Chapter Three
[Chapter
3 presents the methods used in the research as well as supporting information. This
Chapter should contain sufficient information for replication of the study by
other researchers. The introduction to
Chapter 3 tells the reader what the Chapter is to be about and how the Chapter
will be organized. The introduction should also provide a brief, restated
sentence or short paragraph regarding the topic of the study. According to APA 6th
edition, this section should not have a heading.]
Research
Tradition(s)
[Every
research design has its roots in one or more established research traditions
(Overarching methods of doing research studies). The researcher should briefly
provide the reader with information about the origins of the method(s), which
are as follows: The researcher often must go to the literature to learn more
about the pertinent research traditions before planning their research. This
exploration may produce copious information. Lengthy discussions about the
research tradition should be avoided, as what appears can easily be found in
research texts and amounts to a treatise of the researcher’s self-education
process. What appears in this section should be a summary of these findings,
evidence that the researcher is grounded in the tradition selected, and how
this tradition(s) is applied to this research study.]
Research
Questions, Propositions, and Hypotheses (as appropriate)
[The
research questions, propositions, and hypotheses (as applicable) should be
restated here so that the methods chapter, if segregated from the entire
document, would provide sufficient information for replication of the study.]
Research Design
[The
research design includes several components. Each component should have its
heading. You can remove this description, leaving the heading, followed
immediately by the Population and Sample sub-section. You need to provide
sufficient details in each section so that someone else could replicate this
study without needing to reach out to you for the details.]
Population and
Sample
[Determining
the population of a study necessitates developing the criteria for participating
in the particular study and identifying the group that would fit the criteria.
Describing the sample entails recognition that the entire population for most
studies would be very large and that there are significant and legitimate
constraints on using the entire population. Most studies, then, utilize a
sample, a subset of the population that has been identified. The criteria for
the sample must be described and may result in refinement of the description of
the population as the limits and constraints are taken into consideration and
justified.]
Sampling Procedure
[To
support the robustness of the study, the sample for the study must be selected.
The researcher must present a substantiated rationale for the sample size and
how the sample will be selected.]
Instrumentation
[In
quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, researchers utilize instruments
for data collection. The instrument may be a survey, interview protocol, or
some other tool that must be determined prior to data collection. A discussion
of the instrument(s) must be presented in this Chapter (although appendices may
be used for lengthy documents). The presentation should include a rationale for
each segment of the instrument, which illuminates the theories, constructs,
sources, etc., contributing to the development of each segment of the
instrument. Be aware of any copyright issues associated with preexisting
instruments.]
Validity
[The
researcher must present evidence that the instrument(s) performs as the
researcher claims it will perform before the data for the study is collected.
The researcher should also present the method(s) used to determine the validity
of the instrumentation (i.e. Construct, content, and other validity tests).
When the instrument is preexistent (in most cases), you must provide validity
information made available by the originator of the instrument. Where you
create your instrument, you must provide this information through field tests
and other methods of confirming validity. Qualitative studies use a field test
to validate the interview questions. A field test utilizes subject matter
experts to confirm validity.]
Reliability
[For
reliability, the researcher must ascertain whether the instrument(s)
consistently gather(s) the same information over time and circumstance. There’s
an assumption that accompanies this: what is being measured stays the same over
time. As you can imagine, this may be not easy to ascertain in some studies.
However, when quantitative instruments are employed, the researcher must
provide evidence of the reliability of the instrument. You likely use
Test-Retest Reliability measures and Inter-rater reliability measures. When the
instrument is preexistent (in most cases), you must provide reliability
information made available by the originator of the instrument. Where you
create your own instrument, you must provide this information through a pilot
study and other methods of confirming reliability. A pilot study utilizes a
subset of the population (sample) of participants to provide a set of data to
compare to the full main study results.]
Data Collection
[The
researcher describes how the data will be collected utilizing the
aforementioned instrument(s). This section details the protocol from initial
contact with the participants through handling and storage of the data.]
Data Analysis
[This
section contains a thorough step-by-step description of how the data will be
analyzed, substantiated by the literature, and/or other rationale that is
evaluated by the researcher’s committee.]
Ethical
Considerations
[This
section should include a discussion of the ethical issues and considerations
you will address and the methods employed to mitigate risk to participants in
the study. The section needs to address the concerns as outlined in the Belmont
Report, as created for the National Commission for the Protection of Human
Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The section must also note the
use of an Informed Consent that will be required of each participant. You must
note the ethical concerns, even when no human subjects will be used, by use of
a statement to the effect that the study uses systems or other processes that
require no human interaction or participation in the course of the research
effort.]
Summary of Chapter
Three
[The
researcher provides a summary of the key elements of Chapter 3 and a brief
description of the upcoming Chapter 4.]
