Methods Review Table Tool

The Methods Review Table Tool helps you to structurally read and review the methods sections of
empirical articles that are relevant to your problem statement. In so doing, you will gain understanding of
what methods are commonly deployed in your field of research, what justifications for such
methodological choices are given (if given!) and what limitations have been identified. This will help you
in drafting your methods chapter (chapter 3).

Example:
Code Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3 Conclusions
Research Aim “…..” (p. 12) “…..” (p. 212)
Hypotheses “……” (p. 20) “……” (p. 230)
Empirical South-Africa Mexico Many studies
Setting conducted in Latin
America.
Research e.g., Survey among 200 Multiple case study design Mainly quantitative
Strategy lodges approaches used.
Population 600 lodges
Sample & Cluster sampling Cases were purposefully
Sampling sampled: 2 x local hotels
methods and 2 x chain hotels
Data sources
Survey 7 items on 5-Likert scales X
Interviews x 25 interviews with chefs,
purchase managers, CEOs
and CSR managers + 8
expert interviews with trade
journalist, government
officials and NGO
representatives
Observation x Field notes + pictures were
taken during site visits
Documents x Organizational documents
like reports and minutes of
meetings
Public Sources Newspaper database
Data analysis Descriptive statistics, t-tests Step 1: case narrative; Step
2: case analysis using
thematic coding; step 3:
cross-case analysis; step 4:
validation workshop
Limitations Non-response issues, Generalizability
response bias
Other relevant Useful articles as the survey
notes to myself is included!!

JvW – Sept 2015