Research Questions with PICO: A Universal Mnemonic

A well-formulated research question should incorporate the components of a ‘problem’, an ‘intervention’, ‘control’, and ‘outcome’—at least according to PICO mnemonic. The utility this format, however, has been said be limited clinical studies that pose ‘which’ questions demanding correlational study designs. In contrast, its suitability for descriptive approaches outside investigations doubted. This paper disagrees with alleged limitations PICO. Instead, it argues scheme can used universally every scientific endeavour in any discipline all argument draws from four abstract common research, namely, object, theory/method, (null) hypothesis, goal knowledge generation. Various examples how highly heterogenous different disciplines grounded single are offered. finding implies is indeed universal technique teaching academic writing discipline, beyond settings, regardless preferred design.