Answer:

One of the very common problems faced by the researchers is to decide whether the research question should be framed before looking for secondary datasets or the dataset should be selected before deciding the research questions and then on the basis of the information available from the dataset, the research question should be framed.

Framing the research question is one of the most important work of a researcher to conduct a high quality research. Thus, it is not a good option to select the dataset first and then go for extensive research with the variables so that an interesting variable is found with which a research can be framed. Again, if the research question is framed at first, it becomes a challenge for the researcher to find a dataset that contains all the information about the necessary variables that are required for the research. Thus, to overcome this problem, the area of inquiry should be broadly defined at first with no specific idea about the research question. On the basis of the area of inquiry, a series of datasets have to be identified. These selected datasets can be closely observed to frame a suitable research question for the study (sgim.org, 2018).

Thus, it can be said that if the secondary dataset is chosen first, variables necessary from the dataset can be selected by defining the interesting literature between them, but the problem arises when no interesting literature can be found on the chosen variables. On the other hand, when the research question is selected first, dataset can be chosen according to the research question, but in this case, the problem arises when no data can be found based on the research question (Fullerton & Lee, 2011). Thus comes the necessity of the alternate technique. 

References

Fullerton, S. M., & Lee, S. S. (2011). Secondary uses and the governance of de-identified data: Lessons from the human genome diversity panel. BMC Medical Ethics, 12(1), 16.

Which Comes First – The Dataset or the Research Question?. (2018). Sgim.org. Retrieved 23 April 2018, from https://www.sgim.org/File%20Library/SGIM/Communities/Research/Dataset%20Compendium/users-guide-which-came-first.pdf