A theme is a subject area, such as food waste or sleep. A research question is a sentence that points at one part of that area and can be answered with evidence. Turning one into the other is the first skill in questions and research scope.
Everything later in the course depends on it. Sources, arguments and conclusions all follow from the question you ask, so a vague question produces vague work.
What is the difference between a theme and a question?
A theme tells you where to look. A question tells you what to find out.
“Food waste” is a theme. “Does a leftover-food scheme reduce the weight of food thrown away at a school?” is a question, because you can imagine the evidence: weights, records, comparisons.
How do you narrow a theme, step by step?
- Name the theme in two or three words.
- Choose a place or setting you can actually look at, such as one school, one town or one region.
- Choose a group of people or things, such as students, households or small businesses.
- Choose a period, such as one term or the years 2020 to 2025.
- Choose what you will measure or compare, such as weight, opinion or cost.
- Pick a question stem such as “How far”, “To what extent” or “What are the effects of”, and join the parts into one sentence.
- Test it: can you name two kinds of evidence that would help, and is each one reachable?
Worked example
Every school, person and figure in this example is invented for teaching.
Theme: food waste.
Step 2, place: a fictional school, Sekolah Contoh, which has one canteen.
Step 3, group: the students who buy food in that canteen.
Step 4, period: Term 1 compared with Term 2 of one year.
Step 5, measure: the weight of food thrown away each week.
Step 6, join the parts:
To what extent did the canteen’s leftover-food scheme reduce the weight of food thrown away at Sekolah Contoh between Term 1 and Term 2?
Step 7, test: evidence could be weekly bin-weight records and a short student survey. Both are reachable at school level, and both can show a change or no change.
Notice that the question does not say the scheme worked. It leaves room for either answer.
The mistake to watch for
A common first attempt is a question that is still a theme in disguise.
Mistaken question: How can we stop food waste?
It covers the whole world, assumes the problem can be “stopped”, and has no group, place or period.
The correction is to run the steps. Add a setting, a group, a period and a measure, and replace “stop” with a neutral verb such as “reduce” or “change”. A weaker version also appears: “Is food waste bad?” This is a judgement with no evidence path, so it stays a theme.
Check yourself
Every item below is invented for practice.
1. Say whether each is a theme or a question: (a) “Plastic bags” (b) “How did the bag charge at one fictional supermarket chain change the number of bags sold between 2019 and 2022?”
Show answer
(a) is a theme: no group, place, period or measure. (b) is a question: it has a setting (one chain), a period (2019 to 2022) and a measure (bags sold).
2. Narrow the theme “teenagers and sleep” into one question. Name the group, the period and the measure you chose.
Show answer
One possible answer: “How did the average weeknight sleep of Form 4 students at one fictional school differ between exam weeks and non-exam weeks in one term?” Group: Form 4 students. Period: one term. Measure: average weeknight sleep. Other versions are fine if all three parts are named.
3. A student writes “Why is online shopping ruining small shops?” Give two problems with it.
Show answer
It assumes a conclusion (“ruining”) before any research, and it has no place, group or period. A fairer version asks how the number of small shops in one fictional town changed between two years as online sales grew.
Where this leads next
Next, look at how wording can quietly decide the answer in separating an issue from a predetermined conclusion. When you are ready, test the whole skill with the questions and research scope practice set.
Some students can follow a worked example but freeze when they must choose their own focus. Our teachers help with exactly that kind of thinking in online one-to-one Global Perspectives tuition.