Methods and Methodology

                    Methods and Methodology

Written by
Mairead Dunne, John Pryor and Paul Yates in Becoming a researcher, A companion to the research process. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2005. pp 162-166.

Victor Jupp in The Sage Dictionary of Social Research Methods. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.2006.pp 175.

C.R Kothari in Research Methodology, Methods & Techniques. Mumbai: New Age International Publishers.2004.pp 7-8.


The word methodology is problematic. It is frequently used in everyday life and sometimes even in academic circles interchangeably with methods. This elision is understandable and is compounded by the linguistic forms. If we want to use an adjective meaning appertaining to methods, we have to use ‘methodological’ since methodical means something rather different. Thus, the two nouns share adjectival forms. However,for a researcher distinguishing between them is more than an exercise in pedantry.

The definition of methods is relatively straightforward. It is derived from the Greek meta meaning after, beyond usually used in English words to mean beyond in the sense of more developed or higher order and hodos meaning way or means. Methods then are the systematic means by which something is accomplished. In research, therefore, methods denote the ways in which data are produced, interpreted and reported.

They consist of procedures and techniques exemplified by particular research instruments so questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and role playing are all examples of research methods and although in themselves different methods may be difficult to operationalize and may be highly problematic in different situations, what is meant by ‘a method’ is actually quite straightforward.

Methodology, however, has an extended and more problematic meaning and is quite complex as an idea. The Greek logos, the final element,means word or reason and is used in a number of ways in English but as the suffix -logy generally denotes study or theory. Thus, methodology in essence can be seen as the study of, or a theory of, the way that methods are used.
(Mairead Dunne, John Pryor and Paul Yates)

Methodology is the philosophical stance or worldview that underlies and informs a style of research.

Distinctive Features Methodology is the philosophy of  methods. It encompasses, first, an epistemology the‘rules of truth’ for warranting the validity of conclusions and secondly, an ontology establishing the objects’ about which questions may validly be asked and conclusions may be drawn.

In virtually all research (but see below) the epistemology is ‘rules of science’ conclusions based on arguments cast in terms of information that has been collected ‘transparently’ by known, and in principle, testable and reproducible means. The ontologies of research, however, reflect the wordview or ‘map’ with which the researcher engages.

One position, commonly labelled ‘positivistic’, takes for granted the nature of the real world and reserves all its doubts for the nature of the evidence about it; problems within positivism are problems of measurement how to measure the real world most accurately rather than about its ontology.
(Victor Jupp )

It seems appropriate at this juncture to explain the difference between research methods and research methodology. Research methods may be understood as all those methods/techniques that are used for conduction of research. Research methods or techniques, thus, refer to the methods the researchers use in performing research operations. In other words, all those methods which are used by the researcher during the course of studying his research problem are termed as research methods.

Since the object of research, particularly the applied research, it to arrive at a solution for a given problem, the available data and the unknown aspects of the problem have to be related to each other to make a solution possible. Keeping this in view, research methods can be put into the following three groups:

1. In the first group we include those methods which are concerned with the collection of data. These methods will be used where the data already available are not sufficient to arrive at the required solution;
2. The second group consists of those statistical techniques which are used for establishing relationships between the data and the unknowns;
3. The third group consists of those methods which are used to evaluate the accuracy of the results obtained.

Research methods falling in the above stated last two groups are generally taken as the analytical tools of research.

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It may be understood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically. In it we study the various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in studying his research problem along with the logic behind them. It is necessary for the researcher to know not only the research methods/techniques but also the methodology. Researchers not only need to know how to develop certain indices or tests, how to calculate the mean, the mode, the median or the standard deviation or chi-square, how to apply particular research techniques, but they also need to know which of these methods or techniques, are relevant and which are not, and what would they mean and indicate and why.

Researchers also need to understand the assumptions underlying various techniques and they need to know the criteria by which they can decide that certain techniques and procedures will be applicable to certain problems and others will not. All this means that it is necessary for the researcher to design his methodology for his problem as the same may differ from problem to problem. 

From what has been stated above, we can say that research methodology has many dimensions and research methods do constitute a part of the research methodology. The scope of research methodology is wider than that of research methods. Thus, when we talk of research methodology we not only talk of the research methods but also consider the logic behind the methods we use in the context of our research study and explain why we are using a particular method or technique and why we are not using others so that research results are capable of being evaluated either by the researcher himself or by others.

Why a research study has been undertaken, how the research problem has been defined, in what way and why the hypothesis has been formulated, what data have been collected and what particular method has been adopted, why particular technique of analysing data has been used and a host of similar other questions are usually answered when we talk of research methodology concerning a research problem or study.
(CR Kothari)