The methodology section of your
dissertation comes after the literature review. In this section, you have to
explain what methodological approaches you have chosen for your research and
why. You also have to explain how you arrived at the conclusion and findings,
why they are reliable and how they provide answers to your research questions
and hypotheses. Below are some tips for writing a good dissertation methodology:
1. Define your research problem:
First of all, you have to define and
explain your research problem and the philosophy behind it.
2. Explain your research
approach:
Next, give an overview of your research
approach. Here, you will have to decide which research approach (qualitative or
quantitative) you have used and how.
3. Research strategy and design:
In this section, you will explain how you
gathered the data, reason for choosing your research method such as survey
questionnaires, interviews, group discussions etc, and how you selected your
sample or the sampling techniques used.
4. Data gathering and analysis:
Next, you will explain what data collection
tool you used for your research and why, like a questionnaire or a computerized
interview system. For example, if you used a questionnaire you will have to
explain the reason for employing it. In addition to that, you also have to show
how you arrived at your findings by performing an analysis of the data you
gathered. You also have to state why your findings are reliable and how they
answer your research questions or hypotheses.
5. Ethics:
Your methodology should also explain how
you have followed the ethics of your research, especially if your research
contains any human subjects. You need to explain the steps that you took to
make sure that no one was harmed during the research. This part should also
include how you dealt with data protection and confidentiality issues.
6. Reliability and validity:
Your methodology should be both reliable
and valid. Reliability measures the extent to which your research is reliable. Validity
refers to whether the research is able to answer the questions that it was
intended to answer. Issues concerning reliability and validity include accuracy
and precision.
7. Generalizability:
This refers to the extent to which your results
are true and to what extent they can be generalized to other populations as
well.
8. Limitations:
