Research methods are the specific tools and techniques you use to collect or analyse data, while research methodology is the overall strategy and approach behind those choices. Methodology addresses why you are researching something in a particular way and how your approach fits your research question, assumptions and philosophical grounding.

What Is The Difference Between Research Methods And Methodology?

A research method is the specific tool or technique you use to collect or analyse data. It is practical and connected to the execution of the study.

Interviews, surveys, experiments, statistical tests and coding schemes for qualitative data are all examples of methods. You can ask yourself: what am I actually doing to gather or process information? That is your method.

Research methodology is different. It is the overall strategy and approach behind your choice of methods. It is not simply what you are doing. It addresses why you are doing it that way and how it fits your research questions.

Methodology is theoretically grounded and usually comes with underpinning principles, assumptions and philosophical grounding or a paradigm. It guides decisions across the study and helps address value-based questions, such as what is important to the study and why.

The distinction can be particularly clear within interpretivist and qualitative research, where research decisions can involve a wider range of perspectives about the most appropriate way to investigate something.

How Does Methodology Change Your Research Design?

Methodologies such as Case Study, phenomenology and grounded theory have affinities with different research methods because those methods can connect with the theories underpinning the methodologies. However, methodologies can encompass a range of methods, and there can be academic debate and flexibility around these choices.

Methodology can fundamentally change how the same research question is investigated.

For example, consider a research question about how international students experience simulation of cross-cultural patient care in cancer nursing.

With a Case Study methodology, the research objectives may shift towards comparing experiences across different universities in the UK, with each university's cancer nursing programme treated as a case. The methods could involve observations alongside quantitative and qualitative data collection.

With constructivist grounded theory, the study might involve interviews and focus groups, with the research becoming more focused on developing a theory about the topic.

With phenomenology, the study might still use interviews, but the focus could shift towards understanding how international students experience belonging within a UK-centric practice environment and navigate cultural differences in cancer care.

The methodology therefore does more than determine which methods you use. It can change what the study is actually trying to understand.

How Do Research Methodology And Methods Fit Together?

The discussion of methodology often comes before the discussion of specific research methods. Methodology is also considered alongside research paradigms and research objectives because it can fundamentally shift the study, while the study's intention can limit or require particular methodologies.

Methods can be thought of as different boxes of tools within each methodology. Some methodologies share the same tools, while others may have methods that are more closely associated with that particular methodology.

This creates a hierarchical relationship between methodology and methods. Methodology provides the overall strategy and approach, while methods provide the specific techniques used to execute the study.

When developing a methodology chapter, the important distinction is therefore between what you are doing and why you are doing it that way. Your methods need to make sense within your chosen methodology, and your methodology needs to make sense in relation to what you are trying to research.

If you are applying this distinction to your own research and want a second pair of eyes on how your research question, methodology and methods fit together, you can find out more about one-to-one research support.