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Dissertation Methodology – Structure, Example and Writing Guide

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Dissertation Methodology

In any research, the methodology chapter is one of the key components of your dissertation. It provides a detailed description of the methods you used to conduct your research and helps readers understand how you obtained your data and how you plan to analyze it. This section is crucial for replicating the study and validating its results.

Here are the basic elements that are typically included in a dissertation methodology:

Introduction : This section should explain the importance and goals of your research .
Research Design : Outline your research approach and why it’s appropriate for your study. You might be conducting an experimental research, a qualitative research, a quantitative research, or a mixed-methods research.
Data Collection : This section should detail the methods you used to collect your data. Did you use surveys, interviews, observations, etc.? Why did you choose these methods? You should also include who your participants were, how you recruited them, and any ethical considerations.
Data Analysis : Explain how you intend to analyze the data you collected. This could include statistical analysis, thematic analysis, content analysis, etc., depending on the nature of your study.
Reliability and Validity : Discuss how you’ve ensured the reliability and validity of your study. For instance, you could discuss measures taken to reduce bias, how you ensured that your measures accurately capture what they were intended to, or how you will handle any limitations in your study.
Ethical Considerations : This is where you state how you have considered ethical issues related to your research, how you have protected the participants’ rights, and how you have complied with the relevant ethical guidelines.
Limitations : Acknowledge any limitations of your methodology, including any biases and constraints that might have affected your study.
Summary : Recap the key points of your methodology chapter, highlighting the overall approach and rationalization of your research.

Types of Dissertation Methodology

The type of methodology you choose for your dissertation will depend on the nature of your research question and the field you’re working in. Here are some of the most common types of methodologies used in dissertations:

Experimental Research

This involves creating an experiment that will test your hypothesis. You’ll need to design an experiment, manipulate variables, collect data, and analyze that data to draw conclusions. This is commonly used in fields like psychology, biology, and physics.

Survey Research

This type of research involves gathering data from a large number of participants using tools like questionnaires or surveys. It can be used to collect a large amount of data and is often used in fields like sociology, marketing, and public health.

Qualitative Research

This type of research is used to explore complex phenomena that can’t be easily quantified. Methods include interviews, focus groups, and observations. This methodology is common in fields like anthropology, sociology, and education.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research uses numerical data to answer research questions. This can include statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. It’s common in fields like economics, psychology, and health sciences.

Case Study Research

This type of research involves in-depth investigation of a particular case, such as an individual, group, or event. This methodology is often used in psychology, social sciences, and business.

Mixed Methods Research

This combines qualitative and quantitative research methods in a single study. It’s used to answer more complex research questions and is becoming more popular in fields like social sciences, health sciences, and education.

Action Research

This type of research involves taking action and then reflecting upon the results. This cycle of action-reflection-action continues throughout the study. It’s often used in fields like education and organizational development.

Longitudinal Research

This type of research involves studying the same group of individuals over an extended period of time. This could involve surveys, observations, or experiments. It’s common in fields like psychology, sociology, and medicine.

Ethnographic Research

This type of research involves the in-depth study of people and cultures. Researchers immerse themselves in the culture they’re studying to collect data. This is often used in fields like anthropology and social sciences.

Structure of Dissertation Methodology

The structure of a dissertation methodology can vary depending on your field of study, the nature of your research, and the guidelines of your institution. However, a standard structure typically includes the following elements:

Introduction : Briefly introduce your overall approach to the research. Explain what you plan to explore and why it’s important.
Research Design/Approach : Describe your overall research design. This can be qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Explain the rationale behind your chosen design and why it is suitable for your research questions or hypotheses.
Data Collection Methods : Detail the methods you used to collect your data. You should include what type of data you collected, how you collected it, and why you chose this method. If relevant, you can also include information about your sample population, such as how many people participated, how they were chosen, and any relevant demographic information.
Data Analysis Methods : Explain how you plan to analyze your collected data. This will depend on the nature of your data. For example, if you collected quantitative data, you might discuss statistical analysis techniques. If you collected qualitative data, you might discuss coding strategies, thematic analysis, or narrative analysis.
Reliability and Validity : Discuss how you’ve ensured the reliability and validity of your research. This might include steps you took to reduce bias or increase the accuracy of your measurements.
Ethical Considerations : If relevant, discuss any ethical issues associated with your research. This might include how you obtained informed consent from participants, how you ensured participants’ privacy and confidentiality, or any potential conflicts of interest.
Limitations : Acknowledge any limitations in your research methodology. This could include potential sources of bias, difficulties with data collection, or limitations in your analysis methods.
Summary/Conclusion : Briefly summarize the key points of your methodology, emphasizing how it helps answer your research questions or hypotheses.

How to Write Dissertation Methodology

Writing a dissertation methodology requires you to be clear and precise about the way you’ve carried out your research. It’s an opportunity to convince your readers of the appropriateness and reliability of your approach to your research question. Here is a basic guideline on how to write your methodology section:

1. Introduction

Start your methodology section by restating your research question(s) or objective(s). This ensures your methodology directly ties into the aim of your research.

2. Approach

Identify your overall approach: qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Explain why you have chosen this approach.

Qualitative methods are typically used for exploratory research and involve collecting non-numerical data. This might involve interviews, observations, or analysis of texts.
Quantitative methods are used for research that relies on numerical data. This might involve surveys, experiments, or statistical analysis.
Mixed methods use a combination of both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

3. Research Design

Describe the overall design of your research. This could involve explaining the type of study (e.g., case study, ethnography, experimental research, etc.), how you’ve defined and measured your variables, and any control measures you’ve implemented.

4. Data Collection

Explain in detail how you collected your data.

If you’ve used qualitative methods, you might detail how you selected participants for interviews or focus groups, how you conducted observations, or how you analyzed existing texts.
If you’ve used quantitative methods, you might detail how you designed your survey or experiment, how you collected responses, and how you ensured your data is reliable and valid.

5. Data Analysis

Describe how you analyzed your data.

If you’re doing qualitative research, this might involve thematic analysis, discourse analysis, or grounded theory.
If you’re doing quantitative research, you might be conducting statistical tests, regression analysis, or factor analysis.

Discuss any ethical issues related to your research. This might involve explaining how you obtained informed consent, how you’re protecting participants’ privacy, or how you’re managing any potential harms to participants.

7. Reliability and Validity

Discuss the steps you’ve taken to ensure the reliability and validity of your data.

Reliability refers to the consistency of your measurements, and you might discuss how you’ve piloted your instruments or used standardized measures.
Validity refers to the accuracy of your measurements, and you might discuss how you’ve ensured your measures reflect the concepts they’re supposed to measure.

8. Limitations

Every study has its limitations. Discuss the potential weaknesses of your chosen methods and explain any obstacles you faced in your research.

9. Conclusion

Summarize the key points of your methodology, emphasizing how it helps to address your research question or objective.

Example of Dissertation Methodology

An Example of Dissertation Methodology is as follows:

Chapter 3: Methodology

Introduction

This chapter details the methodology adopted in this research. The study aimed to explore the relationship between stress and productivity in the workplace. A mixed-methods research design was used to collect and analyze data.

Research Design

This study adopted a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews to provide a comprehensive understanding of the research problem. The rationale for this approach is that while quantitative data can provide a broad overview of the relationships between variables, qualitative data can provide deeper insights into the nuances of these relationships.

Data Collection Methods

Quantitative Data Collection : An online self-report questionnaire was used to collect data from participants. The questionnaire consisted of two standardized scales: the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to measure stress levels and the Individual Work Productivity Questionnaire (IWPQ) to measure productivity. The sample consisted of 200 office workers randomly selected from various companies in the city.

Qualitative Data Collection : Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants chosen from the initial sample. The interview guide included questions about participants’ experiences with stress and how they perceived its impact on their productivity.

Data Analysis Methods

Quantitative Data Analysis : Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the survey data. Pearson’s correlation was used to examine the relationship between stress and productivity.

Qualitative Data Analysis : Interviews were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis using NVivo software. This process allowed for identifying and analyzing patterns and themes regarding the impact of stress on productivity.

Reliability and Validity

To ensure reliability and validity, standardized measures with good psychometric properties were used. In qualitative data analysis, triangulation was employed by having two researchers independently analyze the data and then compare findings.

Ethical Considerations

All participants provided informed consent prior to their involvement in the study. They were informed about the purpose of the study, their rights as participants, and the confidentiality of their responses.

Limitations

The main limitation of this study is its reliance on self-report measures, which can be subject to biases such as social desirability bias. Moreover, the sample was drawn from a single city, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

Where to Write Dissertation Methodology

In a dissertation or thesis, the Methodology section usually follows the Literature Review. This placement allows the Methodology to build upon the theoretical framework and existing research outlined in the Literature Review, and precedes the Results or Findings section. Here’s a basic outline of how most dissertations are structured:

Acknowledgements
Literature Review (or it may be interspersed throughout the dissertation)
Methodology
Results/Findings
References/Bibliography

In the Methodology chapter, you will discuss the research design, data collection methods, data analysis methods, and any ethical considerations pertaining to your study. This allows your readers to understand how your research was conducted and how you arrived at your results.

Advantages of Dissertation Methodology

The dissertation methodology section plays an important role in a dissertation for several reasons. Here are some of the advantages of having a well-crafted methodology section in your dissertation:

Clarifies Your Research Approach : The methodology section explains how you plan to tackle your research question, providing a clear plan for data collection and analysis.
Enables Replication : A detailed methodology allows other researchers to replicate your study. Replication is an important aspect of scientific research because it provides validation of the study’s results.
Demonstrates Rigor : A well-written methodology shows that you’ve thought critically about your research methods and have chosen the most appropriate ones for your research question. This adds credibility to your study.
Enhances Transparency : Detailing your methods allows readers to understand the steps you took in your research. This increases the transparency of your study and allows readers to evaluate potential biases or limitations.
Helps in Addressing Research Limitations : In your methodology section, you can acknowledge and explain the limitations of your research. This is important as it shows you understand that no research method is perfect and there are always potential weaknesses.
Facilitates Peer Review : A detailed methodology helps peer reviewers assess the soundness of your research design. This is an important part of the publication process if you aim to publish your dissertation in a peer-reviewed journal.
Establishes the Validity and Reliability : Your methodology section should also include a discussion of the steps you took to ensure the validity and reliability of your measurements, which is crucial for establishing the overall quality of your research.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Library Guides

Dissertations 4: methodology: methods.

Introduction & Philosophy
Methodology

Primary & Secondary Sources, Primary & Secondary Data

When describing your research methods, you can start by stating what kind of secondary and, if applicable, primary sources you used in your research. Explain why you chose such sources, how well they served your research, and identify possible issues encountered using these sources.

Definitions

There is some confusion on the use of the terms primary and secondary sources, and primary and secondary data. The confusion is also due to disciplinary differences (Lombard 2010). Whilst you are advised to consult the research methods literature in your field, we can generalise as follows:

Secondary sources

Secondary sources normally include the literature (books and articles) with the experts' findings, analysis and discussions on a certain topic (Cottrell, 2014, p123). Secondary sources often interpret primary sources.

Primary sources

Primary sources are "first-hand" information such as raw data, statistics, interviews, surveys, law statutes and law cases. Even literary texts, pictures and films can be primary sources if they are the object of research (rather than, for example, documentaries reporting on something else, in which case they would be secondary sources). The distinction between primary and secondary sources sometimes lies on the use you make of them (Cottrell, 2014, p123).

Primary data

Primary data are data (primary sources) you directly obtained through your empirical work (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill 2015, p316).

Secondary data

Secondary data are data (primary sources) that were originally collected by someone else (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill 2015, p316).

Comparison between primary and secondary data

Primary data	Secondary data
Data collected directly	Data collected from previously done research, existing research is summarised and collated to enhance the overall effectiveness of the research.
Examples: Interviews (face-to-face or telephonic), Online surveys, Focus groups and Observations	Examples: data available via the internet, non-government and government agencies, public libraries, educational institutions, commercial/business information
Advantages: •Data collected is first hand and accurate. •Data collected can be controlled. No dilution of data. •Research method can be customized to suit personal requirements and needs of the research.	Advantages: •Information is readily available •Less expensive and less time-consuming •Quicker to conduct
Disadvantages: •Can be quite extensive to conduct, requiring a lot of time and resources •Sometimes one primary research method is not enough; therefore a mixed method is require, which can be even more time consuming.	Disadvantages: •It is necessary to check the credibility of the data •May not be as up to date •Success of your research depends on the quality of research previously conducted by others.

Use

Virtually all research will use secondary sources, at least as background information.

Often, especially at the postgraduate level, it will also use primary sources - secondary and/or primary data. The engagement with primary sources is generally appreciated, as less reliant on others' interpretations, and closer to 'facts'.

The use of primary data, as opposed to secondary data, demonstrates the researcher's effort to do empirical work and find evidence to answer her specific research question and fulfill her specific research objectives. Thus, primary data contribute to the originality of the research.

Ultimately, you should state in this section of the methodology:

What sources and data you are using and why (how are they going to help you answer the research question and/or test the hypothesis.

If using primary data, why you employed certain strategies to collect them.

What the advantages and disadvantages of your strategies to collect the data (also refer to the research in you field and research methods literature).

Quantitative, Qualitative & Mixed Methods

The methodology chapter should reference your use of quantitative research, qualitative research and/or mixed methods. The following is a description of each along with their advantages and disadvantages.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research uses numerical data (quantities) deriving, for example, from experiments, closed questions in surveys, questionnaires, structured interviews or published data sets (Cottrell, 2014, p93). It normally processes and analyses this data using quantitative analysis techniques like tables, graphs and statistics to explore, present and examine relationships and trends within the data (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2015, p496).

Advantages	Disadvantages
The study can be undertaken on a broader scale, generating large amounts of data that contribute to generalisation of results	Quantitative methods can be difficult, expensive and time consuming (especially if using primary data, rather than secondary data).
Suitable when the phenomenon is relatively simple, and can be analysed according to identified variables.	Not everything can be easily measured.
	Less suitable for complex social phenomena.
	Less suitable for why type questions.

Qualitative research 

Qualitative research is generally undertaken to study human behaviour and psyche. It uses methods like in-depth case studies, open-ended survey questions, unstructured interviews, focus groups, or unstructured observations (Cottrell, 2014, p93). The nature of the data is subjective, and also the analysis of the researcher involves a degree of subjective interpretation. Subjectivity can be controlled for in the research design, or has to be acknowledged as a feature of the research. Subject-specific books on (qualitative) research methods offer guidance on such research designs. 

Advantages	Disadvantages
Qualitative methods are good for in-depth analysis of individual people, businesses, organisations, events.	The findings can be accurate about the particular case, but not generally applicable.
Sample sizes don’t need to be large, so the studies can be cheaper and simpler.	More prone to subjectivity.

Mixed methods

Mixed-method approaches combine both qualitative and quantitative methods, and therefore combine the strengths of both types of research. Mixed methods have gained popularity in recent years. 

When undertaking mixed-methods research you can collect the qualitative and quantitative data either concurrently or sequentially. If sequentially, you can for example, start with a few semi-structured interviews, providing qualitative insights, and then design a questionnaire to obtain quantitative evidence that your qualitative findings can also apply to a wider population (Specht, 2019, p138).

Ultimately, your methodology chapter should state:

Whether you used quantitative research, qualitative research or mixed methods.

Why you chose such methods (and refer to research method sources).

Why you rejected other methods.

How well the method served your research.

The problems or limitations you encountered.

Doug Specht, Senior Lecturer at the Westminster School of Media and Communication, explains mixed methods research in the following video:

LinkedIn Learning Video on Academic Research Foundations: Quantitative

The video covers the characteristics of quantitative research, and explains how to approach different parts of the research process, such as creating a solid research question and developing a literature review. He goes over the elements of a study, explains how to collect and analyze data, and shows how to present your data in written and numeric form.

Link to quantitative research video

Some Types of Methods

There are several methods you can use to get primary data. To reiterate, the choice of the methods should depend on your research question/hypothesis.

Whatever methods you will use, you will need to consider:

why did you choose one technique over another? What were the advantages and disadvantages of the technique you chose?

what was the size of your sample? Who made up your sample? How did you select your sample population? Why did you choose that particular sampling strategy?)

ethical considerations (see also tab...)

safety considerations

validity

feasibility

recording

procedure of the research (see box procedural method...).

Check Stella Cottrell's book Dissertations and Project Reports: A Step by Step Guide for some succinct yet comprehensive information on most methods (the following account draws mostly on her work). Check a research methods book in your discipline for more specific guidance.

Experiments

Experiments are useful to investigate cause and effect, when the variables can be tightly controlled. They can test a theory or hypothesis in controlled conditions. Experiments do not prove or disprove an hypothesis, instead they support or not support an hypothesis. When using the empirical and inductive method it is not possible to achieve conclusive results. The results may only be valid until falsified by other experiments and observations.

For more information on Scientific Method, click here .

Observations

Observational methods are useful for in-depth analyses of behaviours in people, animals, organisations, events or phenomena. They can test a theory or products in real life or simulated settings. They generally a qualitative research method.

Questionnaires and surveys

Questionnaires and surveys are useful to gain opinions, attitudes, preferences, understandings on certain matters. They can provide quantitative data that can be collated systematically; qualitative data, if they include opportunities for open-ended responses; or both qualitative and quantitative elements.

Interviews

Interviews are useful to gain rich, qualitative information about individuals' experiences, attitudes or perspectives. With interviews you can follow up immediately on responses for clarification or further details. There are three main types of interviews: structured (following a strict pattern of questions, which expect short answers), semi-structured (following a list of questions, with the opportunity to follow up the answers with improvised questions), and unstructured (following a short list of broad questions, where the respondent can lead more the conversation) (Specht, 2019, p142).

This short video on qualitative interviews discusses best practices and covers qualitative interview design, preparation and data collection methods.

Focus groups

In this case, a group of people (normally, 4-12) is gathered for an interview where the interviewer asks questions to such group of participants. Group interactions and discussions can be highly productive, but the researcher has to beware of the group effect, whereby certain participants and views dominate the interview (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill 2015, p419). The researcher can try to minimise this by encouraging involvement of all participants and promoting a multiplicity of views.

This video focuses on strategies for conducting research using focus groups.

Check out the guidance on online focus groups by Aliaksandr Herasimenka, which is attached at the bottom of this text box.

Case study

Case studies are often a convenient way to narrow the focus of your research by studying how a theory or literature fares with regard to a specific person, group, organisation, event or other type of entity or phenomenon you identify. Case studies can be researched using other methods, including those described in this section. Case studies give in-depth insights on the particular reality that has been examined, but may not be representative of what happens in general, they may not be generalisable, and may not be relevant to other contexts. These limitations have to be acknowledged by the researcher.

Content analysis

Content analysis consists in the study of words or images within a text. In its broad definition, texts include books, articles, essays, historical documents, speeches, conversations, advertising, interviews, social media posts, films, theatre, paintings or other visuals. Content analysis can be quantitative (e.g. word frequency) or qualitative (e.g. analysing intention and implications of the communication). It can detect propaganda, identify intentions of writers, and can see differences in types of communication (Specht, 2019, p146). Check this page on collecting, cleaning and visualising Twitter data.

Extra links and resources:

Research Methods

A clear and comprehensive overview of research methods by Emerald Publishing. It includes: crowdsourcing as a research tool; mixed methods research; case study; discourse analysis; ground theory; repertory grid; ethnographic method and participant observation; interviews; focus group; action research; analysis of qualitative data; survey design; questionnaires; statistics; experiments; empirical research; literature review; secondary data and archival materials; data collection.

Doing your dissertation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Resources providing guidance on doing dissertation research during the pandemic: Online research methods; Secondary data sources; Webinars, conferences and podcasts;

Virtual Focus Groups Guidance on managing virtual focus groups

5 Minute Methods Videos

The following are a series of useful videos that introduce research methods in five minutes. These resources have been produced by lecturers and students with the University of Westminster's School of Media and Communication.

Case Study Research

Research Ethics

Quantitative Content Analysis

Sequential Analysis

Qualitative Content Analysis

Thematic Analysis

Social Media Research

Mixed Method Research

Procedural Method

In this part, provide an accurate, detailed account of the methods and procedures that were used in the study or the experiment (if applicable!).

Include specifics about participants, sample, materials, design and methods.

If the research involves human subjects, then include a detailed description of who and how many participated along with how the participants were selected.

Describe all materials used for the study, including equipment, written materials and testing instruments.

Identify the study's design and any variables or controls employed.

Write out the steps in the order that they were completed.

Indicate what participants were asked to do, how measurements were taken and any calculations made to raw data collected.

Specify statistical techniques applied to the data to reach your conclusions.

Provide evidence that you incorporated rigor into your research. This is the quality of being thorough and accurate and considers the logic behind your research design.

Highlight any drawbacks that may have limited your ability to conduct your research thoroughly.

You have to provide details to allow others to replicate the experiment and/or verify the data, to test the validity of the research.

Bibliography

Cottrell, S. (2014). Dissertations and project reports: a step by step guide. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lombard, E. (2010). Primary and secondary sources. The Journal of Academic Librarianship , 36(3), 250-253

Saunders, M.N.K., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2015). Research Methods for Business Students. New York: Pearson Education.

Specht, D. (2019). The Media And Communications Study Skills Student Guide . London: University of Westminster Press.

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Introduction.

Interviewing people is at the heart of qualitative research. It is not merely a way to collect data but an intrinsically rewarding activity—an interaction between two people that holds the potential for greater understanding and interpersonal development. Unlike many of our daily interactions with others that are fairly shallow and mundane, sitting down with a person for an hour or two and really listening to what they have to say is a profound and deep enterprise, one that can provide not only “data” for you, the interviewer, but also self-understanding and a feeling of being heard for the interviewee. I always approach interviewing with a deep appreciation for the opportunity it gives me to understand how other people experience the world. That said, there is not one kind of interview but many, and some of these are shallower than others. This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research.

An interview can be variously defined as “a conversation with a purpose” ( Lune and Berg 2018 ) and an attempt to understand the world from the point of view of the person being interviewed: “to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations” ( Kvale 2007 ). It is a form of active listening in which the interviewer steers the conversation to subjects and topics of interest to their research but also manages to leave enough space for those interviewed to say surprising things. Achieving that balance is a tricky thing, which is why most practitioners believe interviewing is both an art and a science. In my experience as a teacher, there are some students who are “natural” interviewers (often they are introverts), but anyone can learn to conduct interviews, and everyone, even those of us who have been doing this for years, can improve their interviewing skills. This might be a good time to highlight the fact that the interview is a product between interviewer and interviewee and that this product is only as good as the rapport established between the two participants. Active listening is the key to establishing this necessary rapport.

Patton ( 2002 ) makes the argument that we use interviews because there are certain things that are not observable. In particular, “we cannot observe feelings, thoughts, and intentions. We cannot observe behaviors that took place at some previous point in time. We cannot observe situations that preclude the presence of an observer. We cannot observe how people have organized the world and the meanings they attach to what goes on in the world. We have to ask people questions about those things” ( 341 ).

Types of Interviews

There are several distinct types of interviews. Imagine a continuum (figure 11.1). On one side are unstructured conversations—the kind you have with your friends. No one is in control of those conversations, and what you talk about is often random—whatever pops into your head. There is no secret, underlying purpose to your talking—if anything, the purpose is to talk to and engage with each other, and the words you use and the things you talk about are a little beside the point. An unstructured interview is a little like this informal conversation, except that one of the parties to the conversation (you, the researcher) does have an underlying purpose, and that is to understand the other person. You are not friends speaking for no purpose, but it might feel just as unstructured to the “interviewee” in this scenario. That is one side of the continuum. On the other side are fully structured and standardized survey-type questions asked face-to-face. Here it is very clear who is asking the questions and who is answering them. This doesn’t feel like a conversation at all! A lot of people new to interviewing have this ( erroneously !) in mind when they think about interviews as data collection. Somewhere in the middle of these two extreme cases is the “ semistructured” interview , in which the researcher uses an “interview guide” to gently move the conversation to certain topics and issues. This is the primary form of interviewing for qualitative social scientists and will be what I refer to as interviewing for the rest of this chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Types of Interviewing Questions: Unstructured conversations, Semi-structured interview, Structured interview, Survey questions

Informal (unstructured conversations). This is the most “open-ended” approach to interviewing. It is particularly useful in conjunction with observational methods (see chapters 13 and 14). There are no predetermined questions. Each interview will be different. Imagine you are researching the Oregon Country Fair, an annual event in Veneta, Oregon, that includes live music, artisan craft booths, face painting, and a lot of people walking through forest paths. It’s unlikely that you will be able to get a person to sit down with you and talk intensely about a set of questions for an hour and a half. But you might be able to sidle up to several people and engage with them about their experiences at the fair. You might have a general interest in what attracts people to these events, so you could start a conversation by asking strangers why they are here or why they come back every year. That’s it. Then you have a conversation that may lead you anywhere. Maybe one person tells a long story about how their parents brought them here when they were a kid. A second person talks about how this is better than Burning Man. A third person shares their favorite traveling band. And yet another enthuses about the public library in the woods. During your conversations, you also talk about a lot of other things—the weather, the utilikilts for sale, the fact that a favorite food booth has disappeared. It’s all good. You may not be able to record these conversations. Instead, you might jot down notes on the spot and then, when you have the time, write down as much as you can remember about the conversations in long fieldnotes. Later, you will have to sit down with these fieldnotes and try to make sense of all the information (see chapters 18 and 19).

Interview guide ( semistructured interview ). This is the primary type employed by social science qualitative researchers. The researcher creates an “interview guide” in advance, which she uses in every interview. In theory, every person interviewed is asked the same questions. In practice, every person interviewed is asked mostly the same topics but not always the same questions, as the whole point of a “guide” is that it guides the direction of the conversation but does not command it. The guide is typically between five and ten questions or question areas, sometimes with suggested follow-ups or prompts . For example, one question might be “What was it like growing up in Eastern Oregon?” with prompts such as “Did you live in a rural area? What kind of high school did you attend?” to help the conversation develop. These interviews generally take place in a quiet place (not a busy walkway during a festival) and are recorded. The recordings are transcribed, and those transcriptions then become the “data” that is analyzed (see chapters 18 and 19). The conventional length of one of these types of interviews is between one hour and two hours, optimally ninety minutes. Less than one hour doesn’t allow for much development of questions and thoughts, and two hours (or more) is a lot of time to ask someone to sit still and answer questions. If you have a lot of ground to cover, and the person is willing, I highly recommend two separate interview sessions, with the second session being slightly shorter than the first (e.g., ninety minutes the first day, sixty minutes the second). There are lots of good reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that this allows you to listen to the first day’s recording and catch anything interesting you might have missed in the moment and so develop follow-up questions that can probe further. This also allows the person being interviewed to have some time to think about the issues raised in the interview and go a little deeper with their answers.

Standardized questionnaire with open responses ( structured interview ). This is the type of interview a lot of people have in mind when they hear “interview”: a researcher comes to your door with a clipboard and proceeds to ask you a series of questions. These questions are all the same whoever answers the door; they are “standardized.” Both the wording and the exact order are important, as people’s responses may vary depending on how and when a question is asked. These are qualitative only in that the questions allow for “open-ended responses”: people can say whatever they want rather than select from a predetermined menu of responses. For example, a survey I collaborated on included this open-ended response question: “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?” Some of the answers were simply one word long (e.g., “debt”), and others were long statements with stories and personal anecdotes. It is possible to be surprised by the responses. Although it’s a stretch to call this kind of questioning a conversation, it does allow the person answering the question some degree of freedom in how they answer.

Survey questionnaire with closed responses (not an interview!). Standardized survey questions with specific answer options (e.g., closed responses) are not really interviews at all, and they do not generate qualitative data. For example, if we included five options for the question “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?”—(1) debt, (2) social networks, (3) alienation, (4) family doesn’t understand, (5) type of grad program—we leave no room for surprises at all. Instead, we would most likely look at patterns around these responses, thinking quantitatively rather than qualitatively (e.g., using regression analysis techniques, we might find that working-class sociologists were twice as likely to bring up alienation). It can sometimes be confusing for new students because the very same survey can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The key is to think about how these will be analyzed and to what level surprises are possible. If your plan is to turn all responses into a number and make predictions about correlations and relationships, you are no longer conducting qualitative research. This is true even if you are conducting this survey face-to-face with a real live human. Closed-response questions are not conversations of any kind, purposeful or not.

In summary, the semistructured interview guide approach is the predominant form of interviewing for social science qualitative researchers because it allows a high degree of freedom of responses from those interviewed (thus allowing for novel discoveries) while still maintaining some connection to a research question area or topic of interest. The rest of the chapter assumes the employment of this form.

Creating an Interview Guide

Your interview guide is the instrument used to bridge your research question(s) and what the people you are interviewing want to tell you. Unlike a standardized questionnaire, the questions actually asked do not need to be exactly what you have written down in your guide. The guide is meant to create space for those you are interviewing to talk about the phenomenon of interest, but sometimes you are not even sure what that phenomenon is until you start asking questions. A priority in creating an interview guide is to ensure it offers space. One of the worst mistakes is to create questions that are so specific that the person answering them will not stray. Relatedly, questions that sound “academic” will shut down a lot of respondents. A good interview guide invites respondents to talk about what is important to them, not feel like they are performing or being evaluated by you.

Good interview questions should not sound like your “research question” at all. For example, let’s say your research question is “How do patriarchal assumptions influence men’s understanding of climate change and responses to climate change?” It would be worse than unhelpful to ask a respondent, “How do your assumptions about the role of men affect your understanding of climate change?” You need to unpack this into manageable nuggets that pull your respondent into the area of interest without leading him anywhere. You could start by asking him what he thinks about climate change in general. Or, even better, whether he has any concerns about heatwaves or increased tornadoes or polar icecaps melting. Once he starts talking about that, you can ask follow-up questions that bring in issues around gendered roles, perhaps asking if he is married (to a woman) and whether his wife shares his thoughts and, if not, how they negotiate that difference. The fact is, you won’t really know the right questions to ask until he starts talking.

There are several distinct types of questions that can be used in your interview guide, either as main questions or as follow-up probes. If you remember that the point is to leave space for the respondent, you will craft a much more effective interview guide! You will also want to think about the place of time in both the questions themselves (past, present, future orientations) and the sequencing of the questions.

Researcher Note

Suggestion : As you read the next three sections (types of questions, temporality, question sequence), have in mind a particular research question, and try to draft questions and sequence them in a way that opens space for a discussion that helps you answer your research question.

Type of Questions

Experience and behavior questions ask about what a respondent does regularly (their behavior) or has done (their experience). These are relatively easy questions for people to answer because they appear more “factual” and less subjective. This makes them good opening questions. For the study on climate change above, you might ask, “Have you ever experienced an unusual weather event? What happened?” Or “You said you work outside? What is a typical summer workday like for you? How do you protect yourself from the heat?”

Opinion and values questions , in contrast, ask questions that get inside the minds of those you are interviewing. “Do you think climate change is real? Who or what is responsible for it?” are two such questions. Note that you don’t have to literally ask, “What is your opinion of X?” but you can find a way to ask the specific question relevant to the conversation you are having. These questions are a bit trickier to ask because the answers you get may depend in part on how your respondent perceives you and whether they want to please you or not. We’ve talked a fair amount about being reflective. Here is another place where this comes into play. You need to be aware of the effect your presence might have on the answers you are receiving and adjust accordingly. If you are a woman who is perceived as liberal asking a man who identifies as conservative about climate change, there is a lot of subtext that can be going on in the interview. There is no one right way to resolve this, but you must at least be aware of it.

Feeling questions are questions that ask respondents to draw on their emotional responses. It’s pretty common for academic researchers to forget that we have bodies and emotions, but people’s understandings of the world often operate at this affective level, sometimes unconsciously or barely consciously. It is a good idea to include questions that leave space for respondents to remember, imagine, or relive emotional responses to particular phenomena. “What was it like when you heard your cousin’s house burned down in that wildfire?” doesn’t explicitly use any emotion words, but it allows your respondent to remember what was probably a pretty emotional day. And if they respond emotionally neutral, that is pretty interesting data too. Note that asking someone “How do you feel about X” is not always going to evoke an emotional response, as they might simply turn around and respond with “I think that…” It is better to craft a question that actually pushes the respondent into the affective category. This might be a specific follow-up to an experience and behavior question —for example, “You just told me about your daily routine during the summer heat. Do you worry it is going to get worse?” or “Have you ever been afraid it will be too hot to get your work accomplished?”

Knowledge questions ask respondents what they actually know about something factual. We have to be careful when we ask these types of questions so that respondents do not feel like we are evaluating them (which would shut them down), but, for example, it is helpful to know when you are having a conversation about climate change that your respondent does in fact know that unusual weather events have increased and that these have been attributed to climate change! Asking these questions can set the stage for deeper questions and can ensure that the conversation makes the same kind of sense to both participants. For example, a conversation about political polarization can be put back on track once you realize that the respondent doesn’t really have a clear understanding that there are two parties in the US. Instead of asking a series of questions about Republicans and Democrats, you might shift your questions to talk more generally about political disagreements (e.g., “people against abortion”). And sometimes what you do want to know is the level of knowledge about a particular program or event (e.g., “Are you aware you can discharge your student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program?”).

Sensory questions call on all senses of the respondent to capture deeper responses. These are particularly helpful in sparking memory. “Think back to your childhood in Eastern Oregon. Describe the smells, the sounds…” Or you could use these questions to help a person access the full experience of a setting they customarily inhabit: “When you walk through the doors to your office building, what do you see? Hear? Smell?” As with feeling questions , these questions often supplement experience and behavior questions . They are another way of allowing your respondent to report fully and deeply rather than remain on the surface.

Creative questions employ illustrative examples, suggested scenarios, or simulations to get respondents to think more deeply about an issue, topic, or experience. There are many options here. In The Trouble with Passion , Erin Cech ( 2021 ) provides a scenario in which “Joe” is trying to decide whether to stay at his decent but boring computer job or follow his passion by opening a restaurant. She asks respondents, “What should Joe do?” Their answers illuminate the attraction of “passion” in job selection. In my own work, I have used a news story about an upwardly mobile young man who no longer has time to see his mother and sisters to probe respondents’ feelings about the costs of social mobility. Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright have used single-page cartoon “scenes” to elicit evaluations of potential racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and classism. Barbara Sutton ( 2010 ) has employed lists of words (“strong,” “mother,” “victim”) on notecards she fans out and asks her female respondents to select and discuss.

Background/Demographic Questions

You most definitely will want to know more about the person you are interviewing in terms of conventional demographic information, such as age, race, gender identity, occupation, and educational attainment. These are not questions that normally open up inquiry. [1] For this reason, my practice has been to include a separate “demographic questionnaire” sheet that I ask each respondent to fill out at the conclusion of the interview. Only include those aspects that are relevant to your study. For example, if you are not exploring religion or religious affiliation, do not include questions about a person’s religion on the demographic sheet. See the example provided at the end of this chapter.

Temporality

Any type of question can have a past, present, or future orientation. For example, if you are asking a behavior question about workplace routine, you might ask the respondent to talk about past work, present work, and ideal (future) work. Similarly, if you want to understand how people cope with natural disasters, you might ask your respondent how they felt then during the wildfire and now in retrospect and whether and to what extent they have concerns for future wildfire disasters. It’s a relatively simple suggestion—don’t forget to ask about past, present, and future—but it can have a big impact on the quality of the responses you receive.

Question Sequence

Having a list of good questions or good question areas is not enough to make a good interview guide. You will want to pay attention to the order in which you ask your questions. Even though any one respondent can derail this order (perhaps by jumping to answer a question you haven’t yet asked), a good advance plan is always helpful. When thinking about sequence, remember that your goal is to get your respondent to open up to you and to say things that might surprise you. To establish rapport, it is best to start with nonthreatening questions. Asking about the present is often the safest place to begin, followed by the past (they have to know you a little bit to get there), and lastly, the future (talking about hopes and fears requires the most rapport). To allow for surprises, it is best to move from very general questions to more particular questions only later in the interview. This ensures that respondents have the freedom to bring up the topics that are relevant to them rather than feel like they are constrained to answer you narrowly. For example, refrain from asking about particular emotions until these have come up previously—don’t lead with them. Often, your more particular questions will emerge only during the course of the interview, tailored to what is emerging in conversation.

Once you have a set of questions, read through them aloud and imagine you are being asked the same questions. Does the set of questions have a natural flow? Would you be willing to answer the very first question to a total stranger? Does your sequence establish facts and experiences before moving on to opinions and values? Did you include prefatory statements, where necessary; transitions; and other announcements? These can be as simple as “Hey, we talked a lot about your experiences as a barista while in college.… Now I am turning to something completely different: how you managed friendships in college.” That is an abrupt transition, but it has been softened by your acknowledgment of that.

Probes and Flexibility

Once you have the interview guide, you will also want to leave room for probes and follow-up questions. As in the sample probe included here, you can write out the obvious probes and follow-up questions in advance. You might not need them, as your respondent might anticipate them and include full responses to the original question. Or you might need to tailor them to how your respondent answered the question. Some common probes and follow-up questions include asking for more details (When did that happen? Who else was there?), asking for elaboration (Could you say more about that?), asking for clarification (Does that mean what I think it means or something else? I understand what you mean, but someone else reading the transcript might not), and asking for contrast or comparison (How did this experience compare with last year’s event?). “Probing is a skill that comes from knowing what to look for in the interview, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not said, and being sensitive to the feedback needs of the person being interviewed” ( Patton 2002:374 ). It takes work! And energy. I and many other interviewers I know report feeling emotionally and even physically drained after conducting an interview. You are tasked with active listening and rearranging your interview guide as needed on the fly. If you only ask the questions written down in your interview guide with no deviations, you are doing it wrong. [2]

The Final Question

Every interview guide should include a very open-ended final question that allows for the respondent to say whatever it is they have been dying to tell you but you’ve forgotten to ask. About half the time they are tired too and will tell you they have nothing else to say. But incredibly, some of the most honest and complete responses take place here, at the end of a long interview. You have to realize that the person being interviewed is often discovering things about themselves as they talk to you and that this process of discovery can lead to new insights for them. Making space at the end is therefore crucial. Be sure you convey that you actually do want them to tell you more, that the offer of “anything else?” is not read as an empty convention where the polite response is no. Here is where you can pull from that active listening and tailor the final question to the particular person. For example, “I’ve asked you a lot of questions about what it was like to live through that wildfire. I’m wondering if there is anything I’ve forgotten to ask, especially because I haven’t had that experience myself” is a much more inviting final question than “Great. Anything you want to add?” It’s also helpful to convey to the person that you have the time to listen to their full answer, even if the allotted time is at the end. After all, there are no more questions to ask, so the respondent knows exactly how much time is left. Do them the courtesy of listening to them!

Conducting the Interview

Once you have your interview guide, you are on your way to conducting your first interview. I always practice my interview guide with a friend or family member. I do this even when the questions don’t make perfect sense for them, as it still helps me realize which questions make no sense, are poorly worded (too academic), or don’t follow sequentially. I also practice the routine I will use for interviewing, which goes something like this:

Introduce myself and reintroduce the study
Provide consent form and ask them to sign and retain/return copy
Ask if they have any questions about the study before we begin
Ask if I can begin recording
Ask questions (from interview guide)
Turn off the recording device
Ask if they are willing to fill out my demographic questionnaire
Collect questionnaire and, without looking at the answers, place in same folder as signed consent form
Thank them and depart

A note on remote interviewing: Interviews have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a private or quiet public setting. You don’t want a lot of background noise, as this will make transcriptions difficult. During the recent global pandemic, many interviewers, myself included, learned the benefits of interviewing remotely. Although face-to-face is still preferable for many reasons, Zoom interviewing is not a bad alternative, and it does allow more interviews across great distances. Zoom also includes automatic transcription, which significantly cuts down on the time it normally takes to convert our conversations into “data” to be analyzed. These automatic transcriptions are not perfect, however, and you will still need to listen to the recording and clarify and clean up the transcription. Nor do automatic transcriptions include notations of body language or change of tone, which you may want to include. When interviewing remotely, you will want to collect the consent form before you meet: ask them to read, sign, and return it as an email attachment. I think it is better to ask for the demographic questionnaire after the interview, but because some respondents may never return it then, it is probably best to ask for this at the same time as the consent form, in advance of the interview.

What should you bring to the interview? I would recommend bringing two copies of the consent form (one for you and one for the respondent), a demographic questionnaire, a manila folder in which to place the signed consent form and filled-out demographic questionnaire, a printed copy of your interview guide (I print with three-inch right margins so I can jot down notes on the page next to relevant questions), a pen, a recording device, and water.

After the interview, you will want to secure the signed consent form in a locked filing cabinet (if in print) or a password-protected folder on your computer. Using Excel or a similar program that allows tables/spreadsheets, create an identifying number for your interview that links to the consent form without using the name of your respondent. For example, let’s say that I conduct interviews with US politicians, and the first person I meet with is George W. Bush. I will assign the transcription the number “INT#001” and add it to the signed consent form. [3] The signed consent form goes into a locked filing cabinet, and I never use the name “George W. Bush” again. I take the information from the demographic sheet, open my Excel spreadsheet, and add the relevant information in separate columns for the row INT#001: White, male, Republican. When I interview Bill Clinton as my second interview, I include a second row: INT#002: White, male, Democrat. And so on. The only link to the actual name of the respondent and this information is the fact that the consent form (unavailable to anyone but me) has stamped on it the interview number.

Many students get very nervous before their first interview. Actually, many of us are always nervous before the interview! But do not worry—this is normal, and it does pass. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it begins to feel. These “purposeful conversations” are often a delight for both participants. This is not to say that sometimes things go wrong. I often have my students practice several “bad scenarios” (e.g., a respondent that you cannot get to open up; a respondent who is too talkative and dominates the conversation, steering it away from the topics you are interested in; emotions that completely take over; or shocking disclosures you are ill-prepared to handle), but most of the time, things go quite well. Be prepared for the unexpected, but know that the reason interviews are so popular as a technique of data collection is that they are usually richly rewarding for both participants.

One thing that I stress to my methods students and remind myself about is that interviews are still conversations between people. If there’s something you might feel uncomfortable asking someone about in a “normal” conversation, you will likely also feel a bit of discomfort asking it in an interview. Maybe more importantly, your respondent may feel uncomfortable. Social research—especially about inequality—can be uncomfortable. And it’s easy to slip into an abstract, intellectualized, or removed perspective as an interviewer. This is one reason trying out interview questions is important. Another is that sometimes the question sounds good in your head but doesn’t work as well out loud in practice. I learned this the hard way when a respondent asked me how I would answer the question I had just posed, and I realized that not only did I not really know how I would answer it, but I also wasn’t quite as sure I knew what I was asking as I had thought.

—Elizabeth M. Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University, author of Class and Campus Life , and co-author of Geographies of Campus Inequality

How Many Interviews?

Your research design has included a targeted number of interviews and a recruitment plan (see chapter 5). Follow your plan, but remember that “ saturation ” is your goal. You interview as many people as you can until you reach a point at which you are no longer surprised by what they tell you. This means not that no one after your first twenty interviews will have surprising, interesting stories to tell you but rather that the picture you are forming about the phenomenon of interest to you from a research perspective has come into focus, and none of the interviews are substantially refocusing that picture. That is when you should stop collecting interviews. Note that to know when you have reached this, you will need to read your transcripts as you go. More about this in chapters 18 and 19.

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

A good interview transcript will demonstrate a subtly controlled conversation by the skillful interviewer. In general, you want to see replies that are about one paragraph long, not short sentences and not running on for several pages. Although it is sometimes necessary to follow respondents down tangents, it is also often necessary to pull them back to the questions that form the basis of your research study. This is not really a free conversation, although it may feel like that to the person you are interviewing.

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Annette Lareau is arguably one of the masters of the trade. In Listening to People , she provides several guidelines for good interviews and then offers a detailed example of an interview gone wrong and how it could be addressed (please see the “Further Readings” at the end of this chapter). Here is an abbreviated version of her set of guidelines: (1) interview respondents who are experts on the subjects of most interest to you (as a corollary, don’t ask people about things they don’t know); (2) listen carefully and talk as little as possible; (3) keep in mind what you want to know and why you want to know it; (4) be a proactive interviewer (subtly guide the conversation); (5) assure respondents that there aren’t any right or wrong answers; (6) use the respondent’s own words to probe further (this both allows you to accurately identify what you heard and pushes the respondent to explain further); (7) reuse effective probes (don’t reinvent the wheel as you go—if repeating the words back works, do it again and again); (8) focus on learning the subjective meanings that events or experiences have for a respondent; (9) don’t be afraid to ask a question that draws on your own knowledge (unlike trial lawyers who are trained never to ask a question for which they don’t already know the answer, sometimes it’s worth it to ask risky questions based on your hypotheses or just plain hunches); (10) keep thinking while you are listening (so difficult…and important); (11) return to a theme raised by a respondent if you want further information; (12) be mindful of power inequalities (and never ever coerce a respondent to continue the interview if they want out); (13) take control with overly talkative respondents; (14) expect overly succinct responses, and develop strategies for probing further; (15) balance digging deep and moving on; (16) develop a plan to deflect questions (e.g., let them know you are happy to answer any questions at the end of the interview, but you don’t want to take time away from them now); and at the end, (17) check to see whether you have asked all your questions. You don’t always have to ask everyone the same set of questions, but if there is a big area you have forgotten to cover, now is the time to recover ( Lareau 2021:93–103 ).

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

ASA Taskforce on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology – Class Effects on Career Success

Supplementary Demographic Questionnaire

Thank you for your participation in this interview project. We would like to collect a few pieces of key demographic information from you to supplement our analyses. Your answers to these questions will be kept confidential and stored by ID number. All of your responses here are entirely voluntary!

What best captures your race/ethnicity? (please check any/all that apply)

White (Non Hispanic/Latina/o/x)
Black or African American
Hispanic, Latino/a/x of Spanish
Asian or Asian American
American Indian or Alaska Native
Middle Eastern or North African
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Other : (Please write in: ________________)

What is your current position?

Grad Student
Full Professor

Please check any and all of the following that apply to you:

I identify as a working-class academic
I was the first in my family to graduate from college
I grew up poor

What best reflects your gender?

Transgender female/Transgender woman
Transgender male/Transgender man
Gender queer/ Gender nonconforming

Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Example: Interview Guide

In this example, follow-up prompts are italicized. Note the sequence of questions. That second question often elicits an entire life history , answering several later questions in advance.

Introduction Script/Question

Thank you for participating in our survey of ASA members who identify as first-generation or working-class. As you may have heard, ASA has sponsored a taskforce on first-generation and working-class persons in sociology and we are interested in hearing from those who so identify. Your participation in this interview will help advance our knowledge in this area.

The first thing we would like to as you is why you have volunteered to be part of this study? What does it mean to you be first-gen or working class? Why were you willing to be interviewed?
How did you decide to become a sociologist?
Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up? ( prompts: what did your parent(s) do for a living? What kind of high school did you attend?)
Has this identity been salient to your experience? (how? How much?)
How welcoming was your grad program? Your first academic employer?
Why did you decide to pursue sociology at the graduate level?
Did you experience culture shock in college? In graduate school?
Has your FGWC status shaped how you’ve thought about where you went to school? debt? etc?
Were you mentored? How did this work (not work)? How might it?
What did you consider when deciding where to go to grad school? Where to apply for your first position?
What, to you, is a mark of career success? Have you achieved that success? What has helped or hindered your pursuit of success?
Do you think sociology, as a field, cares about prestige?
Let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. How does being first-gen/working class work alongside other identities that are important to you?
What do your friends and family think about your career? Have you had any difficulty relating to family members or past friends since becoming highly educated?
Do you have any debt from college/grad school? Are you concerned about this? Could you explain more about how you paid for college/grad school? (here, include assistance from family, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)
(You’ve mentioned issues or obstacles you had because of your background.) What could have helped? Or, who or what did? Can you think of fortuitous moments in your career?
Do you have any regrets about the path you took?
Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that the Taskforce should take note of, that we did not ask you about here?

Introduction

When you incorporate original interview data into your writing, you are developing new ideas by using quotations and often sources that no one else has accessed. Drawing from interviews can liven up your writing, ground your big concepts within the specific circumstances of particular individuals, and introduce you to insights you might never have considered on your own. Additionally, interviews are an exciting way for you to provide a larger audience for people who might not otherwise have opportunities to share their stories, perceptions, and experiences.

There are lots of good reasons to incorporate original interview data into your writing. But doing so also involves making many, specific writing decisions. On this page we explore some of those decisions by considering: 1) the process by which interview data is gathered; 2) models for interview incorporation; and 3) identification of ways that writing with interview data can be like writing with information from any other source (as well as some of the unique writerly considerations that interviews raise).

Contents Before You Write Different Models of Incorporating Interview Data Summarizing, Paraphrasing, or Quoting Referring to your Interviewees Using Verbatim or Non-Verbatim

Before You Write

Of course, before you can incorporate interview data into your writing, you need to plan and conduct your interviews and begin to analyze your findings.

Interviewing is a common form of research and information gathering in many different fields and across many different genres. In order to develop and actualize a plan for why interviews will help you answer the questions you’re asking, whom you’ll interview, and what you’ll ask these subjects, you’ll want to consult a range of resources. Talk with your instructor, mentor, or advisor about common ways of approaching interviews for this assignment or in this discipline. Additionally, many undergraduate textbooks about research in the social sciences and humanities offer introductions to interviewing. We’ve listed a few great resources to help you learn more.

For comprehensive introductions to research methods used in the writing research that include some information about interviews, consider:

Jackie Grutsch McKinney’s book Strategies for Writing Center Research —especially pages 55-69. While Grutsch McKinney’s is focused on writing center research, her close consideration of the different ways to structure interviews as well as how to plan and conduct them can be applied to all interview contexts. Additionally, her treatment of data analysis in chapter 8 provides a step-by-step guide for coding qualitative data—one of the approaches you might use to make sense of what your interview data means.
Joyce Kinkead’s Researching Writing: An Introduction to Research Methods —especially pages 37-39. This is a potential textbook for that could be used for a class specifically about the formal study of writing. However, its direct and specific information about interviewing is applicable for any social science researcher preparing to use interviews for research.

These resources focus more specifically on qualitative research methods in particular and interviewing in particular:

Robert Bogdan and Sari Knopp Biklen’s Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theories and Methods —especially pages 103-109. Bogdan and Knopp Biklen’s treatment of interview practices provides a brief overview of how to approach and implement this research methodology.
Irving Seidman’s Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences —especially pages 78-94. This entire book explores interview practices, logistics, and applications, but chapter six in particular usefully details particular interviewing techniques and provides transcripted examples of some of these strategic techniques in action.

The rest of the information on this page assumes that you have learned to develop and implement your interview plan, that you’ve analyzed the information you’ve gathered, and that you’re now ready to start weaving that information into your writing.

Different Models for Incorporating Interview Data

You can use interview data in many different ways. Most often, you will probably be making an argumentative or analytical point and illustrating and supporting it with evidence from your interviews. For example, in the following passage from the book Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines , Paul D. Hutchcroft, a political science professor at Australian National University, begins with an original claim, follows that with a quotation from an interview subject that exemplifies that claim, and then offers additional commentary on that issue. Note how the quotation from the interview both connects the concepts of banking and politics and introduces the prism metaphor that Hutchcroft continues into the next sentence.

The major focus of this [book] is two arenas that offer particular insights into the nature of relations between state and oligarchy in the banking system: bank supervision and selective credit allocation. “Banking,” observes one former bank president, “is a prism through which to understand power politics in the Philippines.” A study of the banking system highlights larger patterns at work within the political economy: how a predatory oligarchy extracts privilege from a patrimonial state, and how developmental policy objectives are continually choked out by a clamor of particularistic demands made by those who currently enjoy proximity to the political machinery. (7)

Generalizing about a Trend or Theme

Using information from an interview to support your claim is the primary purpose for incorporating interview data into your writing, but how you do this may change according to your specific intent. In what follows, we explore different models for weaving interview data into your writing and provide examples of what this looks like.

It is important to consider the politicization of the nationality responses in context. On the whole, the vast majority of republican executives did not try to influence the process, and the nationality question was a non-issue in the predominantly ethnically Russian regions. In my regional interviews I found that in the oblasts and krays, there were almost no reports of difficulty with the nationality question. Officials in those areas reported that respondents who were not ethnically Russian had no difficulty citing a different nationality. This finding corresponded with my observations of the enumeration process in Moscow. There were sporadic cases of respondents in ethnically mixed marriages registering one child as of one parent’s ethnic group and the other child as of the other parent’s ethnic group. However, this is a conceptual issue rather than a problem of politicization. ( 367-8 )

Quoting to Illustrate a Trend or Theme

Sometimes interviewees say things that are so strikingly similar that it is useful to draw attention to these complementary concepts and word choices by putting them together. In the following passage, Jane Calvert, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, and Joan Fujimura, a sociology professor at UW-Madison, use this strategy while writing about scientists’ responses to the new and developing field of systems biology. Note that these authors carefully tie quotations to specific anonymized interviewees through parenthetical citations.

In another US university, the decision to build an interdisciplinary research centre was top-down, initiated by university and funding administrators and initially opposed by most campus laboratory scientists. The building of new interdisciplinary structures is challenging for the existing disciplinary “fiefdoms” (Biologist19) and “silos” (Biologist9 and Biologist12) “where people feel protected and safe” (Biologist19) because they are not required to step outside of their “comfort zones” (Biologist7).

Putting Two Sources in Conversation with Each Other

Sometimes writers can use one interviewee to contribute to or complicate what another interviewee says. The following paragraph from Hutchcroft’s Booty Capitalism shows this practice at work. In addition to bringing two sources together, in this passage Hutchcroft also strategically incorporates paratextual insight gained from the interview process into his analysis. He uses the former governor’s laughter to showcase an attitude that directly contrasts with what the former bank supervisor says.

Even when the Central Bank has acted against those who milked their banks, former bank owners have been known to use personal connections, even up to the Supreme Court, to confound Central Bank discipline. Former Governor Jaime Laya noted that even martial law “didn’t seem to stop the lawsuits against Central Bank personnel.” He actually laughed as he told me how the Central Bank legal office has “never won a case.” But the former head of the bank supervision sector, who has herself been sued, doesn’t find it a laughing matter: “Why only in this country,” she exclaimed, “do the regulators go to the jail, and the bankers go scot-free?” (9)

Providing a Profile/Telling a Story

Sometimes your writing needs to focus on your interview subject as a full and complex individual. In order to analyze an issue, you need to write about this individual’s background, family, and previous experiences. In this situation, you’ll weave together information you gained from your interviews with quotations from this person. This kind of writing is common when you are using interviews to develop ethnographis case studies. In the following example of this technique, Kate Vieira, a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at UW-Madison, tells the story of Jocélia, an undocumented Brazilian immigrant living in Massachusetts:

Jocélia, a 22 year-old Brazilian woman who grew up in a favela (shanty town) in Brazil, came to the United States to study and to earn money. When her visa expired and the small sum she had borrowed from cousins ran out, she quit her ESL classes and began to work illegally. When I met her in 2008, she had been in the United States for 4 years, had managed to buy a house for her mother in Brazil, and had plans to buy another one for herself and a car. To earn money as an undocumented worker, she held down two jobs: one from 3 p.m. to midnight and another from 5 a.m. to afternoon. One evening, exhausted from having not slept in days, she nodded off as she drove home from work, resulting in a serious accident that led her to a friend’s house in South Mills and to a Catholic retreat. When I came here, I was not a youth who had fun. I only worked, and this made me a little frustrated, you know? Sad, lonely, understand? And nobody could change my mind. I had to work . . . But the Lord showed me something different, that I can’t live only for work . . . So I went there [to the retreat] and I really felt that the Lord touched us. It was a very good experience . . . (444)

Attending to Language

As explored in greater depth in the discussion about verbatim transcription , sometimes you want to analyze or consider the language an individual uses or the implications of certain kinds of words or even pauses. For example, in the following passage, Beth Godbee, a writing and rhetoric professor at Marquette University, meticulously considers the implications of her subjects’ specific words and phrasing. Although this example is taken from Godbee’s analysis of a conversation she recorded between a writer Susan and a writing center tutor Kim as opposed to a direct interview she conducted, the attention she pays to language could just as well be applied to information from an interview.

Kim reinforces Susan’s qualifications: “You’re gonna—you’re the specialist in this area. You know these kids; you see what know the effects are, and maybe where some change could be made” (lines 558-561). Here Kim revises her projection of Susan as a “specialist” in the future tense (“gonna,” as in “you’re going to be”) to a statement of her current position (“you’re,” or “you are now”). By repairing her speech mid-utterance, Kim emphasizes Susan’s current status and qualifications to write, thereby reframing her institutional power to assert her right to speak. (185)

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, or Quoting

As the above examples show, interview data is incorporated into writing through summaries, paraphrases, or quotations. In some ways this makes working with interviews just like working from any other kind of outside. As you choose between summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting, a guiding question for you to consider is: What is most important about this information?

Is it the overall story it tells or the general perspective it provides? Then summarizing might be the best option.
Is it the particular take on a complex issue? Then paraphrasing that idea in your own words to make it as understandable as possible might be best.
Is it the memorability, specificity, or authenticity of the language the source used? Then probably go with a quote, but be sure to contextualize this quotation by providing necessary background and commentary.

Of course, in working with interview data, you might go with all three incorporation strategies by, for example, summarizing early in a paragraph to provide an overall sense of what this source is saying, paraphrasing a key idea or two, and then including a poignant quotation that exemplifies the argument you are making. For more information about quoting and paraphrasing outside sources in your writing, check out our resources on this issue .

Referring to your Interviewees

In certain writing situations, you are expected to identify the people you interviewed by using their real names. This is often the case in journalistic writing as well as when you have consulted with an expert on an issue. But, even in these writing contexts, you must receive permission from them to associate their words and insights with their names by clearly establishing whether or not they are talking with you “on the record.”

However, when you are conducting interviews for academic research, you are frequently expected to use pseudonyms so that your subjects’ responses are confidential. Protecting your subjects’ privacy should be your primary priority. They are giving you access to personal experiences and trusting you with their individual insights and observations; you must honor that trust by anonymizing their identities so that readers can’t figure out who your subjects were. Developing a research methodology that keeps all of your data confidential is an important part of the IRB (Internal Review Board) process, and in order to receive permission to do research at your institution you’ll need a plan that outlines how you’ll achieve confidentiality. Part of that plan will involve using different names for your subjects. But selecting pseudonyms is a bigger issue than just choosing different names at random.

Ruth Allen and Janine L. Wiles, Social and Community Health scholars at the University of Auckland, have closely considered the many issues surrounding pseudonym selection in connection to their original psychological and health-related research. They advocate that researchers think critically about this process and even bring their subjects into these discussions of identity and confidentiality. You need to be thoughtful about what aspects of your subjects’ true identities you are communicating or obscuring through the pseudonyms you use. The following questions are adapted from ones Allen and Wiles recommend researchers ask themselves when preparing to use pseudonyms for participants:

Does the researcher or the participant choose the pseudonym? How does this issue get talked about with the participants?
Is it important, valuable, or expected to use first name or also include last names and/or titles (i.e., Cara, Mr. Terrance, Dr. Jean Nichols)?
Within the context of this writing, should the names to be associated with a specific gender, ethnicity, and/or culture? Should those nominal identity markers align with the participants’ actual identities?
Do pseudonyms need to be selected for other people, places, activities, and organizations mentioned in the interview? And if so, who makes those choices?

How you answer these questions should be informed by your specific context. For example, in relation to that fourth question, if a participant is talking supportively about a small on-campus organization that you want to bring attention to through your writing, it might make sense to refer to this organization by name even though its size might make it harder to disguise your participant’s identity. However, if your interviewee is speaking critically about a large, multi-national corporation where she works, you might want to develop a pseudonym for that company in order to protect this individual as much as possible.

Using Verbatim or Non-Verbatim

When you are conducting interviews, you are engaging people in very focused conversation. But when we converse, we say “like” a lot and “um” and “ah.” We start sentences and then interrupt ourselves and never return to complete those earlier thoughts. Conversation is never as direct and naturally coherent as writing can be. As a result, when you’re representing other people’s speech, you need to decide if you’ll be employing what is called “verbatim transcription” or “non-verbatim transcription.”

In “verbatim transcriptions,” you write out what people say exactly as they say it. You include all the filler words, false starts, and grammatical inconsistencies. You may even choose to include coughs and laughs. Scholars have traditionally upheld verbatim accounts as being accurate depictions of the interview process, but as Blake Poland pointed out, “much of the emotional context of the interview as well as nonverbal communication are not captured at all well in audiotape records, so that the audiotape itself is not strictly a verbatim record of the interview” (291). “Non-verbatim transcriptions,” (sometimes called “intelligent transcription”) respond to this acknowledged gap between the complexities of real conversation and the limitations of writing by encouraging writers to focus on the primary substance of participants’ quotes. In “non-verbatim transcriptions, you eliminate the unnecessary utterances like “er,” “well,” and “you know” and just include the foundational meaning of the interviewees’ words.” For example:

Verbatim Transcription : Well, you see, I was [pause] the problem, as I saw it, was more of a, a matter of representation, you know? How can I, like, be the one that’s just out there just declaring the way things are when I’ve not even, like, you know, experiencing the whole process for myself? Non-verbatim Transcription : The problem, as I saw it, was more a matter of representation. How can I be the one that’s out there declaring the way things are when I’ve not even experienced the whole process for myself?

The choice to use verbatim or non-verbatim transcription in quoting your participants should be informed by intentional considerations you are making as a writer. There are good reasons to use either forms. As Mahesh Kumar has identified in a blog post for the Transcription Certification Institute, verbatim transcription is useful for showcasing the thought process by which interview participants develop their ideas. False starts and self-corrections track down how someone is thinking about an issue in real time, and some fillers can be useful expressions of personality. Additionally, some linguistics research and conversation analysis methodologies expect highly structured, verbatim transcriptions that even account for pauses and simultaneous dialogue. However, quotations presented through non-verbatim transcriptions are clearer and easier to read and enable you to present your interview subjects as articulate (Poland 292). Whether you go with verbatim or non-verbatim transcription, make sure that you are being consistent with this choice across your article, paper, report, or essay. Also, if it’s common in the genre you are writing to discuss your methodology choices, it may be useful to clarify which transcription form you have chosen to use and why this was an appropriate choice.

Works Cited

Allen, Ruth E.S., and Janine L. Wiles. “A Rose by Any Other Name: Participants Choosing Research Pseudonyms.” Qualitative Research in Psychology , Dec. 2015. Research Gate , doi: 10.1080/14780887.2015.1133746.

Bogdan, Robert C., and Sari Knopp Biklen. Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theories and Methods . 5 th ed., Pearson, 2007.

Calvert, Jane, and Joan H. Fujimura. “Calculating Life? Duelling Discourses in Interdisciplinary Systems Biology.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences , vol. 42, no. 2l, 2011. Science Direct , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.11.022 .

Godbee, Beth. “Toward Explaining the Transformative Power of Talk About, Around, and for Writing.” Research in the Teaching of English , vol. 47, no. 2, 2012, pp. 171-97.

Grutsch McKinney, Jackie. Strategies for Writing Center Research . Parlor Press, 2016.

Herrera, Yoshiko M. “The 2002 Russian Census: Institutional Reform at Goskomstar.” Post-Soviet Affairs , vol, 20, no. 4, 2004, pp. 350-86.

Hutchcroft, Paul D. Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines , Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.

Kinkead, Joyce. Researching Writing: An Introduction to Research Methods . University Press of Colorado, 2015.

Kumar, Mahesh. “Verbatim Vs Non-Verbatim Transcription: Differences, Requirements, & Jobs.” Transcription Certification Institute , 5 December 2017. Accessed online 19 June 2017. https://blog.transcriptioncertificationinstitute.org/verbatim-vs-non-verbatim-transcription-differences-requirements-jobs/.

Poland, Blake D. “Transcription Quality as an Aspect of Rigor in Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Inquiry , no. 1, vol. 3, 1995, pp. 290-310.

Seidman, Irving. Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences . 3 rd ed., Teachers College Press, 2006.

Vieira, Kate. “Undocumented in a Documentary Society: Textual Borders and Transnational Religious Literacies.” Written Communication , vol 28, no. 4, 2011, pp. 436-61.

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How To Write The Methodology Chapter

The what, why & how explained simply (with examples).

By: Jenna Crossley (PhD) | Reviewed By: Dr. Eunice Rautenbach | September 2021 (Updated April 2023)

So, you’ve pinned down your research topic and undertaken a review of the literature – now it’s time to write up the methodology section of your dissertation, thesis or research paper . But what exactly is the methodology chapter all about – and how do you go about writing one? In this post, we’ll unpack the topic, step by step .

Overview: The Methodology Chapter

The purpose of the methodology chapter
Why you need to craft this chapter (really) well
How to write and structure the chapter
Methodology chapter example
Essential takeaways

What (exactly) is the methodology chapter?

The methodology chapter is where you outline the philosophical underpinnings of your research and outline the specific methodological choices you’ve made. The point of the methodology chapter is to tell the reader exactly how you designed your study and, just as importantly, why you did it this way.

Importantly, this chapter should comprehensively describe and justify all the methodological choices you made in your study. For example, the approach you took to your research (i.e., qualitative, quantitative or mixed), who you collected data from (i.e., your sampling strategy), how you collected your data and, of course, how you analysed it. If that sounds a little intimidating, don’t worry – we’ll explain all these methodological choices in this post .

Why is the methodology chapter important?

The methodology chapter plays two important roles in your dissertation or thesis:

Firstly, it demonstrates your understanding of research theory, which is what earns you marks. A flawed research design or methodology would mean flawed results. So, this chapter is vital as it allows you to show the marker that you know what you’re doing and that your results are credible .

Secondly, the methodology chapter is what helps to make your study replicable. In other words, it allows other researchers to undertake your study using the same methodological approach, and compare their findings to yours. This is very important within academic research, as each study builds on previous studies.

The methodology chapter is also important in that it allows you to identify and discuss any methodological issues or problems you encountered (i.e., research limitations ), and to explain how you mitigated the impacts of these. Every research project has its limitations , so it’s important to acknowledge these openly and highlight your study’s value despite its limitations . Doing so demonstrates your understanding of research design, which will earn you marks. We’ll discuss limitations in a bit more detail later in this post, so stay tuned!

Need a helping hand?

How to write up the methodology chapter

First off, it’s worth noting that the exact structure and contents of the methodology chapter will vary depending on the field of research (e.g., humanities, chemistry or engineering) as well as the university . So, be sure to always check the guidelines provided by your institution for clarity and, if possible, review past dissertations from your university. Here we’re going to discuss a generic structure for a methodology chapter typically found in the sciences.

Before you start writing, it’s always a good idea to draw up a rough outline to guide your writing. Don’t just start writing without knowing what you’ll discuss where. If you do, you’ll likely end up with a disjointed, ill-flowing narrative . You’ll then waste a lot of time rewriting in an attempt to try to stitch all the pieces together. Do yourself a favour and start with the end in mind .

Section 1 – Introduction

As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis, the methodology chapter should have a brief introduction. In this section, you should remind your readers what the focus of your study is, especially the research aims . As we’ve discussed many times on the blog, your methodology needs to align with your research aims, objectives and research questions. Therefore, it’s useful to frontload this component to remind the reader (and yourself!) what you’re trying to achieve.

In this section, you can also briefly mention how you’ll structure the chapter. This will help orient the reader and provide a bit of a roadmap so that they know what to expect. You don’t need a lot of detail here – just a brief outline will do.

The intro provides a roadmap to your methodology chapter

Section 2 – The Methodology

The next section of your chapter is where you’ll present the actual methodology. In this section, you need to detail and justify the key methodological choices you’ve made in a logical, intuitive fashion. Importantly, this is the heart of your methodology chapter, so you need to get specific – don’t hold back on the details here. This is not one of those “less is more” situations.

Let’s take a look at the most common components you’ll likely need to cover.

Methodological Choice #1 – Research Philosophy

Research philosophy refers to the underlying beliefs (i.e., the worldview) regarding how data about a phenomenon should be gathered , analysed and used . The research philosophy will serve as the core of your study and underpin all of the other research design choices, so it’s critically important that you understand which philosophy you’ll adopt and why you made that choice. If you’re not clear on this, take the time to get clarity before you make any further methodological choices.

While several research philosophies exist, two commonly adopted ones are positivism and interpretivism . These two sit roughly on opposite sides of the research philosophy spectrum.

Positivism states that the researcher can observe reality objectively and that there is only one reality, which exists independently of the observer. As a consequence, it is quite commonly the underlying research philosophy in quantitative studies and is oftentimes the assumed philosophy in the physical sciences.

Contrasted with this, interpretivism , which is often the underlying research philosophy in qualitative studies, assumes that the researcher performs a role in observing the world around them and that reality is unique to each observer . In other words, reality is observed subjectively .

These are just two philosophies (there are many more), but they demonstrate significantly different approaches to research and have a significant impact on all the methodological choices. Therefore, it’s vital that you clearly outline and justify your research philosophy at the beginning of your methodology chapter, as it sets the scene for everything that follows.

The research philosophy is at the core of the methodology chapter

Methodological Choice #2 – Research Type

The next thing you would typically discuss in your methodology section is the research type. The starting point for this is to indicate whether the research you conducted is inductive or deductive .

Inductive research takes a bottom-up approach , where the researcher begins with specific observations or data and then draws general conclusions or theories from those observations. Therefore these studies tend to be exploratory in terms of approach.

Conversely , d eductive research takes a top-down approach , where the researcher starts with a theory or hypothesis and then tests it using specific observations or data. Therefore these studies tend to be confirmatory in approach.

Related to this, you’ll need to indicate whether your study adopts a qualitative, quantitative or mixed approach. As we’ve mentioned, there’s a strong link between this choice and your research philosophy, so make sure that your choices are tightly aligned . When you write this section up, remember to clearly justify your choices, as they form the foundation of your study.

Methodological Choice #3 – Research Strategy

Next, you’ll need to discuss your research strategy (also referred to as a research design ). This methodological choice refers to the broader strategy in terms of how you’ll conduct your research, based on the aims of your study.

Several research strategies exist, including experimental , case studies , ethnography , grounded theory, action research , and phenomenology . Let’s take a look at two of these, experimental and ethnographic, to see how they contrast.

Experimental research makes use of the scientific method , where one group is the control group (in which no variables are manipulated ) and another is the experimental group (in which a specific variable is manipulated). This type of research is undertaken under strict conditions in a controlled, artificial environment (e.g., a laboratory). By having firm control over the environment, experimental research typically allows the researcher to establish causation between variables. Therefore, it can be a good choice if you have research aims that involve identifying causal relationships.

Ethnographic research , on the other hand, involves observing and capturing the experiences and perceptions of participants in their natural environment (for example, at home or in the office). In other words, in an uncontrolled environment. Naturally, this means that this research strategy would be far less suitable if your research aims involve identifying causation, but it would be very valuable if you’re looking to explore and examine a group culture, for example.

As you can see, the right research strategy will depend largely on your research aims and research questions – in other words, what you’re trying to figure out. Therefore, as with every other methodological choice, it’s essential to justify why you chose the research strategy you did.

Methodological Choice #4 – Time Horizon

The next thing you’ll need to detail in your methodology chapter is the time horizon. There are two options here: cross-sectional and longitudinal . In other words, whether the data for your study were all collected at one point in time (cross-sectional) or at multiple points in time (longitudinal).

The choice you make here depends again on your research aims, objectives and research questions. If, for example, you aim to assess how a specific group of people’s perspectives regarding a topic change over time , you’d likely adopt a longitudinal time horizon.

Another important factor to consider is simply whether you have the time necessary to adopt a longitudinal approach (which could involve collecting data over multiple months or even years). Oftentimes, the time pressures of your degree program will force your hand into adopting a cross-sectional time horizon, so keep this in mind.

Methodological Choice #5 – Sampling Strategy

Next, you’ll need to discuss your sampling strategy . There are two main categories of sampling, probability and non-probability sampling.

Probability sampling involves a random (and therefore representative) selection of participants from a population, whereas non-probability sampling entails selecting participants in a non-random (and therefore non-representative) manner. For example, selecting participants based on ease of access (this is called a convenience sample).

The right sampling approach depends largely on what you’re trying to achieve in your study. Specifically, whether you trying to develop findings that are generalisable to a population or not. Practicalities and resource constraints also play a large role here, as it can oftentimes be challenging to gain access to a truly random sample. In the video below, we explore some of the most common sampling strategies.

Methodological Choice #6 – Data Collection Method

Next up, you’ll need to explain how you’ll go about collecting the necessary data for your study. Your data collection method (or methods) will depend on the type of data that you plan to collect – in other words, qualitative or quantitative data.

Typically, quantitative research relies on surveys , data generated by lab equipment, analytics software or existing datasets. Qualitative research, on the other hand, often makes use of collection methods such as interviews , focus groups , participant observations, and ethnography.

So, as you can see, there is a tight link between this section and the design choices you outlined in earlier sections. Strong alignment between these sections, as well as your research aims and questions is therefore very important.

Methodological Choice #7 – Data Analysis Methods/Techniques

The final major methodological choice that you need to address is that of analysis techniques . In other words, how you’ll go about analysing your date once you’ve collected it. Here it’s important to be very specific about your analysis methods and/or techniques – don’t leave any room for interpretation. Also, as with all choices in this chapter, you need to justify each choice you make.

What exactly you discuss here will depend largely on the type of study you’re conducting (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods). For qualitative studies, common analysis methods include content analysis , thematic analysis and discourse analysis . In the video below, we explain each of these in plain language.

For quantitative studies, you’ll almost always make use of descriptive statistics , and in many cases, you’ll also use inferential statistical techniques (e.g., correlation and regression analysis). In the video below, we unpack some of the core concepts involved in descriptive and inferential statistics.

In this section of your methodology chapter, it’s also important to discuss how you prepared your data for analysis, and what software you used (if any). For example, quantitative data will often require some initial preparation such as removing duplicates or incomplete responses . Similarly, qualitative data will often require transcription and perhaps even translation. As always, remember to state both what you did and why you did it.

Section 3 – The Methodological Limitations

With the key methodological choices outlined and justified, the next step is to discuss the limitations of your design. No research methodology is perfect – there will always be trade-offs between the “ideal” methodology and what’s practical and viable, given your constraints. Therefore, this section of your methodology chapter is where you’ll discuss the trade-offs you had to make, and why these were justified given the context.

Methodological limitations can vary greatly from study to study, ranging from common issues such as time and budget constraints to issues of sample or selection bias . For example, you may find that you didn’t manage to draw in enough respondents to achieve the desired sample size (and therefore, statistically significant results), or your sample may be skewed heavily towards a certain demographic, thereby negatively impacting representativeness .

In this section, it’s important to be critical of the shortcomings of your study. There’s no use trying to hide them (your marker will be aware of them regardless). By being critical, you’ll demonstrate to your marker that you have a strong understanding of research theory, so don’t be shy here. At the same time, don’t beat your study to death . State the limitations, why these were justified, how you mitigated their impacts to the best degree possible, and how your study still provides value despite these limitations .

Section 4 – Concluding Summary

Finally, it’s time to wrap up the methodology chapter with a brief concluding summary. In this section, you’ll want to concisely summarise what you’ve presented in the chapter. Here, it can be a good idea to use a figure to summarise the key decisions, especially if your university recommends using a specific model (for example, Saunders’ Research Onion ).

Importantly, this section needs to be brief – a paragraph or two maximum (it’s a summary, after all). Also, make sure that when you write up your concluding summary, you include only what you’ve already discussed in your chapter; don’t add any new information.

Methodology Chapter Example

In the video below, we walk you through an example of a high-quality research methodology chapter from a dissertation. We also unpack our free methodology chapter template so that you can see how best to structure your chapter.

Wrapping Up

And there you have it – the methodology chapter in a nutshell. As we’ve mentioned, the exact contents and structure of this chapter can vary between universities , so be sure to check in with your institution before you start writing. If possible, try to find dissertations or theses from former students of your specific degree program – this will give you a strong indication of the expectations and norms when it comes to the methodology chapter (and all the other chapters!).

Also, remember the golden rule of the methodology chapter – justify every choice ! Make sure that you clearly explain the “why” for every “what”, and reference credible methodology textbooks or academic sources to back up your justifications.

If you need a helping hand with your research methodology (or any other component of your research), be sure to check out our private coaching service , where we hold your hand through every step of the research journey. Until next time, good luck!

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This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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3 Writing Up the Methods Section

Published: May 2013
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This chapter focuses on how to write up the methodological procedures of an interview study. It considers both standard formats for writing-up methodological procedures and non-traditional formats in which methodological descriptions are often integrated into the more general narrative of the text. The chapter first provides an overview of the most common elements that comprise interview reports, such as dissertations, journal articles, or monographs. It then presents three different ways of conceiving of the methods section—as a prelude to the analysis and findings, as a postscript, and as embedded in the interpretation itself. It concludes with reflections on how to deal with the idea that, in qualitative interview research, the researcher is the most important “methodological instrument.”

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What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

Published on 25 February 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 10 October 2022.

Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research. A key part of your thesis, dissertation, or research paper, the methodology chapter explains what you did and how you did it, allowing readers to evaluate the reliability and validity of your research.

It should include:

The type of research you conducted
How you collected and analysed your data
Any tools or materials you used in the research
Why you chose these methods
Your methodology section should generally be written in the past tense .
Academic style guides in your field may provide detailed guidelines on what to include for different types of studies.
Your citation style might provide guidelines for your methodology section (e.g., an APA Style methods section ).

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How to write a research methodology, why is a methods section important, step 1: explain your methodological approach, step 2: describe your data collection methods, step 3: describe your analysis method, step 4: evaluate and justify the methodological choices you made, tips for writing a strong methodology chapter, frequently asked questions about methodology.

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Your methods section is your opportunity to share how you conducted your research and why you chose the methods you chose. It’s also the place to show that your research was rigorously conducted and can be replicated .

It gives your research legitimacy and situates it within your field, and also gives your readers a place to refer to if they have any questions or critiques in other sections.

You can start by introducing your overall approach to your research. You have two options here.

Option 1: Start with your “what”

What research problem or question did you investigate?

Aim to describe the characteristics of something?
Explore an under-researched topic?
Establish a causal relationship?

And what type of data did you need to achieve this aim?

Quantitative data , qualitative data , or a mix of both?
Primary data collected yourself, or secondary data collected by someone else?
Experimental data gathered by controlling and manipulating variables, or descriptive data gathered via observations?

Option 2: Start with your “why”

Depending on your discipline, you can also start with a discussion of the rationale and assumptions underpinning your methodology. In other words, why did you choose these methods for your study?

Why is this the best way to answer your research question?
Is this a standard methodology in your field, or does it require justification?
Were there any ethical considerations involved in your choices?
What are the criteria for validity and reliability in this type of research ?

Once you have introduced your reader to your methodological approach, you should share full details about your data collection methods .

Quantitative methods

In order to be considered generalisable, you should describe quantitative research methods in enough detail for another researcher to replicate your study.

Here, explain how you operationalised your concepts and measured your variables. Discuss your sampling method or inclusion/exclusion criteria, as well as any tools, procedures, and materials you used to gather your data.

Surveys Describe where, when, and how the survey was conducted.

How did you design the questionnaire?
What form did your questions take (e.g., multiple choice, Likert scale )?
Were your surveys conducted in-person or virtually?
What sampling method did you use to select participants?
What was your sample size and response rate?

Experiments Share full details of the tools, techniques, and procedures you used to conduct your experiment.

How did you design the experiment ?
How did you recruit participants?
How did you manipulate and measure the variables ?
What tools did you use?

Existing data Explain how you gathered and selected the material (such as datasets or archival data) that you used in your analysis.

Where did you source the material?
How was the data originally produced?
What criteria did you use to select material (e.g., date range)?

The survey consisted of 5 multiple-choice questions and 10 questions measured on a 7-point Likert scale.

The goal was to collect survey responses from 350 customers visiting the fitness apparel company’s brick-and-mortar location in Boston on 4–8 July 2022, between 11:00 and 15:00.

Here, a customer was defined as a person who had purchased a product from the company on the day they took the survey. Participants were given 5 minutes to fill in the survey anonymously. In total, 408 customers responded, but not all surveys were fully completed. Due to this, 371 survey results were included in the analysis.

Qualitative methods

In qualitative research , methods are often more flexible and subjective. For this reason, it’s crucial to robustly explain the methodology choices you made.

Be sure to discuss the criteria you used to select your data, the context in which your research was conducted, and the role you played in collecting your data (e.g., were you an active participant, or a passive observer?)

Interviews or focus groups Describe where, when, and how the interviews were conducted.

How did you find and select participants?
How many participants took part?
What form did the interviews take ( structured , semi-structured , or unstructured )?
How long were the interviews?
How were they recorded?

Participant observation Describe where, when, and how you conducted the observation or ethnography .

What group or community did you observe? How long did you spend there?
How did you gain access to this group? What role did you play in the community?
How long did you spend conducting the research? Where was it located?
How did you record your data (e.g., audiovisual recordings, note-taking)?

Existing data Explain how you selected case study materials for your analysis.

What type of materials did you analyse?
How did you select them?

In order to gain better insight into possibilities for future improvement of the fitness shop’s product range, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 returning customers.

Here, a returning customer was defined as someone who usually bought products at least twice a week from the store.

Surveys were used to select participants. Interviews were conducted in a small office next to the cash register and lasted approximately 20 minutes each. Answers were recorded by note-taking, and seven interviews were also filmed with consent. One interviewee preferred not to be filmed.

Mixed methods

Mixed methods research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches. If a standalone quantitative or qualitative study is insufficient to answer your research question, mixed methods may be a good fit for you.

Mixed methods are less common than standalone analyses, largely because they require a great deal of effort to pull off successfully. If you choose to pursue mixed methods, it’s especially important to robustly justify your methods here.

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Next, you should indicate how you processed and analysed your data. Avoid going into too much detail: you should not start introducing or discussing any of your results at this stage.

In quantitative research , your analysis will be based on numbers. In your methods section, you can include:

How you prepared the data before analysing it (e.g., checking for missing data , removing outliers , transforming variables)
Which software you used (e.g., SPSS, Stata or R)
Which statistical tests you used (e.g., two-tailed t test , simple linear regression )

In qualitative research, your analysis will be based on language, images, and observations (often involving some form of textual analysis ).

Specific methods might include:

Content analysis : Categorising and discussing the meaning of words, phrases and sentences
Thematic analysis : Coding and closely examining the data to identify broad themes and patterns
Discourse analysis : Studying communication and meaning in relation to their social context

Mixed methods combine the above two research methods, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches into one coherent analytical process.

Above all, your methodology section should clearly make the case for why you chose the methods you did. This is especially true if you did not take the most standard approach to your topic. In this case, discuss why other methods were not suitable for your objectives, and show how this approach contributes new knowledge or understanding.

In any case, it should be overwhelmingly clear to your reader that you set yourself up for success in terms of your methodology’s design. Show how your methods should lead to results that are valid and reliable, while leaving the analysis of the meaning, importance, and relevance of your results for your discussion section .

Quantitative: Lab-based experiments cannot always accurately simulate real-life situations and behaviours, but they are effective for testing causal relationships between variables .
Qualitative: Unstructured interviews usually produce results that cannot be generalised beyond the sample group , but they provide a more in-depth understanding of participants’ perceptions, motivations, and emotions.
Mixed methods: Despite issues systematically comparing differing types of data, a solely quantitative study would not sufficiently incorporate the lived experience of each participant, while a solely qualitative study would be insufficiently generalisable.

Remember that your aim is not just to describe your methods, but to show how and why you applied them. Again, it’s critical to demonstrate that your research was rigorously conducted and can be replicated.

1. Focus on your objectives and research questions

The methodology section should clearly show why your methods suit your objectives and convince the reader that you chose the best possible approach to answering your problem statement and research questions .

2. Cite relevant sources

Your methodology can be strengthened by referencing existing research in your field. This can help you to:

Show that you followed established practice for your type of research
Discuss how you decided on your approach by evaluating existing research
Present a novel methodological approach to address a gap in the literature

3. Write for your audience

Consider how much information you need to give, and avoid getting too lengthy. If you are using methods that are standard for your discipline, you probably don’t need to give a lot of background or justification.

Regardless, your methodology should be a clear, well-structured text that makes an argument for your approach, not just a list of technical details and procedures.

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research. Developing your methodology involves studying the research methods used in your field and the theories or principles that underpin them, in order to choose the approach that best matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyse data (e.g. interviews, experiments , surveys , statistical tests ).

In a dissertation or scientific paper, the methodology chapter or methods section comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion .

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to test a hypothesis by systematically collecting and analysing data, while qualitative methods allow you to explore ideas and experiences in depth.

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population. Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research.

For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

Statistical sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population. There are various sampling methods you can use to ensure that your sample is representative of the population as a whole.

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What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

Published on August 25, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 20, 2023.

Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research. A key part of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper , the methodology chapter explains what you did and how you did it, allowing readers to evaluate the reliability and validity of your research and your dissertation topic .

It should include:

The type of research you conducted
How you collected and analyzed your data
Any tools or materials you used in the research
How you mitigated or avoided research biases
Why you chose these methods
Your methodology section should generally be written in the past tense .
Academic style guides in your field may provide detailed guidelines on what to include for different types of studies.
Your citation style might provide guidelines for your methodology section (e.g., an APA Style methods section ).

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It gives your research legitimacy and situates it within your field, and also gives your readers a place to refer to if they have any questions or critiques in other sections.

You can start by introducing your overall approach to your research. You have two options here.

Option 1: Start with your “what”

What research problem or question did you investigate?

Aim to describe the characteristics of something?
Explore an under-researched topic?
Establish a causal relationship?

And what type of data did you need to achieve this aim?

Quantitative data , qualitative data , or a mix of both?
Primary data collected yourself, or secondary data collected by someone else?
Experimental data gathered by controlling and manipulating variables, or descriptive data gathered via observations?

Option 2: Start with your “why”

Depending on your discipline, you can also start with a discussion of the rationale and assumptions underpinning your methodology. In other words, why did you choose these methods for your study?

Why is this the best way to answer your research question?
Is this a standard methodology in your field, or does it require justification?
Were there any ethical considerations involved in your choices?
What are the criteria for validity and reliability in this type of research ? How did you prevent bias from affecting your data?

Once you have introduced your reader to your methodological approach, you should share full details about your data collection methods .

Quantitative methods

In order to be considered generalizable, you should describe quantitative research methods in enough detail for another researcher to replicate your study.

Here, explain how you operationalized your concepts and measured your variables. Discuss your sampling method or inclusion and exclusion criteria , as well as any tools, procedures, and materials you used to gather your data.

Surveys Describe where, when, and how the survey was conducted.

How did you design the questionnaire?
What form did your questions take (e.g., multiple choice, Likert scale )?
Were your surveys conducted in-person or virtually?
What sampling method did you use to select participants?
What was your sample size and response rate?

Experiments Share full details of the tools, techniques, and procedures you used to conduct your experiment.

How did you design the experiment ?
How did you recruit participants?
How did you manipulate and measure the variables ?
What tools did you use?

Existing data Explain how you gathered and selected the material (such as datasets or archival data) that you used in your analysis.

Where did you source the material?
How was the data originally produced?
What criteria did you use to select material (e.g., date range)?

The survey consisted of 5 multiple-choice questions and 10 questions measured on a 7-point Likert scale.

The goal was to collect survey responses from 350 customers visiting the fitness apparel company’s brick-and-mortar location in Boston on July 4–8, 2022, between 11:00 and 15:00.

Information bias
Omitted variable bias
Regression to the mean
Survivorship bias
Undercoverage bias
Sampling bias

Qualitative methods

In qualitative research , methods are often more flexible and subjective. For this reason, it’s crucial to robustly explain the methodology choices you made.

Interviews or focus groups Describe where, when, and how the interviews were conducted.

How did you find and select participants?
How many participants took part?
What form did the interviews take ( structured , semi-structured , or unstructured )?
How long were the interviews?
How were they recorded?

Participant observation Describe where, when, and how you conducted the observation or ethnography .

What group or community did you observe? How long did you spend there?
How did you gain access to this group? What role did you play in the community?
How long did you spend conducting the research? Where was it located?
How did you record your data (e.g., audiovisual recordings, note-taking)?

Existing data Explain how you selected case study materials for your analysis.

What type of materials did you analyze?
How did you select them?

In order to gain better insight into possibilities for future improvement of the fitness store’s product range, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 returning customers.

Here, a returning customer was defined as someone who usually bought products at least twice a week from the store.

The Hawthorne effect
Observer bias
The placebo effect
Response bias and Nonresponse bias
The Pygmalion effect
Recall bias
Social desirability bias
Self-selection bias

Mixed methods

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Next, you should indicate how you processed and analyzed your data. Avoid going into too much detail: you should not start introducing or discussing any of your results at this stage.

In quantitative research , your analysis will be based on numbers. In your methods section, you can include:

How you prepared the data before analyzing it (e.g., checking for missing data , removing outliers , transforming variables)
Which software you used (e.g., SPSS, Stata or R)
Which statistical tests you used (e.g., two-tailed t test , simple linear regression )

In qualitative research, your analysis will be based on language, images, and observations (often involving some form of textual analysis ).

Specific methods might include:

Content analysis : Categorizing and discussing the meaning of words, phrases and sentences
Thematic analysis : Coding and closely examining the data to identify broad themes and patterns
Discourse analysis : Studying communication and meaning in relation to their social context

Mixed methods combine the above two research methods, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches into one coherent analytical process.

Quantitative: Lab-based experiments cannot always accurately simulate real-life situations and behaviors, but they are effective for testing causal relationships between variables .
Qualitative: Unstructured interviews usually produce results that cannot be generalized beyond the sample group , but they provide a more in-depth understanding of participants’ perceptions, motivations, and emotions.
Mixed methods: Despite issues systematically comparing differing types of data, a solely quantitative study would not sufficiently incorporate the lived experience of each participant, while a solely qualitative study would be insufficiently generalizable.

1. Focus on your objectives and research questions

2. Cite relevant sources

Your methodology can be strengthened by referencing existing research in your field. This can help you to:

Show that you followed established practice for your type of research
Discuss how you decided on your approach by evaluating existing research
Present a novel methodological approach to address a gap in the literature

3. Write for your audience

Regardless, your methodology should be a clear, well-structured text that makes an argument for your approach, not just a list of technical details and procedures.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Normal distribution
Measures of central tendency
Chi square tests
Confidence interval
Quartiles & Quantiles

Methodology

Cluster sampling
Stratified sampling
Thematic analysis
Cohort study
Peer review
Ethnography

Research bias

Implicit bias
Cognitive bias
Conformity bias
Hawthorne effect
Availability heuristic
Attrition bias

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).

In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .

In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.

In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion . The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation , or research proposal .

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

Reliability and validity are both about how well a method measures something:

Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure (whether the results can be reproduced under the same conditions).
Validity refers to the accuracy of a measure (whether the results really do represent what they are supposed to measure).

If you are doing experimental research, you also have to consider the internal and external validity of your experiment.

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

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Research Interviews | Types & Methods

When to use interviews in research.

Interviews are primarily conducted in qualitative research and are used when one wants to pursue in-depth information around the topic. To determine if interviews are the best choice for the collection of data in your research, you can use the following checklist;

What is your timeline? – Interviews are usually done when you want to gather opinions, views, feelings, attitudes, thoughts, and experiences of the participants. Also, you may choose interviews when you are researching a very sensitive subject and confidentiality is needed.
What is your timeline? – Interviews require a lot of time to conduct, transcribe, organize, analyze, and report data. Also, they involve more individual appointments but are easier to schedule compared to focus groups. Individual interviews are also easy to conduct when they are done regularly. It may not be a good idea to use interviews if you have a limited timeline for your research.
How large is your population? – Interviews are particularly not suitable when you want to represent a large population or reach a large number of participants.
What is your budget? – Interviews can be relatively costly compared to other research methods. Also, participants typically expect incentives for participating in interviews. Consider other expenses such as will you provide travel allowance and food to participants?
Who might be able to conduct the interviews? – If the interviewer is not skilled and experienced, the entire process of collecting data can be undermined. Training the interviewer on the interviewing procedure is thus essential since he/she can control the quality of the results. Also, the interviewer must be familiar with the topic and able to steer or control the course of the interviews to avoid digressions.

When you resolve to use interviews as your data collection method, you will still need to decide the type and method of interviews to employ in your research. The different types and methods of interviews in research are described below.

Types of Interviews

Structured interview.

In this type of interview, questions are predetermined and are asked in a specific order. Participants are required to select their responses from a list of options provided but may include open-ended questions. These interviews are easy to administer and replicate across multiple samples since their structure is standardized and fixed. However, structured interviews are very rigid and allow the researcher little or no opportunity to prompt the participants to obtain information in desired detail. Since respondents are required to select from the answer options provided, the scope of the assessment is also limited. Further, the researcher must adhere to the list of pre-decided questions regardless of how the conversation with the participants turns out. These interviews are only preferred when one wants to maintain uniformity throughout the interview sessions.

Semi-structured Interview

In semi-structured interviews, the researcher will develop an interview guide (also referred to as an interview protocol and interview script) or a checklist of the topics to cover in the conversation and the questions to ask. Nevertheless, the researcher can follow different paths of conversations that emerge during the interview or express the interview questions in a different format. Hence, these interviews are flexible and one can take creative advantage of the entire interview. Additionally, the researcher can ask follow-up questions or probe the respondents to expand or clarify the information provided. Semi-structured interviews are thus preferable when one wants to garner detailed information about the topic and the interview questions have a range of possible answers.

Unstructured Interview

Unstructured interviews take the form of an open, informal, and spontaneous conversation but with an underlying subject to gather data about the research study. There are no guidelines or predetermined interview questions to follow and the researcher can take any approach in any ethical manner to gain as much information as possible on the topic of interest. However, the researcher is expected to keep the interview in check to ensure the participants do not sway away from the research objective. This type of interview is preferred when one wants to develop a friendly rapport with the participants to increase the chances that they are 100% truthful with their answers and gain useful insights in extreme detail. They are particularly useful when there is little information about a topic or when the researcher wants to get the stories behind respondents’ experiences.

Methods of Research Interviews

There are mainly three methods that one can use to conduct interviews in research, namely; personal interviews, telephonic interviews, and email/web page interviews. The choice of research interview is determined by the requirements of a research study.

Personal Interview

It is the most used method of interview used in research whereby the researcher poses questions directly to a respondent in person or online via video conferencing technology such as Skype or Google Hangouts . The researcher takes notes of important points of view that stand out from the participant and also records the interview. The advantage of personal interviews is that it provides the researcher with an opportunity to detect, analyze, and take note of the respondent’s body language while asking the questions. Also, when interviews are done face-to-face, the researcher can reframe the questions if they are not understood by the participant. Additionally, more complete answers are obtained when further clarification is needed or a remarkable piece of information emerges. The disadvantages of personal interviews are that they are extremely expensive, time-consuming, and challenging to contact participants and schedule appointments.

Telephonic Interview

In this method of interview, the researcher interviews the participants over the phone. Telephonic interviews allow the researcher to collect the information needed quickly and can also clarify doubts or obtain more details on the responses given. Additionally, these interviews are cheaper to conduct compared to personal interviews and it is easy to find respondents since only telephone numbers are needed. However, it is usually difficult to build rapport with the respondents and get them to cooperate in the research process. Also, some participants may fail to answer phone calls or resort to pretexts such as they are busy, have no interest in answering, or lack the authority to answer the questions asked.

Email or Web Page Interview

Interviews via email or web pages have become popular for online research and have been made possible to carry out with the increase in people with Internet access. These interviews are advantageous in that the participants can respond at the time and place they want. Also, the data collection process is speedy and less expensive compared to other interview methods.

Steps in Conducting Interviews

What Is a Dissertation Methodology?

How to choose your methodology, final thoughts, how to write your dissertation methodology.

Updated September 30, 2021

Due to the complexities of the different research methods, writing your dissertation methodology can often be the most challenging and time-consuming part of your postgraduate dissertation .

This article focuses on the importance of writing a good PhD or master's dissertation methodology – and how to achieve this.

A postgraduate dissertation (or thesis) is usually formed of several detailed sections, including:

Abstract – A summary of your research topic.

Introduction – Provides background information on your topic, putting it into context. You will also confirm the main focus of your study, explain why it will add value to your area of interest and specify your key objectives.

Literature Review – A critical review of literature that relates to your chosen research topic. You will also need to identify which gap in the literature your study aims to address.

Methodology – Focuses on the research methods used within your research.

Results – Used to report on your main findings and how these relate to your research question.

Conclusion – Used to confirm the answer to your main research question, reflect on the research process and offer recommendations on future research.

The dissertation methodology forms the skeleton of any research project. It provides the reader with a clear outline of the methods you decided to use when carrying out your research.

By studying your dissertation methodology, the reader will be able to assess your research in terms of its validity and reliability.

In line with the outline given above, the methodology chapter usually appears after the literature review . Your methodology should be closely linked to the research that you conducted as part of this review, as well as the questions you aim to answer through your research and analysis.

Taking the time to find out about the different types of research available to you will allow you to identify any potential drawbacks to the method you have chosen to use. You should then be able to make allowances or adjustments to address these when it comes to carrying out your research.

Choosing your methodology will largely depend on the discipline of the qualification you are studying for and the question your dissertation will seek to answer. In most cases, you will use quantitative or qualitative research methods, although some projects will benefit from using a combination of both.

Quantitative research methods are used to gather numerical information. This research method is particularly useful if you are seeking to count, categorise, measure or identify patterns in data. To collect quantitative data, you might choose to conduct experiments, tests or surveys.

Qualitative research methods are used to gather non-statistical data. Instead of using numbers to create charts or graphs, you will need to categorise the information according to identifiers. This research method is most useful if you are seeking to develop a hypothesis. To collect qualitative data, you might choose to conduct focus groups, interviews or observations.

What to Include in Your Dissertation Methodology

Below is a dissertation methodology example to show you what information to include:

You will need to reiterate your research topic or question and give an overview of how you plan to investigate this. If there were any ethical or philosophical considerations to be made, give details.

For example, you may have sought informed consent from the people taking part in interviews or surveys.

Outline of the Methods Chosen

Confirm whether you have chosen to use quantitative research, qualitative research or a combination of both.

When choosing between qualitative and quantitative research methods, you will need to carry out initial literature and textbook research to establish the standard research methods that are normally used within your chosen area of research.

If you are not sure where to start, you could visit the library at your college or university and ask one of the librarians to help you to identify the most relevant texts.

Explanation of the Methods Chosen

Explain your rationale for selecting your chosen research methods. You should also give an overview of why these were more appropriate than using another research method.

Think about where and when the research took place and who was involved. For example, this might include information on the venue used for interviews or focus groups, dates and timescales, and whether participants were part of a particular demographic group.

Here are some examples of the type of information you may wish to include:

Qualitative Research Methods

Personal observations – Where and when did you conduct the observations? Who did you observe? Were they part of a particular community or group? How long did each observation take? How did you record your findings – did you collect audio recordings, video footage or written observations?

Focus groups – Where and when did the focus group take place? Who was involved? How were they selected? How many people took part? Were the questions asked structured, unstructured or semi-structured? Remember to include a copy of the questions that were used as an appendix.

Interviews – Where and when did the interviews take place? Who took part? How did you select the participants? What type of questions did you ask? How did you record your findings? Remember to include a copy of the questions that were used as an appendix.

The researcher’s objective was to find out customer perceptions on improving the product range currently offered by Company Y. Semi-structured interviews were held with 15 returning customers from the key target demographic for Company Y (18- to 35-year-olds). For research purposes, a returning customer was defined as somebody who purchased products from Company Y at least two times per week during the past three months. The interviews were held in an office in the staff area of the retail premises. Each interview lasted approximately 25 minutes. Responses were recorded through note-taking as none of the respondents wished to give their consent to be filmed.

Quantitative Research Methods

Existing information or data – What were the sources of the material used? How did you select material? Did you only use data published within a particular time frame?

Experiments – What tools or equipment did you use? What techniques were required? Note that when conducting experiments, it is particularly important to provide enough information to allow another researcher to conduct the experiment and obtain the same results.

Surveys – Were respondents asked to answer multiple-choice questions or complete free-text fields? How many questions were used? How long were people given to answer all of the questions? What were the demographics of the participants? Remember to include a copy of the survey in the appendices.

The survey was made up of 10 multiple-choice questions and 5 questions to be rated using a 5-point Lickert scale. The objective was to have 250 customers of Company Z complete the survey at the Company Z HQ between 1st and 5th February 2019, between the hours of 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. For research purposes, a customer was defined as any person who had purchased a product from Company Z during 2018. Customers completing the survey were allowed a maximum of 10 minutes to answer all of the questions. 200 customers responded, however not all of the surveys were completed in full, so only 150 survey results were able to be used in the data analysis.

How Was the Data Analysed?

If you have chosen to use quantitative research methods, you will need to prepare the data before analysing it – for example, you will need to check for variables, missing data and outliers. If you have used computer software to aid with analysis, information on this should also be included.

For qualitative data, you will need to categorise and code the ideas and themes that are identified from the raw data. You may also need to use techniques such as narrative analysis or discourse analysis to interpret the meaning behind responses given.

What Materials and Equipment Were Used During the Research?

This could include anything from laboratory equipment used in a scientific experiment to computer software used to analyse the results.

Were There Any Hurdles or Difficulties Faced During the Research?

If so, what were they and how did you manage to overcome them? This could be anything from difficulties in finding participants, problems obtaining consent or a shortage of the required resources needed to conduct a scientific experiment.

This paragraph should be used to evaluate the research you have conducted and justify your reasons for choosing this approach.

You do not need to go into great detail, as you will present and discuss your results in-depth within your dissertation’s ‘Results’ section.

You will need to briefly explain whether your results were conclusive, whether there were any variables and whether your choice of methodology was effective in practice.

Tips for Writing Your Dissertation Methodology

The objective for the methodology is not only to describe the methods that you used for your research. You will also need to demonstrate why you chose to use them and how you applied them.

The key point is to show that your research was conducted meticulously.

Try to keep your writing style concise and clear; this will ensure that it is easy for the reader to understand and digest.

Here are five top tips to consider when writing your dissertation methodology:

1. Look at Other Methodology Sections

Ask your supervisor to provide you with a few different examples of previously written dissertations. Reading through methodologies that have been written by past students will give you a good idea of what your finished methodology section should look like.

2. Plan Your Structure

Whichever research methods you have chosen to use, your dissertation methodology should be a clearly structured, well written section that gives a strong and justified argument for your chosen research methods.

You may wish to use headings such as:

Research methods
Explanation of research methods chosen
Data analysis and references

Once you have drafted an outline, ask your supervisor for advice on whether there is anything you have missed and whether your structure looks logical.

3. Consider Your Audience

When writing your methodology, have regard for the people who are likely to be reading it. For example, if you have chosen to use research methods that are commonly chosen within your area of research or discipline, there is no need to give a great deal of justification or background information.

If you decide to use a less popular approach, it is advisable to give much more detailed information on how and why you chose to use this method.

4. Remain Focused on Your Aims and Research Questions

Your dissertation methodology should give a clear indication as to why the research methods you have chosen are suitable for the aims of your research.

When writing your dissertation methodology, ensure that you link your research choices back to the overall aims and objectives of your dissertation. To help you to remain focused, it can be helpful to include a clear definition of the question you are aiming to answer at the start of your methodology section.

5. Refer to Any Obstacles or Difficulties That You Dealt With

If you faced any problems during the data collection or analysis phases, use the methodology section to talk about what you did to address these issues and minimise the impact.

Whether you are completing a PhD or master's degree, writing your thesis or dissertation methodology is often considered to be the most difficult and time-consuming part of completing your major research project.

The key to success when writing a methodology section is to have a clear structure. Remember, the purpose of the methodology section of your research project is to ensure that the reader has a full understanding of the methods you have chosen.

You should use your methodology section to provide clear justification as to why you have chosen a particular research method instead of other potential methods. Avoid referring to your personal opinions, thoughts or interests within your methodology; keep the information that you include factual and ensure that everything is backed up by appropriate academic references.

You might also be interested in these other Wikijob articles:

Postgraduate/Master’s Personal Statements

Or explore the Postgraduate / PHD sections.

IMAGES

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Demystifying Dissertation Methodology: A Comprehensive Guide
How To Write A Methodology In A Research Paper ~ Alngindabu Words
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A methodological guide to using and reporting on interviews in

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How to Write a Dissertation Methodology #dissertation #students #writingtips #universitylife

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How Do You Incorporate an Interview into a Dissertation?
Including interviews in your dissertation. To present interviews in a dissertation, you first need to transcribe your interviews. You can use transcription software for this. You can then add the written interviews to the appendix. If you have many or long interviews that make the appendix extremely long, the appendix (after consultation with ...
Types of Interviews in Research
Advantages and disadvantages of interviews. Interviews are a great research tool. They allow you to gather rich information and draw more detailed conclusions than other research methods, taking into consideration nonverbal cues, off-the-cuff reactions, and emotional responses.. However, they can also be time-consuming and deceptively challenging to conduct properly.
Dissertation Methodology
Methods include interviews, focus groups, and observations. This methodology is common in fields like anthropology, sociology, and education. Quantitative Research. ... The dissertation methodology section plays an important role in a dissertation for several reasons. Here are some of the advantages of having a well-crafted methodology section ...
PDF A Complete Dissertation
DISSERTATION CHAPTERS Order and format of dissertation chapters may vary by institution and department. 1. Introduction 2. Literature review 3. Methodology 4. Findings 5. Analysis and synthesis 6. Conclusions and recommendations Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter makes a case for the signifi-cance of the problem, contextualizes the
Dissertations 4: Methodology: Methods
This short video on qualitative interviews discusses best practices and covers qualitative interview design, preparation and data collection methods. Focus groups In this case, a group of people (normally, 4-12) is gathered for an interview where the interviewer asks questions to such group of participants.
Structured Interview
Revised on June 22, 2023. A structured interview is a data collection method that relies on asking questions in a set order to collect data on a topic. It is one of four types of interviews. In research, structured interviews are often quantitative in nature. They can also be used in qualitative research if the questions are open-ended, but ...
How To Do Qualitative Interviews For Research
If you need 10 interviews, it is a good idea to plan for 15. Likely, a few will cancel, delay, or not produce useful data. 5. Not keeping your golden thread front of mind. We touched on this a little earlier, but it is a key point that should be central to your entire research process.
(PDF) How to Conduct an Effective Interview; A Guide to Interview
Vancouver, Canada. Abstract. Interviews are one of the most promising ways of collecting qualitative data throug h establishment of a. communication between r esearcher and the interviewee. Re ...
Chapter 11. Interviewing
A form of interview that follows a strict set of questions, asked in a particular order, for all interview subjects. The questions are also the kind that elicits short answers, and the data is more "informative" than probing. This is often used in mixed-methods studies, accompanying a survey instrument. Because there is no room for nuance ...
interviews
In semi-structured interviews, interviewer prepares a set of same questions to be answered by all interviewees. At the same time, additional questions might be asked during interviews to clarify and/or further expand certain issues. Advantages of interviews include possibilities of collecting detailed information about research questions.
Incorporating Interview Data
Bogdan and Knopp Biklen's treatment of interview practices provides a brief overview of how to approach and implement this research methodology. Irving Seidman's Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences —especially pages 78-94.
How To Write The Methodology Chapter
Do yourself a favour and start with the end in mind. Section 1 - Introduction. As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis, the methodology chapter should have a brief introduction. In this section, you should remind your readers what the focus of your study is, especially the research aims. As we've discussed many times on the blog ...
Writing Up the Methods Section
If you are writing an article, dissertation, or monograph based on qualitative interviewing, and wish to follow the conventions of the trade, you are likely to structure your report into five separate chunks (see e.g. Silverman, 2000): An introductory part, a literature review, a methodology part, the findings, and a concluding part. I shall ...
PDF 3 Methodology
The Methodology chapter is perhaps the part of a qualitative thesis that is most unlike its equivalent in a quantitative study. Students doing quantitative research have an established ... 4.3.4 Interviews 4.4 The data collection process 4.4.1 The research context 4.4.2 Anticipated problems 4.4.3 Access, ethics and informed consent 4.4.4 The ...
PDF TIPSHEET QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING
Additionally, interviews can be tailored specifically to the knowledge and experience of the interviewee. Designing and structuring the interview Qualitative interviews can range from highly exploratory to addressing specific hypotheses. As a result, the structure of interviews can range from loose conversations to structured exchanges in
PDF Interviewing in Qualitative Research
Introduction. Interviewing in qualitative research is much like good conversation. It is the process of extracting people's experiences, describing how they felt about them and how they affected their lives. It is the most widely used method in qualitative research. It is flexible, inexpensive, and does not inter- fere with the researcher's ...
PDF Appendix 1: Semi-structured interview guide
Appendix 1: Semi-structured interview guide Date: Interviewer: Archival #: In person: Teleconference: Start Time: End Time: ... funders, with methods for identifying and displaying research gaps, to inform health choices, health practice, future research, policy or funding. This study aims to help in better understanding the methods
What Is a Research Methodology?
Revised on 10 October 2022. Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research. A key part of your thesis, dissertation, or research paper, the methodology chapter explains what you did and how you did it, allowing readers to evaluate the reliability and validity of your research.
What Is a Research Methodology?
What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips. Published on August 25, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 20, 2023. Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research. A key part of your thesis, dissertation, or research paper, the methodology chapter explains what you did and how you did it, allowing ...
PDF Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research
Definitions. The qualitative research interview seeks to describe and the meanings of central themes in the life world of the subjects. The main task in interviewing is to understand the meaning of what the interviewees say. (Kvale,1996) participant's experiences. The interviewer can information around the topic.
Interviews: When Should They Be Used, Types, and Methods
It is the most used method of interview used in research whereby the researcher poses questions directly to a respondent in person or online via video conferencing technology such as Skype or Google Hangouts. The researcher takes notes of important points of view that stand out from the participant and also records the interview.
How to Write Your Dissertation Methodology
This research method is most useful if you are seeking to develop a hypothesis. To collect qualitative data, you might choose to conduct focus groups, interviews or observations. What to Include in Your Dissertation Methodology. Below is a dissertation methodology example to show you what information to include: Aims
PDF How many qualitative interviews is enough?
asked us the question of how many interviews they should do when they are conducting a piece of qualitative empirical research for their dissertation or thesis. We may even have pondered the dilemma ourselves in writing grant proposals for research funding. The issue of 'how many' is also a recurrent discussion thread in

Dissertation Methodology – Structure, Example and Writing Guide

Dissertation Methodology

Types of Dissertation Methodology

Structure of Dissertation Methodology

How to Write Dissertation Methodology

Example of Dissertation Methodology

Where to Write Dissertation Methodology

Advantages of Dissertation Methodology

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

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Some Types of Methods

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How to Conduct an Effective Interview; A Guide to Interview Design in Research Study

Chapter 11. Interviewing

Types of Interviews

Creating an Interview Guide

Type of Questions

Background/Demographic Questions

Temporality

Question Sequence

Probes and Flexibility

The Final Question

Conducting the Interview

How Many Interviews?

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

Example: Interview Guide

Further Readings

Introduction

Before You Write

Different Models for Incorporating Interview Data

Generalizing about a Trend or Theme

Quoting to Illustrate a Trend or Theme

Putting Two Sources in Conversation with Each Other

Providing a Profile/Telling a Story

Attending to Language

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, or Quoting

Referring to your Interviewees

Using Verbatim or Non-Verbatim

Works Cited

Academic and Professional Writing

Analysis Papers

Grant Proposals

Job Materials and Application Essays

Proposals and Dissertations

Research Papers

Thank-You Notes

Scientific Reports

Writing for the Web

How To Write The Methodology Chapter

Overview: The Methodology Chapter

What (exactly) is the methodology chapter?

Why is the methodology chapter important?

Need a helping hand?

How to write up the methodology chapter

Methodology Chapter Example

Wrapping Up

Psst... there’s more!

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