3 Research methodology
Your research methodology starts with your research question: what is it that you want to find out? Identifying the question you want to answer and writing it down will help you to decide what information you need to answer it. For example, imagine you want to contribute to the Law Commission’s review of the law on financial settlements after divorce. Your research question will determine what methods you use, as can be seen in Table 1.
| Research question | Research methods |
|---|---|
| Does the public understand the law on financial settlements? | Survey for the public, focus groups |
| Do the courts use the principle of equality when dividing assets after divorce? | Review of a sample of court decisions through court reports, survey of family law solicitors and judges |
| How often do divorced couples agree financial arrangements after divorce, instead of court proceedings? | Statistical information on number of divorces compared to number of court proceedings |
There are a variety of different research methods you can use to obtain information, and you will need to choose the most appropriate for your project. In your final report, you will need to ‘explain why [you] are using a particular method or technique and why [you] are not using others so that research results are capable of being evaluated either by the researcher himself or by others’ (Kothari, 2004, p. 8). To do this, there are four important principles you need to consider when planning your research, and these are explored in the next activity.