Thread by @acagamic

How to write your paper's research methods section

(without your choices seeming arbitrary to reviewers)
↓

Writing Methods is where most people start their paper.

The goal:

Provide sufficient information for reviewers to assess the study's validity.

The explanation should be crystal clear, precise, and leave no room for confusion about how and why the experiment was conducted.

For example, a method section includes:

• Research design (in empirical research)
• Sample size and population
• The experimental protocol
• Data collection methods
• Data analysis methods
• Ethical considerations

Content only differs slightly across disciplines.

Start with a captivating intro paragraph.

It sets the stage for your research approach & design.

It gives readers a map of research process & results.

It provides decision-making context &
shows how results were achieved.

Detail:

• Objective
• Purpose
• Context

Introduce your research participants or data sources.

Share how you recruited participants or collected data.

Highlight key demographic details & sample size (power).

Discuss any inclusion or exclusion criteria.

Defend why your participants or data are perfect for your study.

Explain your research materials in detail.

Primary & secondary measures.
Include your survey or interview questions.
Quality of procedures, treatments, & variables.
Discuss the validity & reliability of your instruments.

Elaborate on how you piloted or tested them.

Redoable.

For each instrument used, report measures of the following:

Reliability:
• How consistently the method measures something
* Internal or test-retest method consistency

Validity:
• How precisely the method measures something
• Focus on construct validity or criterion validity

Everything that follows is procedure

• Data collection methods
• Research design (e.g., experimental, correlational, or descriptive)
• Data processing & diagnostics (e.g., outlier removal)
• Data analysis strategy (e.g., comparison or regression tests)

Let's dive into your research design.

In the world of experimental variables, we have

• Independent
• Dependent
• Confounding 🙀

An independent variable changes a dependent variable.

Confounding variables influence the dependent variable

but not the independent variable.

Report procedural details:

• How you assigned participants to different conditions

→ Randomization (blocks, stratified, clusters),
Latin Square...

• Instructions given to the participants in each group
• Interventions for each group
• The setting & length of each session

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Explain your analysis.

Discuss how you prepared, coded, analyzed, and verified the data.

Mention any software or tools used.

Break it down:

Explain those statistical tests,
including hypothesis testing.

Justify why they matter.

Address the bias & errors you controlled for.

Briefly state limitations & ethical considerations.

Expose the flaws:
• What could cripple your methodology and skew the results?

Ethical ground check:
• Did you secure informed consent and ethics review board approval?

Address any confidentiality issues.

Summarize your methodology:

Restate briefly your

• approach
• data sources
• collection tools
• analysis procedures

Highlight the meticulous, systematic way you conducted the research.

Remember, it's all in the details that enable others to replicate it.

And that wraps up thread 16 out of 30 threads I'm doing in June.

Thanks for coming along for this ride.

Some more information can be found in this paper:

Kallet, R. H. (2004). How to write the methods section of a research paper. Respiratory care, 49(10), 1229-1232.

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