How to Write Research Methodology

Describing Your Methods

Restate your research problem. Begin your research methodology section by listing the problems or questions you intend to study. Include your hypotheses, if applicable, or what you are setting out to prove through your research. In your restatement, include any underlying assumptions that you're making or conditions that you're taking for granted. These assumptions will also inform the research methods you've chosen. Generally, state the variables you'll test and the other conditions you're controlling or assuming are equal.

Establish your overall methodological approach. Your overall approach will be either qualitative or quantitative. Occasionally, you may also use a mix of both approaches. Briefly explain why you chose your approach. If you want to research and document measurable social trends, or evaluate the impact of a particular policy on various variables, use a quantitative approach focused on data collection and statistical analysis. If you want to evaluate people's views or understanding of a particular issue, choose a more qualitative approach. You can also combine the two. For example, you might look primarily at a measurable social trend, but also interview people and get their opinions on how that trend is affecting their lives.

Define how you collected or generated data. This portion of your methodology section tells your readers when and where you conducted your research, and what basic parameters were put into place to ensure the relative objectivity of your results. For example, if you conducted a survey, you would describe the questions included in the survey, where and how the survey was conducted (such as in person, online, over the phone), how many surveys were distributed, and how long your respondents had to complete the survey. Include enough detail that your study can be replicated by others in your field, even if they may not get the same results you did.

Provide background for uncommon methods. Particularly in the social sciences, you may be using methods that aren't typically used, or that don't seem to fit with your research problem. These methods may require additional explanation. Qualitative research methods typically require more detailed explanation than quantitative methods. Basic investigative procedures don't need to be explained in detail. Generally, you can assume that your readers have a general understanding of common research methods that social scientists use, such as surveys or focus groups.

Cite any sources that contributed to your choice of methodology. If you used anyone else's work to help you craft or apply your methodology, discuss those works and how they contributed to your own work, or how your work is building on theirs. For example, suppose you conducted a survey and used a couple of other research papers to help construct the questions on your survey. You would mention those as contributing sources.

Justifying Your Choice of Methods

Explain your selection criteria for data collection. If you're collecting primary data, you likely set eligibility parameters. State those parameters clearly and let your readers know why you set those parameters and how they are important to your research. Describe study participants specifically, and list any inclusion or exclusion criteria you used when forming your group of participants. Justify the size of your sample, if applicable, and describe how this affects whether your study can be generalized to larger populations. For example, if you conducted a survey of 30 percent of the student population of a university, you could potentially apply those results to the student body as a whole, but maybe not to students at other universities.

Distinguish your research from any weaknesses in your methods. Every research method has strengths and weaknesses. Briefly discuss the weaknesses or criticisms of the methods you've chosen, then explain how those are irrelevant or inapplicable to your particular research. Reading other research papers is a good way to identify potential problems that commonly arise with various methods. State whether you actually encountered any of these common problems during your research.

Describe how you overcame obstacles. Overcoming obstacles in your research can be one of the most important parts of your methodology. Your problem-solving abilities can enhance your readers' confidence in the results of your study. If you encountered any problems as you collected data, explain clearly the steps you took to minimize the effect that problem would have on your results.

Evaluate other methods you could have used. Particularly if you're using a method that seems unusual for your particular subject matter, include a discussion of other methods that are more typically used for your type of research. Explain why you chose not to use them. In some cases, this may be as simple as stating that while there were numerous studies using one method, there weren't any using your method, which caused a gap in understanding of the issue. For example, there may be multiple papers providing quantitative analysis of a particular social trend. However, none of these papers looked closely at how this trend was affecting the lives of people.

Connecting Your Methods to Your Research Goals

Describe how you analyzed your results. Your analysis generally depends on whether your approach is qualitative, quantitative, or a mixture of the two. If you're using a quantitative approach, you may be using statistical analysis. With a qualitative approach, state what theoretical perspective or philosophy you're using. Depending on your research questions, you may be mixing quantitative and qualitative analysis – just as you could potentially use both approaches. For example, you might do a statistical analysis, and then interpret those statistics through a particular theoretical lens.

Explain how your analysis suits your research goals. Ultimately, your overall methodology should be capable of producing answers to your research questions. If it isn't well-suited, you need to either adjust your methodology or reframe your research question. For example, suppose you're researching the effect of college education on family farms in rural America. While you could do interviews of college-educated people who grew up on a family farm, that would not give you a picture of the overall effect. A quantitative approach and statistical analysis would give you a bigger picture.

Identify how your analysis answers your research questions. Relate your methodology back to your original research questions and present a proposed outcome based on your analysis. Describe specifically what your findings will reveal about your research questions. If in answering your research questions, your findings have raised other questions that may require further research, state these briefly. You can also include here any limitations to your methods, or questions that weren't answered through your research.

Assess whether your findings can be transferred or generalized. You may be able to transfer your findings to other contexts, or generalize them to broader populations. Transferability can be difficult in social science research, particularly if you used a qualitative approach. Generalization is more typically used in quantitative research. If you have a well-designed sample, you can statistically apply your results to the larger population your sample belongs to.