What the methodology chapter is and why it is important? How to structure and write up the methodology chapter: The research design: The research philosophy: The research type: Inductive research, The research strategy: Experimental research The time horizon: The sampling strategy: The data collection method The analysis methods and techniques: The methodological limitations

1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: STEP BY STEP RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY CHAPTER:
What the methodology chapter is and why it is important?
In today’s article, we are going to explore the methodology chapter of a typical dissertation,
thesis or research project. We will unpack what exactly it is, why it is important and how to go
about writing it step by step.
So, the first question we need to address is what exactly the research methodology chapter is.
Simply put the methodology chapter is where you detail all of the research design choices you
have made and explain why you made them. In other words, the point of the methodology
chapter is to tell the reader, your marker, exactly how you designed your study and to justify each
of your research design choices.
For example, in the methodology chapter, you would highlight the type of research you
conducted qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods, how you collected your data, how you
analyzed your data and who or where you collected the data from.

2. For each of these choices, you would also explain why you chose them and how they all fit
together. If these sounds a bit intimidating do not worry we will explain all the key design
choices in this article.
Also, we have got loads of information about research design and methodology Now that we
have covered the what; the next important thing to understand is the why.
In other words, why the methodology chapter is important and what purpose does it serve. Well,
the methodology chapter is important for at least three reasons.
Firstly it presents an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of research design
theory which is a key assessment criterion for markers. A flawed research design or
methodology would mean flawed results. So, the methodology chapter is vital as it allows you to
show the marker or examiner that you know what you are doing and that your results are
credible.
The second reason the methodology chapter is important is that it helps to make your study
replicable.
In other words, it allows other researchers to undertake your study using the same design and
then compare their findings to yours. This is very important within academic research as each
study builds on previous studies. Without this chapter no one would know exactly how you
undertook your research and therefore would not be able to replicate the study in other settings.
Lastly, the methodology chapter is important because it allows you to identify and discuss any
methodological issues or shortcomings you encountered along the way and to explain how you
mitigated the impact of these. Your study will invariably have limitations all studies do. So, it is
important to acknowledge these openly and highlight your study's value despite its limitations.
Also, this discussion will help further demonstrate your understanding of research design thereby
earning you marks.

3. Now that we have covered what the methodology chapter is and why it is important, it is time to
jump into the exciting bite, how to structure and write up the chapter.
First of all it is worth noting that the exact structure and contents of the methodology chapter will
vary depending on the field of research, for example, business, chemistry or engineering as well
as the university. So, it is always a good idea to check the guidelines provided by your institution
and if possible review past dissertations and thesis from your university.
Here we are going to discuss a generic structure for a methodology chapter, typically found in
the sciences especially the social sciences. Now a quick tip before you start writing we always
recommend that you draw up a rough outline so that you have a clear direction to head in.
Do not just start writing without knowing what will go where. If you do you will most likely end
up with a disjointed poorly flowing narrative. As a result, you will waste a lot of time writing and
rewriting trying to stitch all the pieces together. Save yourself the pain by starting with the end in
mind. Alright time to get down to business.
How to structure and write up the methodology chapter:
The introduction:
As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis the methodology chapter should kick off with
a brief introduction. In this section, you should remind the reader what is the focus of your study
is especially the research aims. As we have discussed many times in our articles that your
methodology needs to align with your research aims and research questions. So, it is useful to
front-load this content to remind the reader and yourself what you are trying to achieve with your
research design. In this section, you can also briefly mention how you will structure the chapter.
This will help orient the reader and provide a bit of a road map so that they know what to expect.

4. Importantly you need to keep this introduction section brief. A paragraph or two max. Does not
waste word count by waffling on here?
The research design:
The next section of your methodology chapter is where you get down to business and present
your research design and methodology to the reader. In this section, you will need to detail and
justify all the key design choices in a logical intuitive fashion.
This is the heart of your methodology chapter so you need to get specific. Do not hold back on
the details here. This is not one of those less is more situations. Broadly speaking there are seven
key design choices that you will need to discuss in the methodology chapter. As I mentioned this
may vary depending on your field of research and or the university but these seven design
choices are the most commonly covered ones. Let us take a look at each of them.
Design choice number one:
The research philosophy:
The research philosophy refers to the underlying beliefs regarding how data about a
phenomenon should be gathered, analyzed and used. Your research philosophy will serve as the
core of your study and underpin all of the other research design choices. So, it is essential that
you understand which philosophy you will adopt and why you made that choice. If you are not
clear on this or if the whole topic of research philosophy seems a bit fluffy to you take the time
to get clarity before you make any other research design choices. If your starting point is wrong
you are going to run into many issues down the road. While there are quite a few research
philosophies to choose from two commonly adopted ones are positivism and interpretivism.

5. Positivism is commonly the underlying research philosophy in quantitative studies. It states that
the researcher, that is you, can observe reality objectively and that there is only one reality that
exists independently or outside of the observer.
Interpretivism which is often the underlying research philosophy in qualitative studies assumes
that the researcher plays a role in observing the world around them and therefore reality is unique
to each observer. In other words, reality is observed subjectively.
These are just two philosophies but they demonstrate significantly different approaches to
research and have a substantial impact on all of the other research design choices. So, it is vital
that you clearly detail and justify your research philosophy at the beginning of your methodology
chapter as it sets the scene for everything that follows.
Design choice number two:
The research type:
The next thing you will typically need to discuss in your methodology chapter is the research
type. The starting point for this is to indicate whether the research you conducted is inductive or
deductive.
Inductive research, the theory is generated from the ground up. In other words, from the
collected data and therefore these studies tend to be exploratory in terms of their approach.
Deductive research on the other hand starts with an established theory or set of theories
and builds onto it with collected data. Therefore these studies tend to be confirmatory in
approach.
In this section of the chapter, you will also need to indicate whether your study adopts a
qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods methodology. As I have mentioned there is a strong
link between this choice and your research philosophy. So, make sure that your choices are

6. tightly aligned. Again when you write this section up remember to clearly justify your choices as
they form the foundation of your study.
Design choice number three:
The research strategy:
The next design choice you will need to discuss is your research strategy. In other words: your
research action plan. Several research strategies exist including experiments, case studies,
ethnography, grounded theory, action research and phenomenology. Let us look at two of these.
Experiments and ethnography to see how they contrast
Experimental research makes use of the scientific method where one group serves as the
control group in which no variables are manipulated and another group serves as the
experimental group in which a specific variable of interest is manipulated. This type of research
is undertaken under strict conditions in a controlled artificial environment for example within a
laboratory. By having firm control over the environment, experimental research strategies often
allow researchers to establish causation between variables. So, an experimental research strategy
can be a good choice if you have research aims that involve identifying or measuring cause and
effect.
Ethnographic research on the other hand involves observing and capturing the experiences and
perceptions of participants in their natural environment. For example, people at home or at the
office. In other words, in an uncontrolled environment. Naturally, this means that this research
strategy would be far less suitable if your research aims involve identifying causation but would
be very valuable
If say you were looking to explore and examine a group culture. For example, the corporate
culture at a specific company. As you can see the right research strategy will depend largely on
your research aims and research questions. Therefore as with every other design choice, it is

7. essential to justify why you chose the research strategy you did. With the research strategy
pinned down, it is time to dig into some of the more practical design choices.
Design choice number four:
The time horizon:
The next thing you need to cover in your methodology chapter is the time horizon. There are two
options. Cross-sectional and longitudinal: In other words, whether the data for your study were
all collected at one point in time cross-sectional or at multiple points in time longitudinal. The
choice you make here depends again on your research aims and research questions. If for
example, your aim is to assess how a specific group of people's perspectives regarding a topic
change over time you would likely adopt a longitudinal time horizon examining the same
people’s perspectives at multiple points in time. Another important factor here is that of practical
constraints. In other words, whether you have the time necessary to adopt a longitudinal
approach which could involve collecting data over multiple months, years or even decades.
Oftentimes the time pressures of your degree program will force your hand into adopting a
cross-sectional time horizon.
Design choice number five:
The sampling strategy:
Next, you will need to discuss your chosen sampling strategy. In other words, how you decided
who to collect data from. There are two main categories of sampling, probability and
non-probability sampling.
Probability sampling involves a random and therefore representative selection of participants
from a population. Whereas

8. Non-probability sampling entails selecting participants in a non-randomized and therefore
non-representative manner. For example, a non-probability strategy could involve selecting
participants based on ease of access. This is called a convenience sample.
The right sampling approach depends largely on what you are trying to achieve in your study.
Specifically, whether you are trying to develop findings that are generalizable to a population or
not. Practicalities and resource constraints also play a large role here as it is often quite
challenging to gain access to a truly random sample. Do not stress though. In many cases, a
probability sampling strategy is not necessary. Again it depends largely on your research aims
and questions. So, make sure that your choice here is tightly aligned with your research aims.
With your sampling strategy laid out, it is time to talk about how you will collect your data.
Design choice number six:
The data collection method: Next up you will need to explain how exactly you will go about
collecting the necessary data for your study. Your choice of data collection method or methods
will depend on the type of data that you plan to collect. In other words, qualitative, words based
or quantitative numbers-based data. Typically quantitative research relies on surveys, data
generated by lab equipment, analytics software or existing data sets. Qualitative research on the
other hand often makes use of in-person collection methods such as interviews, focus groups and
participant observations. So, as you can see there is a tight link between this section and the
design choices you outlined in earlier sections. So, as always it is important to make sure that
you have a strong alignment between the various design choices.
Design choice number seven:
The analysis methods and techniques:
The final major design choice that you need to address is your analysis methods and techniques.
In other words, once you have collected your data how will you go about analyzing it? Here it is
important to be very specific about your analysis method and or techniques. Do not leave any

9. room for interpretation. Also, as with all choices in this chapter you need to justify each choice
you make. What exactly you discuss here will depend largely on the type of study you are
conducting.
For qualitative studies, common analysis methods include content analysis, thematic analysis and
discourse analysis. For quantitative studies, you will almost always make use of descriptive
statistics and in many cases; you will also use inferential statistical techniques. For example,
correlation and regression analysis. In this section, it is also important to discuss how you
prepared your data for analysis and what software you used if any. For example, quantitative data
will often require some initial preparation such as removing duplicates or incomplete responses
and calculating composite measures. As always remember to clearly state both what you did and
why you did it. All right with these seven core design choices covered.
The meat and potatoes of your methodology chapter are sorted. Now it is time to move on to the
next section of the chapter to discuss the limitations of methodology. Let us go check that out.
Section three:
The methodological limitations: With your key research design choices outlined and justified
the next step is to discuss the limitations of your design. Importantly no research design or
methodology is perfect, there will always be trade-offs between the ideal design and the design
that is practical and viable given your constraints. Therefore this section of your methodology
chapter is where you will discuss the trade-offs you had to make and why these were justified in
the given context. So, what goes into this section?
Methodological limitations can vary greatly from study to study. Ranging from common issues
such as time and budget constraints to analysis method limitations or sampling issues.
For example, you may find that you did not manage to attract enough survey respondents to
achieve the desired sample size or that your sample is skewed heavily towards a certain

10. demographic resulting in reduced representativeness. In this section, it is important to be critical
of the shortcomings of your study. By being critical you will demonstrate to your marker that
you have a strong understanding of research design. So, do not be shy here. At the same time do
not beat your study to death. Outline your study's methodological limitations.
Why these were justified given the context, how you mitigated their impacts to the best degree
possible and how your studies still provide value despite these limitations. Once you have
discussed your limitations you are on the home stretch. It is time to wrap up the methodology
chapter.
Section four:
The concluding summary: Now that you have presented your research methodology and
discussed the limitations it is time to wrap up the chapter with a brief concluding summary.
In this section, you will want to concisely summarize the key takeaways from the chapter. There
is no need to get into the weeds and repeat every design choice. A high-level summary will do.
Alternatively, you could consider using a figure to summarize the key design decisions visually.
Especially if your university recommends using a specific model importantly this section needs
to be brief a paragraph or two max.
It is a summary after all. Also, make sure that when you write up your concluding summary, you
only include what you have already discussed in your chapter. Do not add any new information.
And there you have it, the methodology chapter in a nutshell.
To quickly recap, the core structure of your methodology chapter should include the following.
1. A brief introduction section.

11. 2. A detailed discussion of the seven core research design choices, namely the research
philosophy, research type, research strategy, time horizon, sampling strategy, data collection and
data analysis methods.
3. A discussion of the methodological limitations.
4. A brief concluding summary.
As I have mentioned the exact contents and structure of this chapter can vary between
universities and fields of study.
So, be sure to check in with your institution before you start writing. If possible try to find
dissertations or theses from former students of your specific degree program.
This will give you a strong indication of your university's expectations and the norms in terms of
the methodology chapter and all other chapters. Lastly, remember the golden rule of the
methodology chapter, justify every choice. Make sure that you explain clearly the why for every
what and reference credible methodology textbooks or academic sources to back up your
justifications
All right, so, that’s all for today. If you enjoyed the article, please leave a comment, until next
time, good luck.
For more important articles regarding research click the links below:
https://matiullahkich.blogspot.com/2023/03/types-of-research-different-types-of.html
https://matiullahkich.blogspot.com/2023/01/how-to-write-thesis-introduction.html
https://matiullahkich.blogspot.com/2023/01/how-to-write-literature-review-four.html