Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
How Long Should The Methodology Be?

How Long Should The Methodology Be?

To write a dissertation or a thesis, you will have to conduct effective research. For this reason, there are two possible methodologies to conduct effective research. First is known as qualitative research methodology and second is known as a quantitative research methodology. While writing a dissertation or thesis, it is necessary for you to provide a complete detail about the research methodology that you have adopted to gather the data for your dissertation or thesis.

Like other chapters of dissertation or thesis, there is also a specific length of the research methodology. Here, we will provide a complete detail about the length and content of the research methodology chapter.


Length of the research methodology chapter

While writing a dissertation or thesis, it is necessary for the students to take an overview of the word count of the different chapters of the dissertation or thesis. Its reason is that a dissertation is divided into six different chapters and there is different significant of these chapters in the dissertation. Therefore, some chapters require less detail whereas some chapters require enough detail. 

If we talk about the research methodology chapter of a dissertation, we come to know that the percentage of the research methodology chapter of a dissertation is 15% length of the whole dissertation. 

Word count of the research methodology chapter

The word count for a research methodology chapter depends upon the total length of the dissertation. 

For example, if you are asked to write a dissertation of 5000 words, the word count of the research methodology chapter will be 750. 

In 7500 words dissertation, the word count of research methodology chapter should be 1125.

If you are asked to write a dissertation of 10000 words, word count for research methodology chapter should be 1500 words. 

If the length of your dissertation is 15000 words, length of research methodology chapter of your dissertation should be 2250 words. 

If you are asked to write a dissertation of 20000 words, length of research methodology chapter of your dissertation should be 3000 words. 

It means that the words count of research methodology chapter of your dissertation depends upon the total length of the dissertation. 

What to include in research methodology?

After getting an idea about the word count of research methodology chapter of a dissertation, the next question that comes to the minds of the students is what to include in research methodology. The answer to this question is explained below;

1) Explain your methodological approach

You should begin the research methodology writing task by explaining your methodological approach. It means that you should try to explain what research methodologies you have adopted to gather the data for your dissertation. There are two possible research methodologies to gather the data for a dissertation. These research methodologies are qualitative research methodology and quantitative research methodology. There are also some students who use a mixed-methods approach to gather the data for their dissertations. It is necessary for the students to clearly explain which research methodology they have adopted to gather the data for the dissertation.

2) Describe your methods of data collection

After introducing your research methodology to gather the data for your dissertation, it is also necessary for you to provide an idea to the audience members about your overall methodological approach to gather the data. You should also try to provide an outline of all the tools, procedures and materials that are necessary for you to gather the data for your dissertation. If you have selected quantitative research methodology to gather the data for your dissertation, you should try to explain either you have gathered the data from surveys, experiments or existing data. On the other hand, if you have selected qualitative research methodology to gather the data, you should try to explain either you have gathered the data by conducting interviews, participant observations or existing data. 

3) Describe your methods of analysis

After gathering the data from different resources, it is also necessary for the students to analyze the data. While analyzing the data, there is no need to provide enough detail about the results because these results are explained in the results section of the dissertation. If you have adopted quantitative research methodology to gather the data for your dissertation, your analysis will be based on the numbers. On the other hand, if you are going to gather the data by adopting qualitative research methodology, your analysis will be based on the language, images and observations etc. Some essential analysis methods that you can adopt while gathering data by qualitative research methodology are content analysis, thematic analysis and discourse analysis.