RW – Session 6

WRITING THE METHODOLOGY CHAPTER

The use of “I” refer to the author is OK. In our field is OK. Social science allows authors to use
“I”.
Articles, research paper => can use “We”.
Research methodology (the most important chapter, write it clearly => people can’t replicate
your paper/ justify every single moves (explain where you learn it, evaluate, why you do it,….)
Research design = the overall components, include the participants, instrument (what kind of
tools, how you collect the data)
Introduction
Participants >< Informant
Participants are the subjects of the studies.
Informants are those who give information to support your study.
Research questions (the latest appears in the end of chapter 2) =>intentionally repeat the RQ,
concept of “theme and rheme” => “As I mention earlier, this thesis aims to address these
questions…”
Research design – specify why you choose the type of study you conduct, you address the
articles and the books you’ve learned.
Context of the study - The readers need to know who your participants are (background,
knowledge, level of the learners, …),
The pilot study – purpose of the pilot study needs to be described clearly => put it in a separate
section. Pilot study = the whole data generating procedure/ We don’t have to analyze the data.
(test the instrument, try yourself with the instrument) => reader knows that you understand
the technique. Summary of pilot study: what you have learned from the pilot study.
Ex: technique of interview: prompting, ask more “can you clarify the point here”
Participants – passive voice should be used, focus on what have been done, tense: past simple/
present simple
Proposal => write in the simple future tense
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Use objective language to describe the procedure

Describing previously used research methods
 Many researchers have utilized X to measure …
 X is one of the most common procedures for determining …
 There are three main types of study design used to identify …
 The use of qualitative case studies is a well-established approach in…
Giving reasons for adopting/ rejecting a research method
 This method is particularly useful in studying …
 A quantitative approach was employed since …
 The X approach has a number of attractive features:
 A case-study approach was chosen to determine the factors that affect …
The use of simple past
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Allow, enable, permit

This equipment allowed us to identify X.
This equipment enabled X to be identified.
This equipment permitted the identification of X
The pilot study
 Rationale of the pilot study
 Choice and approach to participants of the pilot study
 Pilot study procedures
 Findings from the pilot study
Participants joining pilot study cannot join the main procedure. In pilot study you can ask for
the help of your peers or supervisors.
How to choose your participants (samples and sampling procedure)
Participants are expected to be representatives.
Present these in your choice of participants
 Budget
 Limited timescale
 Team of interviewers
Sampling
Describe clearly the choice of sampling
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Participants
The project used a convenience sample of 32 first year language students…
Participants were recruited from 15 public schools
Forty-seven students studying X were recruited for this study.
A random sample of students with ... was recruited from
Research instruments
 Clear description of the construct
 Old and new versions of item (can you adapt the item in your study, how you build your
instruments, if you adapt/adopt => justify why you use it, reconstruction of the
instrument) => Data generating tool
 Formulation why certain scoring were chosen => depend on the questions, choose the
scale, can choose more than 1 scale
 Results of the pilot testing – related the results of the pilot study
 Final version of the measurement instrument => confirm
Mention any possibility that might secure the participants
Design question in the questionnaires => positive and negative questions should be used
Data collection procedure
 How they obtained the informants or drew their sample
 The location/ setting of the interviews (share the contact info of yourself to get more
info from the participants, send the participants questionnaire first to encourage them
think more about what they are going to share,)/ How to choose the participants to
interview if you have a lot of participants => describe carefully and detailly in your thesis
 The themes covered in the interviews
 Piloting, adjustments made, reasons for this
 How they overcame obstacles they encountered – say what you have done (where to
put the video, why use the video, how to use the video recording …)
Describing the process
 In order to identify..., the participants were asked to...
 To measure/ to establish/ to determine/
 For the attitude questions, a Likert scale was used.
 For the purpose of height measurement, subjects were asked…
 Descriptive data were generated for all variables.
 Data were collected using semi-structured interviews in…
Triangulation – the use of different tools to validate the results of the questions (so sánh kết
quả thu thập từ các data sets khác nhau)
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Ex: from the questionnaire, 95% of the learners are satisfied with the use of … This is validated
by the findings from the interview, as 7 out of 8 learners agreed that the use of … is
satisfactory.
Perception of the participants => interview
Describing the process: sequence words
DO NOT DESCRIBE 2 STEPS IN 1 SENTENCE. You can relate the 2nd step with the 1st one.
 The first step in this process was to …
 Prior to undertaking the investigation, …
 After training, the participants were asked to...
 Once the samples were extracted, it was first necessary to ...
 Following this treatment, the samples were asked to
Data analysis procedure
Ex: Interview data analysis
 Preparation for data analysis
 Choice of method for data analysis (ex, thematic analysis)
 Phases of data analysis
Open – ended questions => qualitative / closed, yes/no => quantitative
A p value Descriptive data were generated for all variables.
Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software (version 20).
Phases of data analysis
 Step 1: Data validation (read and repeat again)
 Step 2: data editing (edit the language)
 Step 3: data coding
Interview => transcribe immediately to get the underlying message from the interview
Validity and Reliability (Credibility)
Validity: consistency (can apply to other participants)
Reliability: accuracy
Trustworthiness and transparency
 Showing how you have taken into account some issues (e.g., participants,
representativeness etc.) in planning and interpreting the results
 Showing whether you use validation strategies (e.g., reflexivity, negative case sampling,
low inference descriptors...)
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Reflexivity:
Negative case sampling: perceptions towards => tend to look for positive words for coding =>
the researcher needs
Low inference descriptor: qualitative – interview – stay closed to what the participants said
Using Cronbach’s alpha statistics - if you use this, you can use the result in the pilot study to
give another change in your questionnaire
Conceptual and theoretical framework
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Ethical consideration
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 How to obtain ethical approval

 Informing participants the treatment/ their right to withdraw
 Anonymity issues