Often, I have students who are very excited about the prospect of conducting primary research with a topic that is far from actually doable in the year they have in my classroom. In comes a lesson about feasibility. That exploring the power of research helps students arrive at topics that are personal, relevant, and urgent is one of the more powerful reflections I’ve had through my starting strong lessons. Now, students need support understanding feasibility so that they avoid study designs that set them up for failure.
I ask students 3 questions to help them think about feasibility:
- What, in an ideal world, would a researcher do to unpack this research topic?
- Which of those methods could you use to unpack this research topic, this year? (Consider your knowledge, access, and bandwidth.)
- If you explored this topic using the methods you chose in question #2, would you be able to learn about this topic thoroughly and potentially write a research report that could be genuinely original and impactful?
I want kids, to begin with, to explode their imaginations and take these research topics seriously. I might give students sample topics where they already know something, and have them brainstorm potential methods and sources in small groups. I might give them these three research questions, for example:
- What do women and children Partition refugees say about belonging and community during and after Partition?
- What are the benefits and drawbacks of uniform policies in schools? What might be the most inclusive approach?
- What are some social media-responsive interventions at school and at home that can help students to minimize the negative consequences of screen time?
*Note: I do not format these questions as “perfect” research questions against some definition/rubric/template. My goal here is to encourage curiosity and imagination and to teach research as a tool to effectively scratch that itch. I have never really understood the point of these research question templates – I explain things like causation and descriptive research and secondary research as ideas I cover in research mini-lessons in the first 2-3 months of the school year. When a research question’s framing strongly implies an investigation inconsistent with the study design, I point that out. For example, “does 8 hours of sleep affect students’ math scores?” implies an experiment. If a student is planning to do interviews with students about their sleep patterns and their perceptions of the resulting impact on their math performance, I would advise a student to change the framing of their research question to something like “what do students say or perceive about sleep patterns and math performance?” – I do this instead of having a very rigid research question template that I require all students to adapt, which I find very prescriptive, intimidating, and confusing for the student.
In any case, given these three research questions, for example, I ask students to brainstorm every possible way, given unlimited time, access, and resources, a researcher might answer the question.
Students might suggest we interview students about uniforms, speak to school leaders, read existing research papers, or conduct an experiment by having ‘free dress days.’ They might suggest watching the Stanford Partition Archive, reading oral histories, and exploring fiction and art created at the time of Partition. For social media, they might once again suggest student interviews; maybe they would add parent interviews to the mix, and maybe they would suggest reviewing existing studies on screen time and its consequences on teenager mental health.
It is crucial that these sample research questions are familiar to students – I want their curiosity to come from a place of confidence and enthusiasm rather than from a place of doubt or a feeling that this is in any way a ‘test.’ It should feel like play, and for that, we need some prior knowledge. So, I pick topics they’ve learned about in school in earlier grades or something they have lived experience of, such as a topic related to schools or adolescence. It helps this lesson sparkle.
Once they’ve done this with a few research questions and topics, I teach my understanding methods class. Then, we come back to their chosen topic(s), perhaps 10-14 days later. I ask them to look at the methods we have studied and the approaches they have considered in our small group activities, and I invite them to look at their topics and engage in a similar exercise. I ask them to answer the following questions:
- What, in an ideal world, would you look at/explore to answer your question/understand your topic? Let’s assume unlimited time, access, and resources for a moment. In other words, what all could a researcher do to gain true expertise on your chosen topic?
- Make a table in your notebook and list all the methods we’ve learned about. Which ones make sense, hypothetically, to answer your research question?
Instructions: make one table for each of your shortlisted topics.
| Methods | Is it relevant? | Why or why not? |
| Literature review | ||
| survey | ||
| Focus group discussions | ||
| interview | ||
| Field observations | ||
| Document review | ||
| Art-based methods | ||
| Theatre based methods | ||
| Administrative data review | ||
| discourse/language analysis |
I explain to students that we cannot conduct experiments because the research world has very rigid expectations on experimental research that I don’t think we could do justice to as high school students, with many other time commitments and responsibilities. My expectation – my hope – is that they produce research that can be taken seriously and that cannot be dismissed out of hand simply because the principal investigator is a teenager. And for that, we need to be smart and strategic about our chosen topic and methods. Then, I ask students to once again put pen to paper and answer a few reflective questions.
Then, I check-in with each student – gently nudging them and using these conversations to challenge, revise, reteach, and assess students’ understanding of the methods we’ve studied in class. I am sharing a couple of examples of what a check-in conversation might be to help students assess feasibility. Like reading conferences, these checkins are organic, student-centered, and carefully unique, but also have important trends/throughlines across all students.
research conference #1: Khushi
Sruti: Hi Khushi, how is it going?
Khushi: I think I know what I want my topic to be. I want to focus on nuclear security.
Sruti: Tell me a little more about the journey you took to get here?
Khushi: So, I want to study international relations in college and I want this research project to help me prepare for university study. And since I am really interested in nuclear weapons and how to limit the danger they pose while also thinking about things like balance of power, I think I would have a lot of fun writing this research report.
Sruti: Got it. I can see that you’re really passionate about this. I just have some questions and concerns I want us to talk through before you fully commit to this idea. Is that okay?
Khushi: Yep, okay.
Sruti: So. One thing to think about is that there is no primary source on nuclear security, really, that you can access that no one else can. I mean, almost every relevant source in this case is secondary, very historical, or classified. So to write a really original and innovative report might be hard.
Khushi: Hmm. Well, I hadn’t thought of the classified piece – it’s true that there’s a lot I might not have access to. But here’s what I have done – I have downloaded the Oxford and Cambridge reading lists and identified all the readings that are related to security, and I have emailed professors at Ashoka introducing myself and asking for recommendations, and found PDFs of those books too. And I read India After Gandhi over the summer, which I found useful just as background.
Sruti: Okay, wow. You’ve really thought about this and done a lot of work to both speak to experts and build knowledge for yourself. A couple things I am thinking about: 1) I do feel like you need to formulate your research question as a historical one – most countries make it impossible for you to know how they have been thinking about security in the last 30 years, so you’d be much better off looking at a fixed period of time ending in/around 1995 or even earlier. 2) What value-add are you thinking your report could have, given that you’re in high school?
Khushi: What do you mean?
Sruti: I mean, theoretically, a college student, a graduate student, or a think tank researcher would have access to the same sources you do and probably a lot more time, too. Why should someone read your report and not one of these other people?
Khushi: Why does my report need to be better or more original than a university student’s or a professional’s?
Sruti: Well, it doesn’t have to be, but I invite and challenge you to think about what you, as Khushi, can write about right now that no one else could. A research report can have many purposes, but a couple are that 1) you learn about a topic that is really important to you and 2) you write something that can really contribute to our collective understanding about a topic or issue and I guess what I am asking you to think about is that your topic as it stands right now – I can’t really see it meeting this second purpose.
Khushi: That makes sense, but I guess that first of all, my top priority is to learn for myself, and second of all, let me think about how I can challenge myself to make my plan a bit more unique – maybe by adding in more Indian perspectives or something like that.
research conference #2: Priyadarshini
Sruti: Hi Priyadarshini! How do you feel about your topics so far?
Priyadarshini: I am really confused – I have narrowed it down to two topics but now I really feel like I can’t choose.
Sruti: Why don’t you tell me about each topic and we can talk through both to see if that will help you see more clearly.
Priyadarshini: Okay. 1) I want to do research on hospitals and healthcare, or 2) I want to understand bias in history textbooks.
Sruti: Wow, okay, those are two very different topics. What makes you interested in both?
Priyadarshini: Both feel very personal for different reasons.
Sruti: Okay! Tell me how you might go about exploring each one.
Priyadarshini: Well, for understanding hospitals and healthcare, I would want to read laws about healthcare and maybe interview patients, doctors, and hospital administrators. My goal is to understand the on-the-ground realities of access to medical care. Do people’s actual experiences match ideas of universal health care?
Sruti: That’s really interesting – I have a few questions to understand more. Let’s start with – what does Indian law actually say/promise about access to health care?
Priyadarshini: Actually, I haven’t read into it yet, but I have been reading about UK and US and Singapore health care policies.
Sruti: Okay, so are you looking specifically at what India does in terms of healthcare access? Do you want to compare health care systems across multiple countries?
Priyadarshini: I don’t really know, if I am honest.
Sruti: From the sound of what you were describing earlier, you want to collect primary data from people who actually experience the healthcare system.
Priyadarshini: Yes.
Sruti: I think if you want to compare across different countries, you will have to primarily deal with secondary research because honestly you won’t be able to interview patients or healthcare workers abroad. So I think you have to think about whether you want to look at Indian healthcare policy in terms of how it compares to other countries or look at Indian healthcare policy in terms of how people experience it.
Priyadarshini: I think I care more about how people experience it, but I am scared of interviewing people. Secondary research is less scary.
Sruti: We will do LOTS of lessons where we practice how to interview and schedule and navigate all of that so while being nervous about that is fully human, I don’t think it should be a key factor in your decision.
Priyadarshini: Okay, then yes I think I am more interested in the Indian perspective across different stakeholders.
Sruti: Okay! Let’s talk about the other topic before I forget. So tell me about the history textbooks topic.
Priyadarshini: So yeah, I am interested in understanding better how our textbooks are made – I just know they get changed a lot and I am curious about that.
Sruti: What exactly are you curious about?
Priyadarshini: I have been reading about how new textbooks get released and how sometimes the process around that can be political. And I am thinking about the textbooks I had as a kid and I have the sense that they did not really present all sides. I am curious about how textbooks get written, how political the process is, and how reliable they are as sources of knowledge.
Sruti: Wow, Okay. That is also a very interesting topic. And tell me how you are thinking about exploring this topic? What are all the approaches you have considered?
Priyadarshini: I really want to read all of the textbooks on history and civics in India and then do a compare and contrast in my research paper.
Sruti: I think you’ll have to make that a bit smaller – all grades, all states, all years of publishing sounds like the work of a lifetime, not a year. Pick one lens or just find a way to make the scope narrow enough that it can be realistically done in one year.
Priyadarshini: Okay, that makes sense.
Sruti: Alright. Now you have two topics that we are both very excited about, both narrowed down a little bit so they’re more feasible to complete well in one year. Now just try to think about which one sounds more fun, and make a decision.
Priyadarshini: I think I’m excited about the idea of learning a different perspective on history than what I was taught in primary school – it is still a topic that scares me, but in a more exciting way.
sruti teaches 