Conducting research - methodology
Methodology means the type of approach you take when undertaking research. It refers to procedures that help researchers decide how to find out the information they need.
Different subjects, also known as disciplines, follow different sets of procedures. These procedures help researchers decide how the data will be collected.
Experimental approach
Researchers in a scientific discipline will often choose an experimental approach. This involves a researcher testing a An initial guess to a question which is then supported or rejected depending on the evidence collected., which is a possible answer to the research question.
For example, if the research question is ‘Does taking vitamins affect how long you live?', the hypothesis might be ‘Taking vitamins will make you live longer’.
The researcher will test this hypothesis by controlling the An object, idea, event, feeling, time period that isn’t changed by any other variables. Age is an independent variable., which is 'vitamins'. This is because the researcher is controlling the number of vitamins in order to see the effect on a An object, idea, event, feeling, time period that depends on other variables and can be changed by other variables. A test score is a dependent variable., which is the life expectancy.
The researcher will select Someone who takes part in something. to take part in the experiment and divide them into two groups:
- an experimental group
- a control group
Members of an experimental group will receive the vitamins, while members of a control group will receive what they think are vitamins. However, the control group are actually being given a Something that looks like something else, but has no effect. For example, a placebo vitamin tablet may look like a vitamin tablet but in fact it is just made of sugar.. At the end of the experiment, the researcher will compare the results in the control group to the results in the experimental group in order to look for differences.
Ethnographic approach
An ethnographic researcher is based in the field of social sciences and will study people and their cultures, customs and habits. They will choose methods that best suit what they are trying to find out, eg they may choose to use interviews, so that descriptions and details can be gathered. Another popular method used by ethnographic researchers is observation. By using this method, they can observe people actually performing customs and habits.
Interviews and observations that explore different customs and habits will help researchers understand why these habits occur, which is the aim of ethnography. An ethnographic researcher is not interested in using a scientific approach so they would not use the experimental method for example, because they don’t want to test anything.
Real life example
Margaret Mead was a well-known ethnographic researcher who carried out extensive research throughout her life. In the 1930s she observed children growing up in New Guinea and wrote Growing Up in New Guinea (1930) which was republished in 2001. Her book described the people she met and their lifestyles.
