Purpose of the Methodology Chapter
Topic 5: Methods
This chapter should provide the rationale and methodological detail for your study. Think of it as a"stand alone" chapter that you could hand to a friend and just by reading it, they would know exactly how to do your study, start to finish. Every element you introduce must have appeared somewhere in your earlier chapters: every variable should have been considered in chapter 2; and any measurement issues should have been discussed in chapter 2.
Note: For the purpose of your proposal defense, this chapter is usually written in the future tense, because you are describing what you propose to do in the future. Once your proposal has been accepted, you will need to return to this chapter and change the tense to the past tense to describe what you actually did to conduct the study. See the example, below, which shows this change from future to past tense in a"sample selection" section of the chapter.
Note: For the purpose of your proposal defense, this chapter is usually written in the future tense, because you are describing what you propose to do in the future. Once your proposal has been accepted, you will need to return to this chapter and change the tense to the past tense to describe what you actually did to conduct the study. See the example, below, which shows this change from future to past tense in a"sample selection" section of the chapter.
Version used in the proposal defense
A random sample of 500 students from among the total population of 3000 students will be invited to participate in the survey. Using a random number table and the college directory, student names will bedrawn until the 500th name has been identified. Those names and their email addresses will be entered into a password protected database. |
Version that appears in the final dissertation draft
A random sample of 500 students from among the total population of 3000 students was invited to participate in the survey. Using a random number table and the college directory, student names weredrawn until the 500th name was identified. Those names and their email addresses were entered into a password protected database. |