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Methodology
Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design . When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.
First, decide how you will collect data . Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question :
Second, decide how you will analyze the data .
Methods for collecting data, examples of data collection methods, methods for analyzing data, examples of data analysis methods, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research methods.
Data is the information that you collect for the purposes of answering your research question . The type of data you need depends on the aims of your research.
Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type of knowledge you want to develop.
For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data .
If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your research involves hypothesis testing , collect quantitative data .
Qualitative | to broader populations. . | |
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Quantitative | . |
You can also take a mixed methods approach , where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys , observations and experiments ). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a government census or previous scientific studies).
If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll probably need to collect primary data . But if you want to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical trends, or identify patterns on a large scale, secondary data might be a better choice.
Primary | . | methods. |
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Secondary |
In descriptive research , you collect data about your study subject without intervening. The validity of your research will depend on your sampling method .
In experimental research , you systematically intervene in a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your research will depend on your experimental design .
To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary your independent variable , precisely measure your dependent variable, and control for confounding variables . If it’s practically and ethically possible, this method is the best choice for answering questions about cause and effect.
Descriptive | . . | |
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Experimental |
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Research method | Primary or secondary? | Qualitative or quantitative? | When to use |
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Primary | Quantitative | To test cause-and-effect relationships. | |
Primary | Quantitative | To understand general characteristics of a population. | |
Interview/focus group | Primary | Qualitative | To gain more in-depth understanding of a topic. |
Observation | Primary | Either | To understand how something occurs in its natural setting. |
Secondary | Either | To situate your research in an existing body of work, or to evaluate trends within a research topic. | |
Either | Either | To gain an in-depth understanding of a specific group or context, or when you don’t have the resources for a large study. |
Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you collect and how you prepare it for analysis.
Data can often be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, survey responses could be analyzed qualitatively by studying the meanings of responses or quantitatively by studying the frequencies of responses.
Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:
Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias .
Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies, averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect relationships (in experiments).
You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:
Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among researchers.
Research method | Qualitative or quantitative? | When to use |
---|---|---|
Quantitative | To analyze data collected in a statistically valid manner (e.g. from experiments, surveys, and observations). | |
Meta-analysis | Quantitative | To statistically analyze the results of a large collection of studies. Can only be applied to studies that collected data in a statistically valid manner. |
Qualitative | To analyze data collected from interviews, , or textual sources. To understand general themes in the data and how they are communicated. | |
Either | To analyze large volumes of textual or visual data collected from surveys, literature reviews, or other sources. Can be quantitative (i.e. frequencies of words) or qualitative (i.e. meanings of words). |
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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.
Research bias
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.
In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question .
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.
The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .
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.
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A dozen college students are saying the word "pat" and jotting down notes about the sounds being made.
"Puh - AH - tt"
Pay attention to the shapes your mouths make as you pronounce the word, instructs Robin Fuxa, their education professor at Oklahoma State University.
She asks her students if they can feel the way the words sound as they speak.
"Say it again and see if you feel it in your vocal cords," Fuxa prompts her reading instruction class, held last October.
Fuxa is trying to get her students to pay attention to phonics, the reading method that links a sound to a letter. Extensive research has shown phonics is an effective way to teach kids to read.
But teacher training programs like this one don't always prepare educators to use researched-backed reading methods, like phonics. In a 2023 study , the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) surveyed nearly 700 teacher training programs across the country. Their findings:
"Only about a quarter of the teachers who leave teacher preparation programs across our nation enter classrooms prepared to teach kids to read [in a way that's] aligned to the science and research on reading," says Heather Peske, president of NCTQ.
The rest, she says, are investing money and time into learning methods like "three- cueing" and "balanced literacy," which aren't backed by research.
Thomas Dee, an education professor and researcher at Stanford University, says this disconnect between research and practice has been a long standing issue in education.
"Things for which there's good evidence of efficacy don't always make it into [the] everyday classroom practice of teachers," Dee says.
This comes at a time when reading proficiency among some school-aged children has been declining.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the Nation's Report Card , shows reading scores among 13-year-olds have dropped since 2012, with a sharper dip during and after the pandemic. While test scores for 9-year-olds have mostly held steady since 2012, they too suffered a decline during the pandemic.
What makes the "science of reading" different
Dee is a big proponent of the "science of reading," which incorporates phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, among other techniques. There is growing evidence that the science of reading is a more effective way to teach students how to read.
More effective than, say, "three-cueing," which is when students rely on context and sentence structure to identify words they don't know.
"Balanced literacy," formerly known as "whole language," is another commonly used method of reading instruction.
"The idea there was that kids sort of learn to read naturally and we just have to surround them with great literature," says Ellen McIntyre, dean of the teachers college at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
MyIntyre says balanced literacy had some great ideas about how to get students excited about reading, but she found the model was lacking.
"Really early on, the model didn't include systematic, explicit teaching of phonics or any of the other foundational skills."
Neither three-cueing nor balanced literacy are backed by research.
The 2023 study from NCTQ found 40% of surveyed schools are still teaching methods that "run counter to the research on effective reading instruction."
How teaching programs adopt "science of reading" methods
From 2019-2022, 46 states , including D.C., have passed reading legislation, according to The Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit connected to one of the country's largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers.
In North Carolina, for example, a 2021 law requires current teachers to undergo training in the science of reading. To adapt, some colleges and universities with teacher training programs are amending their courses so they're more in line with the latest research.
And they have some guidance: In 2022, the UNC System – the network of public universities in North Carolina – hired an outside company to audit teacher colleges and their use of the science of reading model. The institutions were given an evaluation of "strong," "good," "needs improvement" or "inadequate." Most teacher colleges were labeled as "needs improvement."
Gerrelyn Patterson, chair of educator preparation at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black college, says the school was already teaching science of reading concepts, and even though the audit delivered a "good" score, they made additional changes to their curriculum. This included changes to syllabi, course descriptions and a review of the materials used for assignments.
Patterson says she and faculty met for hours at a time to review the courses they were teaching. In the end, the committee revised some courses to be more in-depth when it comes to reading.
"The students would say [the courses were] time intensive... they already felt like the literacy classes are very rigorous," Patterson says. But students told her the revised literacy courses were aligning with other training they got, "so they could see that connection."
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the state's only four-year American Indian and Alaska Native-serving institution , was not among the campuses that received a "strong" or "good" score from the audit.
In response to the lower evaluation, the university added two additional classes to the curriculum, increasing the required reading courses for students from three to five.
In 2023, school administrators said that they were planning on hiring an endowed professor of literacy, with a focus on leadership, research and teaching in the science of reading. The person hired in the position will also have funding to conduct literacy research.
However, not all educators have been on board with the changes at Pembroke.
"It's taken some time to kind of get the buy-in," says Gretchen Robinson, an education professor there.
According to Robinson, faculty met last spring for weekly feedback sessions. She said some were skeptical of the changes because they were being asked to teach in a way they weren't used to.
The university ended up losing two faculty members in 2023 as a result of the instruction shift.
Teachers pushback on legislating the classroom
Some educators have been uncomfortable with state legislators making decisions around how reading is taught.
"No collective group of legislators have the knowledge to do that," said Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, a professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.
She said USF is not changing their way of teaching reading because they've always incorporated principles like phonics and vocabulary into their lessons.
She acknowledges that there are a lot of K-12 students who are not learning to read, but she thinks there are bigger issues that state legislators should address before taking a critical stance on reading.
"We have internet access issues...We have kids that have food insecurity," Jasinski Schneider said.
"If they want to legislate something, legislate that every kid gets to eat three meals a day, instead of banning a teaching method, right? If they really want to help... make sure schools are over-resourced not under-resourced."
Elissa Nadworny contributed to this report. Edited by Nicole Cohen.
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scientific method, mathematical and experimental technique employed in the sciences. More specifically, it is the technique used in the construction and testing of a scientific hypothesis. The process of observing, asking questions, and seeking answers through tests and experiments is not unique to any one field of science.
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a hypothesis through inductive reasoning ...
The six steps of the scientific method include: 1) asking a question about something you observe, 2) doing background research to learn what is already known about the topic, 3) constructing a hypothesis, 4) experimenting to test the hypothesis, 5) analyzing the data from the experiment and drawing conclusions, and 6) communicating the results ...
Research conducted for the purpose of contributing towards science by the systematic collection, interpretation and evaluation of data and that, too, in a planned manner is called scientific research: a researcher is the one who conducts this research. The results obtained from a small group through scientific studies are socialised, and new ...
The scientific method is a systematic process involving steps like defining questions, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments, and analyzing data. It minimizes biases and enables replicable research, leading to groundbreaking discoveries like Einstein's theory of relativity, penicillin, and the structure of DNA.
The study of scientific method is the attempt to discern the activities by which that success is achieved. Among the activities often identified as characteristic of science are systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories.
The scientific method is a process that includes several steps: First, an observation or question arises about a phenomenon. Then a hypothesis is formulated to explain the phenomenon, which is used to make predictions about other related occurrences or to predict the results of new observations quantitatively. Finally, these predictions are put to the test through experiments or further ...
The scientific method has been guiding biological research for a long time. It not only prescribes the order and types of activities that give a scientific study validity and a stamp of approval but also has substantially shaped how we collectively think about the endeavor of investigating nature. The advent of high-throughput data generation ...
Learn about the scientific method, including explanations of the six steps in the process, the variables involved, and why each step is important.
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The scientific method is a procedure that the scientists use to conduct research. Scientific investigators play a crucial role in following a series of steps such as asking questions, setting hypothesis to answer questions, performing multiple experiments to confirm the reliability of data/ results, data collection and interpretation, and developing conclusions based on the hypothesis.
Psychologists use the scientific method to investigate the mind and behavior. Learn more about each of the five steps of the scientific method and how they are used.
The scientific method is a series of steps that scientific investigators follow to answer specific questions about the natural world. Scientists use the scientific method to make observations, formulate hypotheses, and conduct scientific experiments.
Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. Scientists use the scientific method to make observations, form hypotheses and gather evidence in an ...
The scientific method, developed during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700), changed theoretical philosophy into practical science when experiments to demonstrate observable results were used to confirm, adjust, or deny specific hypotheses. Experimental results were then shared and critically reviewed by peers until universal laws could be made.
Research Methodology refers to the systematic and scientific approach used to conduct research, investigate problems, and gather data and information for a specific purpose. It involves the techniques and procedures used to identify, collect, analyze, and interpret data to answer research questions or solve research problems.
The Scientific Process. Scientists use a dynamic, open-ended process to investigate questions. Here are the five steps. 1. Define a Question to Investigate. As scientists conduct their research, they make observations and collect data. The observations and data often lead them to ask why something is the way it is.
Scientific method should be neutral, objective, rational, and as a result, should be able to approve or disapprove the hypothesis. The research plan should include the procedure to obtain data and evaluate the variables. It should ensure that analyzable data are obtained. It should also include plans on the statistical analysis to be performed.
About Research Methods. This guide provides an overview of research methods, how to choose and use them, and supports and resources at UC Berkeley. As Patten and Newhart note in the book Understanding Research Methods, "Research methods are the building blocks of the scientific enterprise. They are the "how" for building systematic knowledge.
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.
Although a lengthy process, the scientific method is a productive way to define essential nutrients and determine their ability to promote health and prevent disease. The scientific method is part of the overall evidence-based approach to designing nutritional guidelines [3]. An evidence-based approach to nutrition includes [4]:
Scientific research is the systematic and empirical investigation of phenomena, theories, or hypotheses, using various methods and techniques in order to acquire new knowledge or to validate existing knowledge. It involves the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data, as well as the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
The Scientific Method - What is it? The Scientific Method is a process used to validate observations while minimizing observer bias. Its goal is for research to be conducted in a fair, unbiased and repeatable manner.
Research methods are ways of collecting and analyzing data. Common methods include surveys, experiments, interviews, and observations.
This research investigated the impact of teaching science using the "Studio Thinking Framework" on third-grade students' academic achievements. ... 70 of whom were students assigned to an experimental group and taught a specific chapter from a science textbook using the art studio method. A control group of 70 students received traditional ...
Research shows there are science-backed ways to help students learn to read, but not all teachers are trained in the best way to do so. In response, colleges are reimagining their curriculums. ... How teaching programs adopt "science of reading" methods. From 2019-2022, 46 states, including D.C., have passed reading legislation, ...