Factors to consider when developing a research project

It is also important to consider the following factors when identifying your research topic:

Relevance of the topic

How relevant is the topic to you, personally? Can researching this topic enhance your career?

As well as considering personal relevance, it’s important that you also consider the relevance to others, including the chosen field as a whole and those who may benefit from the study’s findings.

Duplication

While replicability is important in business psychology research, we should pay attention to the possibility of duplicating a research study. Unless your research intends to entirely replicate a study, you will need to ensure that your research question has not already been addressed.

You will also want to consider how your study is different from others, and what it would add to the existing literature. For example, does it consider a different population from what existing studies around a theory have looked at?

Feasibility

You will also want to consider whether or not it is viable to research the topic that you have in mind. For example, you will need to think about if you have adequate resources, such as time and access to materials.

It is also important to think about whether or not your study would be ethical to conduct. For example, if you wanted to investigate the effect of administering electric shocks to employees who turned up late to work, you might struggle to get approval from an ethics committee.

Your task

Can you think of other factors that should be considered when developing a research topic?

Share your thoughts in the comments area.