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Research Guides

Black Health Pedagogy & Research Guide

Sample Research Scenario

Let's say you're interested in exploring cancer screening and Black populations - this might be too broad or vague of a topic to research as-is. You may need to do some background searching first (such as in LibrarySearch or Google Scholar), to find out more about this topic, and decide if you need to narrow the scope of your research question some more.

After doing some background searching, one example of how you might narrow the scope of your initial broad research topic into a more focused research question might be:

What is known about barriers to screening for cervical cancer for Black women?

Create a Searchable Research Question - using research question frameworks

It's important to have a focused research question. Concept mapping or using a question formula can help you clarify and focus your question once you have your general topic decided upon. There are many question formulas that might help you! Here are just a few.

P Population: Who are you interested in learning about?
I Intervention: What treatment or variable are you looking at (i.e. a specific supplement)
C Comparison [optional]: Is there an alternative intervention that you are comparing?
O Outcome [optional]: Is there a desired outcome to this intervention? (Note: not always searched for, often screened for in search results)
P Patient or problem or population: Who are you interested in learning about?
I Intervention or issue: What treatment or variable are you looking at (i.e. a specific supplement)
E Evaluation or effect: What are you trying to measure, and how?
P Patient or problem or population: Who are you interested in learning about?
E Exposure: what has the population been exposed to? What have they experienced?
O Outcome(s) or themes of interest  (Note: unlike in PICO, outcomes sometimes included in search terms when using PEO framework)
S Setting - where are you looking at?
P  Perspective - for whom?
I Intervention or issue: What treatment or variable are you looking at (i.e. a specific supplement)
C Comparison - compared with what?
E Evaluation - with what result?
S Sample: Who are you interested in learning about?
PI Phenomenon of Interest: What behaviour/ experience do you wish to learn about?
D Design: What type of study design are you interested in looking at?
E Evaluation: What outcome measures do you wish to explore?
R Research Type: Are you interested in qualitative methods? Quantitative methods? Both?
Pro Tip: Unsure which framework best suits your question? The SPICE framework can be useful for social sciences topics. PEO and SPICE can be more useful for research questions that are qualitative in nature. SPIDER can be helpful for finding qualitative and mixed-methods studies.

Create a Searchable Research Question - Concept Tables

Sometimes, public health topics don't neatly fit into one of the above research question frameworks, which often are better suited to clinical effectiveness questions.

  1. Write out the question which you would like to answer through a literature search
  2. Underline the main topics
  3. List each unique topic in one box/column
  4. Group synonymous topics in the same box/column

At times, a simple concept table can be used instead to structure a research question, to make searching easier:

CONCEPT 1

CONCEPT 2

CONCEPT 3
Cervical cancer Screening Black Women