
Explore the foundations of research methodology to approach your dissertation or thesis with confidence, moving from big-picture processes to tactical methodological decisions through a social sciences lens.
Start by following the prescribed order to develop a holistic understanding of research methodology, engage with quizzes and practical exercises to unlock the certificate, and enjoy self-paced, indefinite access.
Define the research methodologies clearly and connect the big-picture research process to dissertations, while clarifying terminology and essential concepts to prepare efficiently and avoid double work.
Explore the big picture of the research process—from defining a broad area and identifying a problem to the golden thread of aims, objectives, and questions guiding your literature-based dissertation structure.
Define what you will do to answer your research questions by presenting an integrated methodology that justifies steps via literature, data sources, and analysis choices.
Master essential research terminology, including quantitative and qualitative data, primary and secondary data, population and sample, generalizability, and the roles of variable, construct, hypothesis, and proposition in datasets.
Explore how research ethics protect people and animals, ensure voluntary consent, and minimize harm through anonymity. Learn data handling and regulatory compliance, including GDPR, early ethics approval.
Explore essential early considerations for your research methodology bootcamp, including university data requirements, ethics, practicality, and sampling, and align constructs, variables, and hypotheses with your data plan.
Explore the big six methodological decisions, from research paradigms and philosophy to sampling, data collection and analysis. Align choices with validity, reliability, trustworthiness, and limitations to strengthen your study design.
Explore the three key research paradigms: positivism, interpretivism, and pragmatism, and learn how they shape data collection, from quantitative surveys to qualitative interviews and mixed methods.
Explore how to select a research approach by aligning data collection with your question. Compare quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, and consider data types, analysis, time, and sample size.
Explore how research design links your question and approach to data collection, covering quantitative experimental and non-experimental designs, qualitative methods like case studies and ethnography, and mixed methods sequencing.
Explore data collection methods that link research questions to practical steps, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, blood or DNA analyses, observations, and timing choices (cross-sectional or longitudinal).
The lesson explains how to analyze qualitative data by coding transcripts, descriptions, dialogues, and documents, then applying content, thematic, narrative, or discourse analysis.
An overview of quantitative data analysis, covering data types (scale, categorical, ordinal), descriptive statistics and exploratory data analysis, and inferential statistics, plus tests like correlation, t-test, ANOVA, and chi-squared.
Define validity and reliability as accuracy and consistency in data collection and analysis, and explain trustworthiness with triangulation and reflexivity in qualitative research.
Explore how to choose research paradigms, align methodology components, and justify decisions with literature, theory, and practical constraints, using examples of qualitative and quantitative designs.
Acknowledge and describe research limitations openly, and mitigate their impact by addressing sampling size and representativeness, time and resource constraints, data access, and researcher bias in your write-up.
Learn to write the research methodology by communicating your choices, adapt the write-up to different contexts, structure a polished chapter with tables, figures, and reference management software.
Learn how to present methodology in three contexts—proposal, empirical article, and dissertation—emphasizing concise design, sample, data collection, and clear justification.
Structure your methodology chapter with a practical template, outlining introduction, philosophy, approach, design, sampling, data collection, and analysis.
Learn to use tables and figures in research methodology to clearly present samples, instruments, measurements, and study design with flow charts, including Prisma flow charts.
Learn to support and justify your methodological decisions by linking them to research questions, aims, and the literature, and compare qualitative and quantitative options with concise, referenced justifications.
Learn to use Mendeley to manage your reference library, automatically format in-text citations and references in APA/Harvard/MLA, and integrate with word processors for dissertations.
Explore a predominantly qualitative mindfulness study that combines narrative interpretive inquiry and action research, detailing sampling, data collection, themes, ethics, and trustworthiness.
Explains how a quantitative PhD methodology chapter outlines aims, design, sampling, instruments, and data analysis to test whether blue, green, or urban environments reduce stress.
View your methodology from the maker or reviewer perspective in this final section, learn what markers look for, identify common mistakes, and explore resources and tools.
Ensure external and internal consistency in your methodology by aligning paradigm, approach, data collection, and analysis with aims, and justify decisions clearly to convince reviewers.
Identify common methodology chapter mistakes, including missing data collection details, inconsistent method descriptions, and weak ethics considerations. Ensure alignment across methods, samples, and presentation for clear, credible research.
Explore academic and non-academic resources to strengthen your methodology, including Saunders Research Onion, Creswell, qualitative research tables, grad coach blog, lead, SPSS, in vivo, and a methodology template.
Complete all lessons and quizzes to download your certificate of completion from the top right corner by clicking get certificate. Share a rating or review to help future students.
If you're new to the daunting world of academic research and are feeling a little overwhelmed by the endless stream of jargon and technical language that makes up research methodology, this online course is for you. Within the course, we unpack and explore qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods-based approaches, so that you can get a holistic view of all the options (and how to choose between them).
Designed by Dr Kerryn Warren (PhD) and Derek Jansen (MBA), this research methodology course provides you with a step-by-step practical introduction to research methodology, from the high-level, conceptual matters such as research paradigms, philosophies and approaches, to the more practical and tactical choices, such as sampling, data collection and data analysis. By undertaking this course, you'll gain a solid foundation of knowledge with which you can develop a suitable methodology for your dissertation, thesis or research project.
Together, we’ll work through loads of practical examples to illustrate each point and review actual successful research methodology chapter, so that you can see exactly what it takes to craft a suitable methodology. Along the way, you can test your understanding with interactive pop quizzes and ask questions about each lesson as you work through the course.
This online course is specifically designed for both undergrad and postgrad students who are new to the academic research process. You don’t need to have any prior research proposal writing experience, as we unpack each concept from the ground up. While this course is geared towards research methodologies and methods within the sciences (especially the social sciences), the principles and concepts we’ll cover apply to the vast majority of research areas.
Beyond the engaging lessons and quizzes, you can use the carefully designed practical exercises to build your actual research methodology as you work through the course. In other words, by the end of the course, you won’t just have a certificate - you’ll have the foundations of a practical research methodology. That said, if you’d prefer to just focus on specific lessons, you’re most welcome to do so, as each lesson works perfectly well on a standalone basis.
But it doesn’t stop there. By joining the course, you’ll get full, unrestricted access to our meaty collection of additional research methodology-related resources. This includes a comprehensive template for your research methodology, hours upon hours of additional video lessons and webinars, as well as practical tools and resources.
In short, this course gives you everything you need to get started with your own research methodology. Best of all, you can easily work through it over a weekend or even a few weeknights - so you’re not signing up for a huge commitment.