If you’re a doctoral researcher, you’re often expected to understand the relationship between methodology and methods from the get go. These two terms get used interchangeably in casual conversation, yet they refer to different aspects of the research process. And understanding the relationship and the differences between the two isn’t about getting terminology precise. It’s about a deeper understanding of how knowledge is produced and what it means for you to conduct rigorous research.

Methods are the practical tools and techniques you use to collect and analyse data. They’re the concrete procedures, the hands-on activities that generate the empirical material from which you get your results. When you conduct interviews, distribute surveys, observe classroom interactions, analyse documents, or run statistical tests, you’re using methods. These are the tangible, describable actions that any researcher could potentially adapt or replicate for their own purposes. Methods answer the question: what will you actually do to gather and make sense of your data?

Methodology works at a higher level of abstraction. It’s the theoretical and philosophical framework that justifies and guides the selection and application of particular methods. Methodology is concerned with the underlying logic of inquiry, the assumptions about knowledge and reality that inform how you approach research questions. It’s your reasoning about why certain methods are appropriate for addressing specific questions within particular research traditions/paradigms. When you discuss methodology, you’re examining the relationship between your research questions, your philosophical assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the practical procedures you employ.

I’ll try to make this distinction through a concrete example or two. Let’s look at what you might think about when you consider how methodology shapes your methodological choices. If you’re working within a post-positivist framework, you might use surveys and statistical analysis on the understanding that these methods can reveal generalisable patterns in social phenomena. Another researcher working from an interpretivist position might use the same methods but approach them entirely differently, An interpretivist would see survey responses not as measurements of objective truths but as discursive constructions that reveal how participants make sense of their worlds. So while the actual methods look somewhat similar, the methodology changes their meaning and purpose entirely.

This is why a methods section in your thesis or an article is never sufficient on its own. Without a clear explanation of methodology, your readers/examiners/reviewers cannot properly evaluate whether your methods were appropriate or understand what your findings actually mean. Methodology provides a philosophical scaffolding that holds your research design together and makes it coherent. It explains not just what you did, but why those actions made sense given your research questions and understandings about knowledge.

Here’s another example – ethnography. As a method, ethnography involves prolonged engagement in a field site, participant observation, informal conversations, and detailed field notes. But ethnographic methodology involves much more than this set of techniques. It requires your commitment to understanding social life from the perspective of participants, recognising that meaning is culturally constructed and context-dependent, and an acknowledgment that your presence inevitably shapes what can be known. The methodology shapes how you enter the field, what you pay attention to, how you record your observations, and how you analyse and represent what you’ve learned. 

But here’s the thing. The relationship between methodology and methods is not hierarchical and it’s not linear, despite methodology’s greater abstraction. They’re what we call mutually constitutive. Methodology without methods remains abstract philosophy, unable to engage with empirical reality. Methods without methodology become mere technique, lacking direction or justification. Strong and defensible research requires both: a clear methodological framework that provides coherence and a set of methods that you use – skilfully – to address specific research questions.

Your decisions about the methodology-methods relationship have practical consequences. If you’re committed to participatory action research, you cannot simply decide to use experiments and maintain methodological consistency. The methodology’s emphasis on collaborative knowledge production, power-sharing, and practical action is incompatible with an experimental method’s requirement for researcher control and predetermined interventions. Similarly, if you’re a discourse analyst, you cannot treat interview transcripts as transparent windows into participants’ thoughts and experiences without abandoning your methodological commitment to viewing language as generative (it makes things happen)  rather than just representation.

And another example just to make the point. Understanding grounded theory as a methodology means you need to engage with symbolic interactionism, with questions about how theory emerges from data, and with debates about whether you can or should bracket your theoretical preconceptions. This is quite different from learning practical steps of coding (open, axial and selective) though both are necessary for research using grounded theory.

Grasping the methodology-methods distinction helps to clarify what’s actually required in a thesis, probably but not always in a methodology chapter. It’s not enough to describe your data collection tools and techniques in detail, though this is absolutely necessary. Your methodology chapter must articulate the philosophical and theoretical assumptions underpinning your research, explain how these assumptions shape your approach to knowledge production, justify why your chosen methods are appropriate given these commitments and demonstrate your awareness of the possibilities, boundaries, blank and blind spots that your methodological framework creates.

The distinction between methodology and methods also matters for how you evaluate research quality. Methodological coherence is a key criterion for assessing research. Does the methodology align with the research questions? Are the methods consistent with the stated methodology? Is the analysis appropriate given the epistemological framework? You cannot answer these questions by examining methods alone. They require understanding the methodological framework that gives those methods meaning and purpose.

It’s likely that supervisors will push you to engage more deeply with methodological literature as well as read about specific techniques. In practice, you’ll probably develop your understanding of this distinction gradually, through the process of actually doing research. You may even start with methods, learning specific techniques before fully grasping the methodological frameworks that underpin them. Starting with the practical isn’t a problem as long as it’s followed by deeper engagement with methodology. Research is a craft that you learn through both theory and practice, and your understandings generally develop alongside and with practical experience.

And yes it’s worth the effort to get to grips with methodology and methods. Understanding the two will make your research more thoughtful, coherent, and defensible. It helps you make principled decisions about design, identify any assumptions embedded in your work, and communicate your approach clearly to others. 

In sum. Your methods tell us what you did as a researcher. Your methodology tells us why those actions constitute legitimate and meaningful inquiry.

PS Some regular patter readers may have figured out that I am working up to a book on keywords and academic writing… so expect more of this focus.