Looking back on what my own students have needed for their theses in 2018, I know what I need to write in 2019: how do you move from having a vague question to reading to systematizing your literature review to refining your research question based on the literature to new RQ
Earlier this year I did a thread on research questions (read all responses, very useful).
My blog post on mapping a new field or body of literature should be helpful raulpacheco.org/2018/01/mappin… but the problem I find is that once the literature is mapped, students often find themselves bogged down in their reading. Their attention to ONE RQ wanes and want to do others.
I think the process goes something like this - Vague RQ - read/analyze/synthesize/formulate a lit review/map the body - Zero in on a particular gap in the literature or something that has been understudied - REFORMULATE RQ based on this newfound gap. Decide on methods.
When I sit in comprehensive exams I always wonder if the student (these are PhD ones) knows that their comps are supposed to test how BROADLY and DEEPLY they have read in their fields. This breadth and depth of reading and analysis helps them find gaps raulpacheco.org/2018/06/develo…
And then it's contingent on the student's supervisor AND the student to decide whether the research question posited fills the gap or develops new understandings. But this funnel-like process requires reading deeply, and broadly, and mastering various literatures.
My biggest challenge with students is that they want to do EVERYTHING. Narrowing their thesis topic is usually where we struggle most raulpacheco.org/2017/07/narrow… this is a problem that has a solution, luckily, but requires a conversation with committee members and programme directors
This is also a multi-party conversation because my expectations of an undergraduate honors thesis are much lower than a Masters thesis and even lower than a doctoral dissertation. But some people don't seem to have the same standards, and that posits a challenge. What's needed?
Something else that is a challenge and that I know if or how can I write it is moving from having a research question to choosing the right methods for your question. I favour qualitative methods because those are the ones that usually answer mine. But some students use others.
And while I've read a ton of research methods books, writing books, and research design/strategies/how to do research books, none actually does what I need them to do because there's always a component that is disciplinary-thematic. Theses in management differe from anthropology
This is why mentoring students and supervising theses is really, really, really time consuming. You are supposed to read the student's work, infer what they're trying to do, make a decision on whether they're trying to do too much/need to do more/help guide students through this.
My blog post on research questions is here raulpacheco.org/2018/06/develo… my resources for graduate students here raulpacheco.org/resources/reso… and my overall Resources page, is here raulpacheco.org/resources/ hover over the word Resources to reveal all sub-menus and nested pages. 
