How to develop your Extended Essay research question

The research question is the spine of your IB Extended Essay: 4,000 words hang off it, and examiners judge everything — your sources, your method, your conclusion — against how well it holds. A good one is narrow enough to answer properly, open enough to argue about, and rooted in a subject you actually study. Most students don't start there. They start with something broad and genuinely interesting, and then — this is the part that's rarely taught — narrow it deliberately.

This page sets out the method our coached conversation walks you through, aligned to the 2027 EE guide. You can read it as a checklist, or let the coach take you through it — the first steps are free and need no account.

The eight steps

1. 1

   Your DP subjects

   Your six Diploma subjects anchor everything — the strongest essays grow out of a subject you actually study, ideally at Higher Level.

2. 2

   Broad topic

   Start wide: what genuinely interests you? A vague area like “disease” or “urban trees” is a fine beginning — the method narrows it.

3. 3

   Pathway

   Single-subject, or interdisciplinary combining two of your subjects? Under the 2027 guide the interdisciplinary route sits within five registered frameworks.

4. 4

   Research so far

   Honest stock-take of your reading. Arriving at your first supervisor meeting with three to five sources puts you in a far stronger position.

5. 5

   Narrowing the focus

   Apply limiting factors — time period, place, a specific text, one variable — until a 4,000-word treatment becomes realistic.

6. 6

   Question checks

   Is there a real argument to make, or is the answer self-evident? Will it let you show subject-specific concepts and methods?

7. 7

   Draft research question

   A working question — not set in stone, but strong enough to take to your supervisor and defend.

8. 8

   Before the meeting

   Concrete next steps: sources to find, ethical considerations, and how to use your supervisor well. A PDF summary lands in your inbox.

Limiting factors: how broad becomes workable

The distance between “I'm interested in disease” and a workable research question is usually two limiting factors. Each one you add trades breadth for depth — and depth is what the 4,000-word limit rewards.

• Temporal: a defined period — “the 2008 financial crisis”, not “economic crises”. History expects events at least 10 years past; Economics prefers data from the last five.

• Geographic: a specific country, city or ecosystem. Geography essays need a clear spatial limit — a named place you can actually study.

• Subject-specific: one author’s novels, one demographic, one company, three or four poems — a corpus small enough to know deeply.

• Methodological: one variable, one model, one theory. The sciences want a single independent variable you can measure with school equipment; Psychology permits no primary data at all.

Ask a question worth arguing about

Across every subject, the question must invite an argument, not a summary. “To what extent…” forces you to weigh competing factors; “How significant…” and “How reliable…” demand judgement backed by evidence. Be wary of “What is…” and “How do…” — if the answer is a description, there is nothing to defend, and very little to write.