Mastering the Research Process: From Questions to Conclusions

Miacademy & MiaPrep Learning Channel

This educational video provides a comprehensive guide to the academic research process, designed to help students navigate the journey from choosing a topic to presenting findings. It begins by establishing the real-world relevance of research, using examples from journalism, cooking, and safety engineering to demonstrate how research informs decisions and ensures accuracy in professional life. The content breaks down the research workflow into six manageable steps: generating a question, gathering sources, evaluating credibility, synthesizing information, drawing conclusions, and presenting. A significant portion of the video is dedicated to the critical skill of formulating a strong research question, introducing a visual "funnel method" to help students narrow broad topics like "technology" into specific, open-ended inquiries. Teachers can use this video as a launchpad for research papers, capstone projects, or information literacy units. It effectively addresses the common student struggle of selecting a manageable scope for their writing. By providing clear criteria for what makes a research question "strong" versus "weak," the video offers practical tools that students can immediately apply to their own assignments.