow fair, effective or sustainable+
Position: critical or normative.
Methods: an evaluation framework, stakeholder power analysis, SWOT with perspectives, policy analysis.
Evidence: criteria applied to evidence.
Trap: choosing the criteria after you know the result.
PROPOSEhow could it be designed so that+
Position: pragmatic and creative.
Methods: research by design, visioning, scenarios, prototypes, workshops with feedback.
Evidence: design moves with a recorded reason and a recorded response.
Trap: design as illustration of findings that were already complete.
- Every SRQ has at least one method, and every method serves at least one SRQ.
- The method can do what the question asks. Mapping describes. It cannot explain why.
- The last column is something you could hold in your hands: a map, a typology, a set of themes, a tested scenario.
- The SRQ positions agree with each other, or you say openly where they differ (see position).
- Read all the SRQ answers together. Do they answer the MRQ? If a gap remains, you are missing an SRQ.
Pick the SRQ whose answer people will doubt most. Give it two methods that look from different angles. SRQ1 in the example does this: a map shows where, and a household survey shows what people living there experience.
The pairing comes from Table 1 of Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The advice is ours.
A propose question is not answered by research first and design afterwards. Drawing options, testing them and recording what they reveal is part of how you answer it: in research by design, design is both method and outcome (Roggema, 2017).
So treat design as a method in your table. Name the design moves, the reason for each and the response it got, exactly as you would for interviews. See design as research and regional planning and design.
Put it on one page, and keep it alive
The guide asks for a table that lays the SRQs next to the methods that answer them (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Make it now, put it in the methodology chapter, and bring it to every tutorial. Print this section or copy the table into your report.
| Question | Type | Method(s) | Sources and data | What you hold at the end | Report chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MRQ | answered by all SRQs together | ||||
| SRQ1 | |||||
| SRQ2 | |||||
| SRQ3 | |||||
| SRQ4 | |||||
| SRQ5 |
Columns three to five are where most tables fail. A method with no source is a wish. A source with no output is a pile of data.
Your questions will change as you learn about the place. That is normal: questions are refined throughout a study, not fixed at the start (Agee, 2009). Goals, theory, questions and methods depend on each other, so a change in one is a reason to check the others (Maxwell, 2013). What matters is that you change them on purpose and can say why.
| Date | Which question | What changed | Why | What else had to change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
- Session 02: repair your draft MRQ with the six rules and the spot-the-fault cards in step 3, then check it against the tests in step 4.
- Session 03: write your objective and pick a provisional pathway, then draft your SRQs (step 5).
- Session 07: swap tables with another group and review them with the alignment clinic.
Five traps
Where next
References
Worked examples marked with the guide come from Rocco & Gonçalves (2025). Examples marked as invented were written for this page. Where the page gives our own reading, it says so.
Agee, J. (2009). Developing qualitative research questions: A reflective process. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(4), 431–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390902736512
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41318000 Accessed on: 31 October 2026.
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M., Bizup, J., & FitzGerald, W. T. (2016). The craft of research (4th ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge University Press.
Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (3rd ed.). Sage.
Rocco, R., & Gonçalves, J. (2025). Guide to effective report writing in urbanism. Chair of Spatial Planning & Strategy, Delft University of Technology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15286400
Roggema, R. (2017). Research by design: Proposition for a methodological approach. Urban Science, 1(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci1010002