Students struggle with identifying a research topic or scoping their research appropriately, even or especially with open ended assignments. Students who have a topic in mind may get discouraged when their overly broad search terms do not lead to appropriate resources. This may cause students to abandon topics that interest them because they erroneously believe them to be a poor fit for the assignment.
Do exploratory research in order to generate appropriate topics for an assignment
Appropriately scope a research question for a particular assignment and identify search terms related to the research question (rather than the broad topic)
Identify research topics that are related to their own curiosity and learning goals
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The book, Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions, may provide some food for thought if you are interested in spending time with you students building their capacity to generate questions about a topic. A copy is available in Lamson and the accompanying website has additional resources.
Consider giving your students a list of possible topics to choose from. They can’t pick what they don’t know about and, especially in gen ed courses, they may have little background in the discipline. If you’re not comfortable with that, consider directing them to resources to browse that might help them encounter and recognize topic they’re interested in. Let students know that they aren’t limited to the topics provided or found in the browsing material; encourage them to use them as a starting point.