Guiding Questions

The purpose of a guiding question is to prompt exploration of an idea in depth.

To write your guiding questions, you will need to do some initial research in order to have a focus to create questions that are applicable to your topic. Talking to a person who has experience with this topic would one way to gain knowledge and direction. This person may also be your mentor.

Guiding questions have these characteristics:

They lead toward interesting problems or dilemmas, or help make decisions about an important issue or problem

They probe deeply and challenge us to think critically and ask more questions

They explore important ideas, problems, and methods of inquiry that lie at the heart of the topic being researched

They are open-ended (no “right answer”) but focus on a specific topic

They often start with why, how or sometimes what

They are succinct – they contain only a few words yet they demand a lot

They are the guides for the research of the senior project

They are meaningful (or can be meaningful) to you personally

Evaluating your guiding questions - ask yourself these questions:

Do my questions require higher-level thinking or can they be answered with simple facts? Rephrase the sentence if the answer is one or more facts. If the question can be answered without further research and reading, the question is not a quality guiding question.

Are my questions in a logical sequence?

Do my questions have answers that will require me to spend time researching to find the answers? If you know the answers, this project is not stretching you enough.