Post #11: Method and Research Design
- The methods section is designed to tell readers how the data was collected and how it was interpreted or analyzed.
- Providing a methods section means telling the reader what you did to collect data. This can mean handing out questionnaires or conducting personal interviews.
- Methods sections allow the reader to decide upon the validity and reliability of your information.
- How you conduct your experiment, or your method, should directly relate to what you are researching.
- There are a few common problems that can result when writing a methods section. An unnecessary description of a procedure, or the failure to include relevant procedures or conclusions are common ones.
- The methods section should be in your paper after the literature review, but before the results and discussion section.
- Some helpful hints when writing your methods section include keeping notes of what was done, when it was done, and why it was done; keeping in mind the audience, and avoiding the word “I (“Writing up research:,” ).
- The method section of a research paper is important because the validity of a paper is based primarily upon it.
- It should include a “clear and precise” description of the experiment and how it was conducted as well as why the way the experiment was conducted was chosen (Kallet, 2004).
- The methods section should explain what was done to answer the research question at hand, how it was done, and how the data collected was analyzed or interpreted.
- The methods section should also include, if necessary, a list of materials used. Why the materials were used, and how they were used should also be mentioned.
- If any calculations were performed in the experiment with the data or in any other aspect, the calculations should be included.
- All descriptions of the experiment should be in chronological order (Kallet, 2004).
Reference List
Kallet, R.H. (2004). How to Write the methods section of a research paper. Respiratory Care, 49(10), Retrieved from http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/10.04/10.04.1229.pdf
Writing up research: method and research design. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21meth.htm
I think the most important thing that the above articles included was the idea that your method of research should be directly relavent to your topic. How you conduct your research is important because it can be very related to the validity of your paper. If your population sample is small, but you are researching minute details in relationships, that may still be okay. But if you are researching general assumptions about a culture as a whole, it may be important to increase your population sample size by possibly using a questionnaire.
