Supervisors read methodology chapters with a specific set of expectations. When those expectations are violated, marks are lost — often without the student understanding why. Here are the eight most common methodology chapter errors, explained from the examiner's perspective.
Mistake 1: Confusing Research Design with Research Method
Research design is the overall strategy (descriptive, exploratory, explanatory). Research method is the specific technique (survey, interview, observation). Students routinely conflate the two, writing "I used a questionnaire design" — which makes no sense. Examiners notice this immediately because it signals a shallow understanding of methodology.
Mistake 2: Unjustified Paradigm Choice
Stating "I chose an interpretivist approach" without explaining why it is appropriate for your research question is insufficient. You must argue that the nature of your research question — its focus on meaning, experience, or context — necessitates an interpretivist stance. Justify, don't just label.
Mistake 3: Underpowered Samples Presented as Representative
Claiming that a sample of 20 questionnaire responses represents industry-wide findings is a critical error. Sample size must be justified with reference to power analysis (for quantitative studies) or saturation (for qualitative). If your sample is small, frame your findings as exploratory and acknowledge the generalisability limitation explicitly.
Mistake 4: Copying Methodology from a Similar Study
Students sometimes replicate another dissertation's methodology verbatim — same design, same sample size, same analysis approach — without justifying whether it is appropriate for their own research question. Examiners frequently spot this because the methodology doesn't quite fit the stated research question.
Mistake 5: Skipping Validity and Reliability
For quantitative studies: report Cronbach's alpha for scale reliability, content validity, and construct validity. For qualitative: address credibility, transferability, and confirmability. These sections are not optional. Omitting them signals methodological immaturity.
Mistake 6: Ethics Section as an Afterthought
Many students write two sentences about ethics. A proper ethics section addresses: informed consent, anonymity, right to withdraw, data storage, and IRB/university ethics approval. One paragraph minimum, with specific detail about how each principle was upheld in your study.
Mistake 7: No Limitations Discussion
Acknowledging limitations is a sign of academic maturity, not weakness. Examiners expect to see an honest appraisal of what your chosen methodology cannot capture. No study is perfect — the examiner knows this. The question is whether you know it.
Mistake 8: Wrong Chapter Order
The methodology chapter should flow: Philosophy → Approach → Strategy → Method → Sampling → Data Collection → Analysis → Validity/Reliability → Ethics → Limitations. Students who write it in the wrong order often receive feedback that the chapter "lacks coherence" — which is genuinely a structural, not content, problem.