Your research methodology section talks about and elaborates on the ways you utilized to gather and analyze your data. A significant section of a thesis proposal, dissertation, or comparative research paper, the methodology chapter guides the readers of your research on the methods you adopted to produce your results and, therefore, your dissertation topic. 

 It should include: 

• The kind of study you conducted 
• What you did do to gather your data and process the information gathered 
• Instruments or any other items that were employed in the research 
• Describe how you were able to minimize or eliminate the types of research biases
• Why the above methods were selected? 

Of what relevance is the methods section? 

The methods section is your chance to explain how your research occurred and why the procedures were selected. It also becomes the venue for proving that all the research activities were professionally conducted and can be reproduced (McCombes, 2023). It provides your research credibility and contextualizes it to your discipline and also provides the audience with a reference point elsewhere in your research in case they have issues with other sections of the work. Those who can’t grasp the sense of it can go for dissertation writing services.

Step 1: Describe your overall analysis methodology

Depending on the nature of your research, you can begin by informing the reader about your general research strategy. You have two good decisions to make in this regard. 

Option 1: What – To state them immediately, begin with your “what” 

What is the research problem or question which you chose to investigate? 

• Do you want to convey the features of something? 
• Explore an under-researched topic. 
• Establish a causal relationship? 

Their study asks: what sort of data did you want to accomplish the socio-political aim you outline above? 

• Numbers, words, or both: quantitative and qualitative or qualitative and quantitative. 
• The kind of data would be gathered, primary data is collected by yourself or secondary data is collected by another person? 
• Quantitative data is collected through a process where there is an attempt to control and manipulate variables or qualitative data that is collected for dissertation research methodology by making use of observational techniques. 

Option 2: Then, and this builds on the previous suggestion, start with ‘why’. 

It is also possible to begin the particular section of the paper, according to the requirements of your discipline, with a discussion of the rationale for choosing the particular methodology, besides the assumption that it allows for the best possible approach to the selected subject. That is, which of the above-mentioned methods did you select to use in your study for your dissertation research methods and why? 

• Why is this the best approach to respond to your research question? 
• This is a critical question because it determines whether using this kind of methodology is normal, permissible, or illogical in the given research field. 
• Was there any ethics in the decisions that you made throughout your business? 
• What factors contribute to the validity and reliability of this kind of research? Bias can occur when conducting research and collecting data; how did you ensure it did not influence your study? 

Step 2: Summarise how you collected your data 

After presenting the reader with your methodological approach, one is supposed to explain all the details of how he/she collected data. 

Quantitative methods 

To meet the criteria of generalizability, you should explain your quantitative research methodology with a degree of detail that allows repetition of your work by another researcher. Since this step is not easy you can hire dissertation methodology writing help for this research step.

Qualitative methods 

In qualitative research, techniques are generally more free-form and can be influenced to some extent by the researcher’s interpretation of events. This explains why it is necessary to support the rationale behind your specific methodological decisions. 

Don’t forget to outline the criteria that informed data selection, the context of your research, and positionality; whether you were an active participant or passive observer. 

Mixed methods 

Mixed method research integrates two features: quantitative and qualitative. If a stand-alone quantitative or qualitative research study is inconsequential in responding to your research Inquisition, then you might want to consider Mixed methods research. 

Step 3: Explain the application method of your analysis 

After that, you should describe how you analysed your data, thus: Avoid going into too much detail: at this stage, you should not start presenting or mentioning any of your results in your document. 

Quantitative methods 

In quantitative research, analysis entails the use of numbers and another related metric measures. In the section on your methods, you can mention: 

• Various operations were performed on the data before analysis including for instance a check for missing records, outliers, or even transformation of a variable. 
• Which software are you operating (for example SPSS, Stata, or R) 
• What specifically did you use, for instance, a two-tailed t-test, and simple linear regression among others? 

Qualitative methods 

Semiotically, your analysis in qualitative research will revolve round on language, images, and observations whereas the analysis is normally however by way of textual analysis. 

Specific methods might include: 

• Content analysis: Hazarding the meaning, meaning of various words, phrases, and sentences and putting the same in their respective categories. 
• Thematic analysis: Using the discovered patterns and values for coding and primary analytical findings that relate to broad themes. 
• Discourse analysis: Understanding the communication and meaning in their social environment 

Step 4: Review the procedures followed adopting and justifying each of the methodological decisions. 

However, its most important function is to justify the methods you selected in the first place for your study. This is particularly the case if you did not lean towards the conventional practices in your area of focus. In this case, explain why other approaches were not useful for your goals, and demonstrate this method’s contribution to the respective subject of interest. 

Conclusion

Nevertheless, regardless of the position your reader will take, it should be clearly understandable that you positioned yourself for success in regard with the design of your methodology (BAW, 2022). Indicate how your proposed methods should yield score that can be considered as valid and reliable and analyse the interpretations of the results, significance of the findings and relevance that come with it in the discussion section.

References

McCombes, S. (2023, November 20). What is a research methodology? | Steps & tips. Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/methodology/

BAW (2022). How Academic Help Providers Save the Students’ Future? https://bestassignmentwriter.co.uk/blog/how-academic-help-providers-save-the-students-future/