Four Elements in a Well-Formulated Question

P

I

C

O

POPULATION/PROBLEM

INTERVENTION

COMPARISON

OUTCOME

Client Type

And/or Problem

What You

Might Do

Alternative Course
of Action

What You Want

To Accomplish

Describe the population with which you are interested in working. This part of the question will help you consider whether or not the population that you are interested in serving does or does not match up with the samples that are included in research studies you find.

Describe an intervention you might use. You can choose something general like “parent training”, or a specific intervention like, “Parent-Child Interaction Therapy”.

Optional: Describe an alternative intervention. Use this column only if you are interested in comparing one intervention to another.

One outcome of treatment, program, or policy. Choose only one outcome for each question. Try to be specific. General outcomes like “well-being” are hard to pin down. Try to think about things that you can observe, measure, or on which people can report.