Research methodology is a key part of your research dissertation that will normally come after your literature review; indeed perhaps it is the most laborious and challenging part of your research work. Research methodology while still encompassing methods runs much deeper than that.

Essentially, it aids in understanding the philosophical underpinnings used to come up with the type of research methods you chose. Ideally, it is supposed to make it clear whether you chose to use quantitative, qualitative methods or a mixture of both. Additionally, one is supposed to give weighty academic justifications on why they chose to base their research on a certain method and not others. Therefore, if you are looking to know how to write methodology or better yet, how to structure your research methodology, then this article is for you.

Contents of your Methodology.

Research methodology acts like a plan or radar of how you intend to tackle your research. It should therefore effectively link back to your literature review as well as clearly elucidate why you chose analysis and data collection methods. Content for your methodology will generally revolve around; methodology design, philosophical approaches, methods of data collection, limitations in research, ethical considerations, and methods of data analysis.

1.Research Strategy/Design.

The elementary role of a research strategy or design is to enable the researcher to flawlessly and effectively answer the research questions by use of evidence. In this part, the researcher is required to shed enough light on the rationale they used to land upon their preferred data collection method as well as the choice of data sampling. Additionally, other parts that need to be covered include specifications of research questions or hypotheses, review of existing literature, and discussion of data analysis methods for testing hypothesis.

2. Philosophical Approach.

In this section, you are required to fully discuss the research philosophy or philosophical worldview you chose in order to strengthen your research model and research. Philosophical worldviews or paradigms, refer to a basic set of beliefs that guide our actions and how we view the world or universe. There are essentially four sets of philosophical research worldviews, namely positivism/post-positivism, constructivism/interpretivism, participatory/advocacy and, pragmatism.

Positivism and Pragmatism are fully aligned with quantitative methodology because they are intertwined with realism and allude that the nature of reality is socially constructed. They, therefore, are concerned with studying and uncovering the deeper meaning and significance of human experience and behavior. Advocacy and constructivism on the other hand, in one way or another, hold a deterministic philosophy based on careful observation and measurement that is congruent with the quantitative methodology. Finally, you can use a research philosophical approach that calls for a mix of both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

3. Data Collection & Analysis Methods.

In this section, you as a researcher are required to describe the methods that were used in collecting data. Additionally, you will be required to shed more light on the tools that you used to analyze our data, how you came to your findings and how much they can be relied upon. Finally, it is important for you to show some correlation between your findings and the hypothesis you based your study on at the start.

4. Research Limitations.

No research is perfect. It is with this understanding that a good researcher is required to acknowledge the limitations of their study research. Make sure to capture all limitations that you encountered in the course of your research and that you think are likely to decrease the reliability of your research.

5. Ethical Considerations.

In this section, you are required to lay down how your research will affect subjects who are beyond the scope of the study. Discussions touching on data privacy, data protection, and data handling will be done in this section.

6. Reliability.

In this section, you are required to discuss how much your study is authentic and reliable for use by other scholars in your field of study.