How To Write Methodology Of Thesis Or Article

Methodology is a very important chapter of dissertation or thesis.

  1. First of all, in the methodology chapter describe the philosophical background to your selected research methods.
  2. Describe whether you are using qualitative or quantitative methods, or a mixture of research.
  3. Why you selected these methods of research.

What a Methodology chapter Includes:

  1. Population of study: All people about whom you are conducting study.
  2. Sample of study: Small number of people from population.
  3. Instrument of study: Test, Questionnaire, Interviews etc.
  4. Instrument validation information of questionnaire or interview guide etc.
  5. Data collection methods

Tool of research

Carefully select tools for your research. There are many tools that can be used for conducting research. Few research tools are described below:

1. Interviews:

One of the widely used method for gaining qualitative information is the interview. An interview is a guided conversation between a researcher and participant. Structure of interview can vary one of them is semi-structured interview and other one is structured interview.

2. Semi-structured interviews:

The interviewer develops a guide to the topics that he or she wants to cover in the interview, However, the interviewer can also ask other questions freely from the interviewee, it is a good tool for acquisition of detailed information .it is not suitable for gaining information from large numbers of sample.

3. Structured interviews:

The interviewer develops a complete questionnaire of questions that he or she wants to cover in the interview, and the interviewer can not ask other questions from the interviewee, it is also a good tools for acquisition of detailed information .It saves time .However, it is not suitable for gaining information from large numbers of sample.

4. Observations

If a researcher wants to know about the behavior of people, this is the most straightforward way to get this type of information. Observations is used in both quantitative or qualitative research.

Types of Observation

There are two types of observation. Participant observation and non-participant observation.

1. Participant observation:

  1. In participant observation people knows they are being observed.
  2. The researcher observes the people with permission.
  3. Researcher makes checklist and records the event.

2. Non-participant observation:

  1. It is not a direct observation.
  2. It involves restrictions.
  3. Researcher did not disturb peoples or setting.

3. Questionnaires

  1. If you want to collect standardized information from your sample, then questionnaires are the best method to use for data collection.
  2. You can use Questionnaires to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.
  3. You will not collect detailed data in qualitative responses to a questionnaire that you can collect in an interview.
  4. Designing Questionnaires require a great deal of effort.
  5. Questionnaire requires validation.
  6. Pre-developed questionnaires save time.
  7. A questionnaire can be distributed to a much larger number of sample.

4. Data Analysis:

  1. Describe clearly how you are going to analyses the data.
  2. What methods you are using to analyze the data. For example, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, grounded theory, thematic analysis, descriptive analysis, predictive analysis etc.
  3. Write clearly without grammatical mistakes.
  4. Data analysis should be unbiased.
  5. Provide honest and accurate analysis.
  6. Must consider Reliability and Validity issues.
  7. Researcher must have necessary skills to analyze data.
  8. Write about used software Carefully select software for data analysis spas etc.

Md Sahabuddin Mondal

Junior Advocate, Calcutta High Court

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