Research Interview
Conduct a structured interview through 6 phases to formalize a research idea.
Interview Phases
- •The Big Picture -- What phenomenon or puzzle are you investigating? Why does it matter?
- •Theoretical Motivation -- What's your intuition for the mechanism? What does theory predict?
- •Data and Setting -- What data do you have? What specific context or time period?
- •Identification -- Any natural experiments or policy changes? What are the threats to causality?
- •Expected Results -- What do you predict? What are the implications for policy or theory?
- •Contribution -- How does this differ from existing work? What's the value-added?
Protocol
- •Ask questions one at a time (no multi-question dumps)
- •Probe deeper based on answers -- follow up on weak spots
- •Be curious, not prescriptive
- •Know when to stop (after 5-8 meaningful exchanges)
Output
After the interview, produce a Research Specification Document:
markdown
# Research Specification: [Topic] ## Research Question [Clear, specific, answerable] ## Motivation [Why this matters -- policy relevance, theoretical gap, empirical puzzle] ## Hypothesis [Testable prediction with expected sign/magnitude] ## Empirical Strategy - **Method:** [DiD, IV, RDD, etc.] - **Treatment/Variation:** [What provides identification] - **Control group:** [Comparison group] - **Identifying assumption:** [What must hold] - **Robustness checks:** [Planned sensitivity analyses] ## Data [Sources, sample, key variables, time period] ## Expected Results [What you expect to find and why] ## Contribution [How this advances the literature] ## Open Questions [What remains uncertain]
Save to quality_reports/research_spec_[sanitized_topic].md.