Research methodology simply refers to the practical “how” of any given piece of research. More specifically, it’s about how a researcher systematically designs a study to ensure valid and reliable results that address the research aims and objectives. For example, how did the researcher go about deciding:
- What data to collect (and what data to ignore)
- Who to collect it from (in research, this is called “sampling design”)
- How to collect it (this is called “data collection methods”)
- How to analyse it (this is called “data analysis methods”)