“I want to learn more about the actual design of the rooms in the castle”. -Which rooms? All the rooms? What about the design? The color palette used, the adherence to historical criteria, the ???? Again, what would people want to know that isn’t already published? Is there a problem with these rooms? “I kind of have a thing for fireplaces. I know there’s one in the castle in the Cinderella Suite. I always wondered why they would have a fireplace in a castle in Florida. But I am sure I have a better question to ask than that. But hey, I could be the world’s foremost expert on that fireplace in that room in that castle in that Magic Kingdom”. -Why would anyone want to know everything about one fireplace in a resort castle? What information about that fireplace isn’t already published? What new information could you discover through research and to whom would that information be would be valuable?

“Well, should I zoom out and inquire about all the fireplaces in all the Disney castles of all the Disney parks?” -Again, what isn’t already known and already published and would anybody care about this new information? “Well what if I wanted to study the effects of efficiency of heating and cooling systems in Disney Resort castles and how it effects the costs of staying at those resorts”. -Ooh a correlational study…are you prepared to ‘do the math’ that comes with a correlation study? -What if there is already a published study on the heating and cooling systems at Disney? “I guess I will have to do some digging/searching to find that out”. -What if there isn’t a study already published? Do you think the data or information you need is easily obtained? What if there isn’t very much searchable information about that castle fireplace or all the Disney fireplaces? “Gee, I don’t know if I have the time OR the money to personally go to all the resort castles and gather the data myself. I wouldn’t even know who to talk to” -so now what?

Lesson 3: Focus Use the criteria you listed for developing effective research questions from your Thinking Ahead homework assignment to generate responses to the following questions: What are the steps to take to transform a topic of inquiry or a problem into a well-defined research question capable of yielding a long- term investigation? What are the critical elements of an effective research question, and how do you know if those elements are present?

Teacher-Student Dialogue What guiding questions did the teacher ask to get the student to adhere to the criteria for effective research questions? What criteria were difficult for the student to adhere to? An effective technique for helping students engage in writing good research questions is to first generate some problem statements.