Step 6 – Dissertation Methodology

This stage of the whole research process will be significant to the rest of your dissertation paper as whole. You will want to understand what the different methods are for research collection, such as questionnaires, surveys, interviews and focus groups to name just a few. Some of these types of data collection methods will have sub-types to them too, which will further allow you to shape them to your individual research process and your own dissertation.

If we look at the different methods that you could use to collect data, they will be split into quantitative and qualitative types. And the types of data collection methods used will mean that the focus of your dissertation research project will move in a qualitative or quantitative way. However, it probably won’t be great to get to this point and then decide the methods that you are going to use to collect the different data.

You will need to understand that you should choose the different methods to be utilized as you control your dissertation research and not the other way around. You need to make a decision of whether your dissertation research study will form the role of understanding why something has happened through personal opinion or mood, or indeed, whether graphs and charts will display a percentage of one thousand people who have decided on something certain.

There are a number of different methods that can be used in both types of research collection, such as questionnaires and interviews, as these have a good break down of what you can look at in terms of your project.

You should also be aware that the dissertation methodology will also have to decide on a number of other things in the research process, such as:

• what subtype of research will be used?
• how will you select subjects to take part in the research study?
• how will you decide how these individuals will be separated to the different study groupings?
• will you use a pilot study to test the different methods
• will you use any control points to defend against internal invalidity?

There are also a number of other points that you will need to look at in your methodology, such as what type of research process you are using, descriptive, evaluation or correctional. Additionally, your dissertation may depend on other types of research such as case study analysis or action research, and these should also be considered more carefully and you should be fully informed about. This will help you make sure your dissertation methodology is on track and your research paper is focused.