Methodology is the complete, step-by-step plan of how you will test your hypothesis. It must be specific enough that a complete stranger could replicate your experiment and get the same results. If there's any room for interpretation in how you carried something out, it isn't specific enough.
Your methodology is the backbone of your research. A good hypothesis with a sloppy methodology produces nothing you can trust or defend. This section gives you a general framework for designing and planning your experiment before you run any trials.
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This section only covers general scientific research methodology. Every field has its own conventions. Before finalising your methodology, read 2–3 recent papers in your specific field and study how they structure their methodology section, and model yours on what's standard in your discipline.
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General Experiment Workflow (labster.com)
Before writing any procedure, decide what type of study you are running. This determines things like…
A research design should address both internal validity and external validity. Understanding this helps you justify your design choice and honestly acknowledge limitations later.
Internal validity is whether or not your conducted study answers your research question accurately & without bias.
External validity determines whether the findings of the study can be generalised in a real-world setting
Make sure to document every variable (what’s measured or manipulated) to identify gaps before you begin - and if your experiment’s outline doesn’t really make sense to you, it likely won’t make sense to anyone else reading it.
Image sourced from Colorado Brewer’s Guild.
Independent Variable (IV)
The one variable you deliberately change. There should only ever be one in a controlled experiment.