| Course | HLTH 8551 Preparing for Dissertation |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 6 |
| Paper type | Research question draft |
| Length | About 570 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | PhD in Public Health |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HLTH 8551 Week 6
Research Question Draft: Removing Four Hedges Until One Sentence About Adults Who Left a Hospital Diabetes Class Series Could Stand on Its Own, With a SPIDER Breakdown of What It Commits To
Student Name
Walden University
HLTH 8551: Preparing for Dissertation
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Research Question Draft: Removing Four Hedges Until One Sentence About Adults Who Left a Hospital Diabetes Class Series Could Stand on Its Own, With a SPIDER Breakdown of What It Commits To
The Question
How do adults who left a hospital-based group diabetes education series before its last session describe their decision to stop attending?
The Revision Trail
Version one asked what barriers might affect attendance at diabetes education. I struck "might," which made the question unanswerable by any finding, and "barriers," which assumed the reasons were obstacles rather than choices.
Version two asked what factors possibly influence why people with diabetes stop attending education. I struck "possibly" and "factors," which invited a list of variables my method would not measure.
Version three asked why adults fail to engage with group education. I struck "fail to engage," which defined nothing and passed a verdict before any participant had spoken.
Version four asked how adults experience leaving diabetes education in general. I struck "in general," which pulled back every population I had excluded in Week 3, and replaced "experience" with "describe their decision," which names what I can actually collect.
The SPIDER Breakdown
Cooke et al. (2012) proposed SPIDER as an alternative to PICO for qualitative questions, which asks the writer to name the sample, the design, the phenomenon of interest, the evaluation and the research type. I used it to check what my sentence commits to.
Table 1
SPIDER Elements of the Draft Question
| Element | Words of the question that fill it | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| Sample | adults who left a hospital-based group diabetes education series before its last session | Stated | |
| Phenomenon of interest | their decision to stop attending | Stated | |
| Design | implied by describe; interviews are the natural fit | Implied | |
| Evaluation | how they describe the decision: accounts, reasons, sequence | Stated | |
| Research type | implied qualitative | Implied | |
Design and research type are left to the method section on purpose, so the question does not settle a choice that Week 8 must argue.
Why Not PICO
PICO asks for an intervention and a comparison. My question has neither; it asks how people account for something they did. Forcing it into PICO would turn leaving into an outcome to be predicted, which is a different study. Questions that ask for people's own accounts belong to designs that stay near what participants say (Sandelowski, 2000), the territory SPIDER was built for. A PICO version would read something like this: among adults enrolled in group education, does a reminder call program, compared with none, reduce leaving? That is a reasonable question for someone else's study. It is not mine.
What the Question Cannot Answer
The question cannot say how many people leave; that is a records question. It cannot say whether leaving harms anyone's health, which would need follow-up over months. It cannot say what the program should change, though participants' accounts may suggest it. Booth et al. (2016) note that a question gains strength from the limits its author can state, and these three limits are the ones a committee would ask about first.
Alignment With the Problem
The Week 4 problem ended on what is unknown: how adults who stopped attending understand their decision to stop. The question asks for exactly that, from the same population, in the same setting. The method argued in Week 8 will need to keep that same population, which is the first thing next week's alignment table will test.
References
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M., Bizup, J., & FitzGerald, W. T. (2016). The craft of research (4th ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Cooke, A., Smith, D., & Booth, A. (2012). Beyond PICO: The SPIDER tool for qualitative evidence synthesis. Qualitative Health Research, 22(10), 1435-1443. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732312452938
Sandelowski, M. (2000). Whatever happened to qualitative description? Research in Nursing & Health, 23(4), 334-340. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-240X(200008)23:4<334::AID-NUR9>3.0.CO;2-G
What the HLTH 8551 Week 6 instructions ask for
Students draft the central research question for their study. Faculty expect a single, answerable question that matches the problem statement and names its population and phenomenon. Many prompts ask students to break the question into elements using a tool such as PICO or SPIDER and to explain any revisions. A strong draft states what the question cannot answer, since those limits shape later choices. Hedging language and terms that pass judgment before data are collected should be removed. The question should leave design choices open where the method section will argue them, and the draft should say so.
Inside the HLTH 8551 Week 6 example
The question appears first, on its own. A revision trail describes four earlier versions and the words struck from each, with reasons such as "barriers" assuming obstacles and "fail to engage" passing a verdict. A SPIDER section cites Cooke and colleagues and presents a table showing which elements the question states and which it only implies. A section explains why PICO, built for interventions and comparisons, would turn leaving into an outcome to predict, and gives an example PICO version for contrast. A section lists three things the question cannot answer, citing Booth and colleagues on stating limits. A closing section checks alignment with the Week 4 problem and notes that Week 8's method must keep the same population.
HLTH 8551 Week 6 rubric: what earns full marks
Answerability carries most of the grade, and faculty test it by asking what evidence would count as an answer. A question about how people describe something can be answered with interviews; a question about why people fail to engage cannot, because engagement is undefined and failure presumes a verdict. The struck versions earn credit for showing the wording was chosen. A breakdown tool earns credit when it exposes gaps or implied elements, as the design row does here, and less when it merely relabels the sentence. Alignment with the problem statement and an honest list of what the question cannot answer both add weight. A single question is preferred to several.
HLTH 8551 Week 6 help from the desk
Research questions at this stage often hide behind hedges such as might and possibly, or use words like barriers and engagement that decide the answer in advance. To write a stronger question, write your current version and circle every word that softens it or passes judgment. Remove or replace each. Ask what evidence would answer the question and whether you could collect it. Break the question into elements with PICO or SPIDER and look for missing parts. List what the question cannot answer. Check that it matches your problem statement. We can help you draft and test a research question for your study with a full revision trail. Read the final version aloud; if it needs a breath in the middle, it probably holds two questions.
Get a HLTH 8551 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Give the desk your current question, hedges and all, with the Week 6 assignment wording and the rubric. What returns is one unhedged sentence, the earlier versions struck through, and a SPIDER or PEO breakdown suited to your design. Free on a first request, 24 to 48 hours; the diabetes series here is a composite, and the question you keep must be yours.
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HLTH 8551 Week 6 questions, answered
Why SPIDER rather than PICO for this question?
PICO was built for questions comparing an intervention against an alternative on a measured outcome. The example asks how people describe a decision, which has no comparison and no measured outcome, so PICO would force empty or invented rows. SPIDER, devised with qualitative and mixed-method evidence in mind, fits the sentence as written. If your question compares or measures, PICO or PEO may suit it better.
What counts as a hedge in a research question?
Words that let a sentence avoid committing: might, may, possibly, potentially, and phrases such as in some cases or to some extent. A qualitative question can still be open-ended without hedging; asking how people describe something commits to a phenomenon and a group while leaving the answer free. The example strikes four hedged versions, and a committee would likely strike them too.
Can I have more than one research question?
Many dissertations do, but this week usually asks for the central one, and sub-questions added now tend to smuggle back the breadth the narrowing removed. The example keeps a single question and lists what it cannot answer instead of adding questions to cover those gaps. If your program's template calls for sub-questions, each should be answerable by the same design as the main one.
Where can I find a free HLTH 8551 Week 6 sample paper?
The complete Week 6 research question draft is on this page, showing four struck versions, a SPIDER table and what the final question about leaving diabetes education cannot answer, with two references.
Why are design and research type left implied?
Because the method section argues those choices in Week 8; stating them in the question now would settle a decision before its reasons have been written down.