The Methodology Section
The purpose of this section is to describe your research design and the
method of data collection. You should tell the reader how you are doing
your research and why you adopted these particular methods.
The methodology section should include:
1) A general description of your participants – who, where, and when did the study
take place - change names of cities and participants to protect privacy
Example: The study took place in a suburban area near a large southeastern city
Try to describe things that you think are important about the study.
2) A description of the research design (quantitative or qualitative) procedures used
and why you used them.
You should discuss whether your study addresses descriptive, relational, or causal
questions and you should identify it as being longitudinal or cross-sectional (see
back hand-out).
3) A description of the instruments used and their reliability/validity (if possible).
The instruments include things like tests, surveys, and interviews (including a list
of interview questions). Copies of the instruments themselves must be included as
appendices. These are needed to obtain approval from the Institutional Review
Board.
4) A concept map that outlines your methodology and/or the data collection process
is often very helpful to include for the reader.
5) A brief description of how the results will be organized and presented.
The methodology section is often one of the shortest sections of a research paper. Try to
be thorough but succinct. In this case, it may be completed two or three pages of writing.