The Elevator Exercise

A common problem among beginning research students is the inability to state their research question succinctly. The answer to the question of, “What is your research about?” often takes a torturous route through ontological assumptions, alternative epistemologies, tangential literature reviews and arcane research methods rarely actually getting to the point. A strategy to help students in this regard is to impose time restrictions on their response. I have seen this take a number of forms, but a clever one is to ask students to imagine they have just stepped on an elevator with a key figure in their field of study. They want to make a good impression in describing their research but have only a few floors of an elevator ride to do so. At the Segal Graduate School of Business we are fortunate to have an elevator that serves the 5 floors of our building. The ride takes just 20 seconds and is just about the perfect time for a few well crafted sentences describing a research question. So, for the Seminar in Theory Development required of all Business PhD students the imaginary elevator ride becomes reality as we crowd the elevator for the multiple trips up and down the five stories required for students to refine their research questions. Strange looks (from passengers not part of the class) notwithstanding the exercise works pretty well.

Dr. David C. Thomas, Professor of International Management