Reflection on Luker, Chapters 4-5

I found Luker's warning about the difference between a research interest and a research question very eye-opening and also worrisome. In the beginning stages of research, it can be hard to figure out a specific question, especially if your area of interest is broad and the literature expansive. It seems especially confounding for qualitative research that aims to answer subjective questions. Coming from a Psychology background, I have a strong interest in mental health issues. Concepts such as mental well-being often seem quite abstract, and to define them brings about issues of interpretation. For example, how does one measure self-esteem? When the variables and effects that you are studying reside internally within human beings, how do you observe them?

Self-report measures are the only option I can think of at present, although I will need to investigate this further. Is this method valid? Certainly asking someone what their level of "well-being" is makes more sense than to observe their behaviour and assign a level of well-being to them. Internal thoughts, beliefs, and feelings often do not translate to behaviours, which are motivated by many other things such as social expectations and external goals. On that note, reporting a feeling can itself be considered a behaviour, and is very different from the actual event of emotionality. This is an issue that does not seem to have an easy answer.