Narrowing in on the Fundamental Question

Although the subject of my research has remained consistent throughout the course, I have found that I have developed my ability to narrow in and take things one step at a time.  Initially, my proposed research question was asking too many things at once.  I asked:  How do information policy, regulation, and law in Canada reflect the privacy concerns of fitness tracker users regarding the generation and potential collection of biometric data by third party data-seekers such as advertisers and data brokers?  In my attempt to develop a method that would go about answering this question, I came to a realization that I am asking too many things at one time, and that there’s a necessity to break it down into sections in order to arrive at the answer.  These sections actually function as individual research questions on their own, so I had revised my research question to ask one fundamental question that would act as a starting point in answering my initial question.  My revised question is:  How do users of fitness trackers or wearable health electronics perceive the privacy of their biometric data with regard to how it is collected, stored, and shared by applications linked to their devices?

I believe ambition is a good thing, and to me, a worthwhile proposed question for research should be one that is ambitious in its effort to provide answers to a certain way in which society functions.  I believe this is what I was doing with my initial research question, as I was eager to determine how information policy, regulation, and law in Canada reflected the desires and needs of Canadian citizens and users of new and emerging technologies.  However, before that question can be answered, I realized the first step is to gain an understanding of what these desires and needs are, which on its own is a very complex and fundamental question which must undergo its own research.

I continue to struggle with this question, as it is a difficult process to try to conclude on what a user group’s opinions, attitudes, and level of awareness are to a certain subject.  This is something that can be very emotionally charged and not necessarily concrete, however, by continuing to learn about such things as the sample survey process and gathering information based on behaviours and attitudes, I find myself coming closer to being able to ask the right questions to wearable device users in order to answer my own.