As a researcher, you need to write a perfect methodology chapter to describe your work to the reader like how you did it. Dissertation methodology comes after the literature review when writing your dissertation, research project, or thesis. This section is crucial for demonstrating the validity and reliability of the research. Therefore, it should be accurate, clear, and precise.
According to the University of Wolverhampton, for an
8000 to 10,000 words dissertation, your methodology chapter should be 1500 to 2000 words long. We understand your worries that summarising your whole research work, whether it is quantitative or qualitative becomes difficult. In such circumstances, getting an expert’s advice is crucial to explaining your burning research questions of research methodology dissertation.
In this article, we will discuss all the key elements that you must consider to write a well-written dissertation methodology. Furthermore, getting assistance from
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What is Dissertation Methodology?
During the dissertation writing journey, after introducing your topic and describing the literature review, the stage of methodology writing comes. In this part, students describe each step they have taken to investigate and study a particular problem. Its main purpose is to explain how you designed your study and why you chose that approach.
The University of Southampton states that dissertation methodology covers everything from the research methods used in your dissertation to the decisions you made and challenges you encountered during the process. Students should mainly focus on this part because it sets the stage for what follows your results and discussion.
Why is Dissertation Methodology Important in a Research Project?
Dissertation methodology is important because it explains to the readers about how you did your research and why you chose it that way. Firstly, it shows your understanding of the method you selected which is crucial for the credibility of results. Secondly, it creates a smooth path for other people to use your methods of study for their own. By doing so, they would be able to compare the results which is an important factor in academic research.
Furthermore, your dissertation methodology explains the whole journey of data collection, sampling strategies, experimentation, and data analysis techniques. Explaining everything clearly helps people to trust the conclusions made from your work. In other words, it is like a roadmap that guides your readers about what you have done and achieved in your research work.
If this seems stressful, don't worry – we'll break down these methodological choices in detail in this post.
9 Key Elements to Include in Your Dissertation Methodology
Wondering about what are the key elements of a dissertation methodology? Well, the structure of the methodology includes several important points, such as:
- Introduction
- Research Design
- Sampling Strategy
- Data Collection Methods
- Data Analysis Procedures
- Validity and Reliability
- Ethical Considerations
- Limitations
- Conclusion
After getting an idea of the dissertation methodology structure, let's now explore these essentials in detail.
Setting the Stage with Introduction
Just like starting everything with a brief introduction, the methodology also demands you to introduce your research aims and questions once again. You should remind your readers about what you are working on and what your aims are to accomplish from it. So, after describing it, you should just add a hint at the techniques you'll be using during this whole procedure. In addition, if you really want to attract your reader's attention, think about using an interesting starting sentence to create a hook.
Research Design
Research design is of great importance in dissertation methodology as it describes the techniques, you'll use to collect your data from different sources. Keep in mind that the techniques you select should directly answer your research questions. There are basically three types of research methods:
- Quantitative Research Method: This method uses numbers and statistics to collect and analyse the given data. It is very common in science subjects which use experiments, surveys, tests or already existing data to get a clear picture.
- Qualitative Research Method: It includes all non-numerical data and uses words and lengthy explanations to understand something in the dissertation methodology. For example, interviews, observations, and focus groups fall under this category and are commonly used in social science and theoretical humanities studies.
- Mixed Research Method: It is the combination of both above-mentioned methods. It mixes statistical data with a brief explanation of everything to provide a well-rounded picture of everything.
Sampling Strategy
A sampling strategy is a method used to select an appropriate number of subjects from a wider population to study. In this step, you should describe the process you used to choose study participants or data sources. It includes sample size, process of selection and any sampling methods you are using. We mostly divide sampling strategies of dissertation methodology into two types:
- Probability Sampling: In this method, the group is chosen at random. Since each member of the population has a known probability of being selected, the results allow for more confident inferences about the entire group.
- Non-Probability Sampling: In this form, the group is chosen based on the researcher's choice. Although it's quicker and simpler, the results could not accurately reflect the full population.
Data Collection Methods
While describing the research methodology for the dissertation, you need to explain how you collected your data to give more credibility to your work. To do so, students often conduct interviews and surveys, keenly observe everything related to their work, and go through a deep analysis of the collected data. Such as:
- Surveys and Questionnaires: Students conduct surveys and get the opinions of different people on a particular thing they are working on. Give an overview of the main features of your survey instrument, the sampling technique, and the survey medium.
- Interviews: Describe the format of the interview in your dissertation methodology. Also, talk about how you created the whole interview setup and how the participants were chosen.
- Observations: You should explain the observational context, data-gathering methods, and ethical issues if there are any.
- Analysis of Pre-existing Data: If you use already existing datasets, describe their source, the selection criteria, and any steps taken to clean the data.
Methods of Data Analysis
Data analysis techniques are the methods that students use during their research to analyse the data and interpret results from it. It helps them better understand the collected data and draw purposeful conclusions from it. There are various different types of methods that you can use in your dissertation methodology, including:
- Quantitative Methods: Give a brief description of the statistical instruments (such as hypothesis testing and descriptive statistics) that you will use to analyse your data.
- Qualitative Methods: Describe the methodology you plan to use to analyse qualitative data (e.g., grounded theory, theme analysis).
During this step, you should avoid using too much technical language so that a non-technical person can also understand your written work. So, you should explain the techniques in a way that is understandable to a general academic audience. In addition, don't forget to add citations to the information you get from others because it is crucial to back up your claims.
Trust-Building Factors
To write a solid dissertation methodology, there is no need just to explain the positive aspects of your study. Rather, you should prioritise explaining every potential flaw or restriction in your research work. It shows that you have critically analysed everything, being a neutral researcher, which builds confidence in your research. So, along with discussing the plus points of your methodology, you should also cover any limitations or disadvantages as well.
- Advantages of Your Selected Strategies: You should discuss the benefits of the approaches you have chosen to answer your dissertation methodology research questions.
- Restrictions and Possible Flaws: Find out any potential flaws in your methodology which can be either in small sample size or self-reported data and talk about how to address them.
- Moral Aspects to Take into Account: You should also address any ethical issues that may arise from your data-gathering procedure. So, always prefer to get their permission to maintain work ethics.
Conclusion
At the end, you should summarise your whole dissertation methodology, including the main techniques you'll use and how they relate to your study objectives. You should also discuss what were the circumstances when you conducted this study and how it went. After describing the methods, you can also give a hint about the next upcoming chapters to create suspense. If appropriate, you can also discuss a little about the methods of data analysis you'll use in the following chapters.
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Dissertation Methodology Examples
Before starting to write your own methodology chapter, you should first get an idea about it from different examples available on the Internet. It helps you to understand how to start and end it successfully and how to add some attractive visuals to explain each step. For example, in the thesis ”Quality Attribute Variability in Software Product Lines: Varying Performance and Security Purposefully”, the following visuals were added to explain the research design.
A research methodology by the author Olasile Babatunde Adedoyin from the University of Kyrenia is given below:
What are the 4 Steps of Research Methodology?
Research dissertation methodology is a wide chapter but if we summarise it into 4 steps, it would be:
- Creating a hypothesis or research questions
- Formulating your research design to conduct a study
- Describing your data collection methods
- Analysing and interpreting the data
What are the 7 Components of Research Methodology?
The following are the 7 main parts of the research methodology starting from the introduction and ending at the conclusion:
- Introduction
- Research Design
- Data Collection Methods
- Data Analysis Techniques
- Strengths and Limitations
- Ethical Considerations
- Conclusion
What are the 4 Major Types of Research Methods?
There are many different methods by which you can conduct your research for dissertation methodology. Majorly, the 4 types of research methods are:
- Descriptive research
- Qualitative research
- Quantitative research
- Mixed research
Conclusion
Indeed, a well-written dissertation methodology is not everyone’s cup of tea that’s why many students search for a thorough guide to get assistance for it. Understanding your situation, we have built up this complete article on research methodology to help you ease your burden. By going through it, you will get to know everything from key elements to using effective methods and examples to perfectly write your methodology section.
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