The Method Catalogue: Ten Names Without Definitions
Ten method names in a three-column grid, on a slide titled "Activities" that contains no activity. This page prints the grid as it stands, traces each label to whatever the rest of the material can be made to yield, and marks the ones that lead nowhere.
The grid, exactly as the slide prints it
The preceding slide ends with the line "Methods include: (next slide)", so the grid is the promised catalogue. It is presented as a table of three columns and four rows, with the last two cells of the second and third columns empty.
THE METHOD GRID, REPRODUCED AS LAID OUT INCLUDING THE EMPTY CELLS
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Structured interviewing | Content analysis | Semi- or unstructured interviewing |
| Self-completion questionnaires | Secondary data analysis | Focus groups |
| Structured observation | Ethnography / participant observation | Conversation or discourse analysis |
| Documentary analysis | (empty) | (empty) |
The columns carry no headings in the source and are not labelled by data type, paradigm or anything else. The grouping, if there is one, is not stated.
A slide titled "Activities" that contains no activity
The grid is filed under the heading "Activities". It contains no task, no question and no instruction. Later in the same deck a second slide is also titled "Activities" and does carry activities, in the form of set readings. The week's one genuinely assessable task sits on a third slide that is not labelled as an activity at all.
This matters practically rather than editorially. The only enumeration of methods in the entire week is filed under a heading that conceals it, which is why a reader working from the deck's headings alone will not find it.
Nothing is attached to any of the ten
A method entry that a reader could act on carries a definition, the kind of data it produces, what it demands in access and sample, what skill it assumes, roughly what it costs in time, what it is good for and what it is bad at, and a worked instance. The grid carries none of those, for any of the ten.
- No definition of any label, on this slide or anywhere else in the week.
- No statement of the data type any method yields.
- No sample, access or skill requirement.
- No time or cost indication, absolute or comparative.
- No benefit and no disadvantage for any of the ten.
- No worked example and no reading attached to any individual method.
Where each label can be traced, and where it cannot
The material does define some methods - in a different week, under different names, at a different level of the framework. The table below records, for each label, the nearest treatment anywhere in the supplied material and where this library carries it. "Nearest treatment" is not a claim that the two are the same thing; where the source does not say they are, the table says so.
THE TEN LABELS AGAINST WHAT THE MATERIAL ELSEWHERE SUPPLIES
| Label in the grid | Nearest treatment in the supplied material | Definition available? |
|---|---|---|
| Structured interviewing | Used in the qualitative week purely as the thing unstructured interviewing is contrasted with, and never defined. The data collection week separately names "Structured open-ended interviews", which "provide standard questions to give each respondent the same stimulus". | Not under this label |
| Self-completion questionnaires | The data collection week teaches questionnaires at length - design, wording, response formats, response rates - but never uses this label. | Subject taught, label unused |
| Structured observation | The qualitative week defines "Direct observation": the researcher "doesn't become a participant in the context but tries to remain unobtrusive". | Different label defined |
| Documentary analysis | The qualitative week defines "Documentation" as written materials and other documents, with a list of eight kinds. | Different label defined |
| Content analysis | Appears in the earlier material only as a label on the methodology tier of the methodological pyramid, where it is one of the labels that tier leaves undefined. | Never, anywhere |
| Secondary data analysis | The earlier material defines secondary data - "existing data gathered by other people/organisations for other purposes" - but not any method of analysing it. | Data type only |
| Ethnography / participant observation | The qualitative week defines each separately and nests them: ethnography is the "study of the culture of a defined group" whose "Most common approach is participant observation". The data collection week defines ethnography differently again. | Both defined, structured differently |
| Semi- or unstructured interviewing | The qualitative week defines unstructured interviewing and gives four points of difference from structured interviewing. Semi-structured interviewing is defined nowhere in the supplied material. | Half the label only |
| Focus groups | One sentence, in the data collection week: "Focus groups occur when the interviewer becomes a facilitator in a group of respondents". Nothing on size, recruitment, moderation, recording or analysis. | One sentence only |
| Conversation or discourse analysis | The data collection week's notes define discourse analysis as the "Study of 'naturally occurring' discourse". Conversation analysis is defined nowhere. | Half the label only |
Compiled across the research design, qualitative research and data collection weeks. "Nearest treatment" is not a claim that the two are the same thing; where the source does not say they are, the third column says so. The source itself never brings these labels together for comparison.
Four of the ten are methodologies on the framework taught earlier
The earlier material in the same subject uses a three-tier pyramid: philosophies at the base, methodologies in the middle, data collection methods at the apex. Four of the labels in this week's methods grid sit on that pyramid's methodology tier, not its methods tier.
In the grid as methods
- Content analysis
- Conversation or discourse analysis
- Documentary analysis
- Ethnography / participant observation
On the earlier pyramid as methodologies
- Content analysis - methodology tier
- Discourse analysis - methodology tier
- Documentary analysis - methodology tier
- Ethnography - methodology tier
The naming conflicts, one by one
Four specific mismatches are worth carrying into your own writing, because each of them will make a reader think you have used two terms for one thing, or one term for two.
FOUR NAMING CONFLICTS ACROSS THE WEEKS
| In this grid | Elsewhere in the material | What the source does not say |
|---|---|---|
| Structured observation | Direct observation, with a definition | Whether structured and direct observation are the same method under two names |
| Documentary analysis | Documentation, with a definition and eight kinds of document | Whether analysing documents and the documentation data source are the same thing |
| Ethnography / participant observation, as one cell | Ethnography defined, with participant observation as its most common approach and its own separate definition | Whether the two are synonyms, as the grid implies, or one contains the other, as the later week states |
| Semi- or unstructured interviewing, as one cell | Unstructured interviewing defined, with structured interviewing as an undefined contrast | What semi-structured interviewing is, or where its boundary with either neighbour falls |
Using a catalogue that carries no definitions
The grid is still useful, provided you treat it as an index of candidates rather than as teaching. The sequence below is this page's, not the source's.
Turning a label into a specified method
Take the label as a candidate, not a decision
Ten names in a grid tell you what is on the menu in this material. They do not tell you what any of them involves, and the material's own lead-in, "Methods include", says the menu is not complete.
Get the definition from a text you have read
Use a research methods text, cite it, and quote its definition rather than paraphrasing from memory. Where the label is compound - semi- or unstructured interviewing, conversation or discourse analysis - decide which half you mean and say so.
Decide which level you are operating at
Method or methodology. Four of the ten sit at both levels across the subject's own materials, so the choice has to be yours and has to be stated once, early, and kept.
Specify the instrument, not the label
Name what the participant or the document actually encounters: how many questions, of what kind, over what period, recorded how. A label in a methodology chapter is not a method; see Data Collection Methods for the specification approach.
Run it through the selection questions
Access, time, money, how it will be judged, reach, ethics, users. Those are the source's own tests and they are set out in Selecting a Research Method.
Record what you had to import
Every definition you brought in from outside the unit material is a citation you owe. Keep the list as you go; it is the backbone of the methodology chapter's reference list.
What a second source has to supply
The shortest honest statement of the position: for eight of the ten labels you need an external definition before you can use the term in writing, and for two of them you need an external definition plus a decision about which half of a compound label you mean.
Where the library can carry you further, it does. Interview forms and the choice between them are covered in Interview Types and Choosing Between Them; the qualitative methods the later week does define are in Qualitative Methods: The Commonly Used Set and Six Approaches to Collecting Qualitative Data; questionnaire construction is in Designing a Questionnaire. The consolidated record of what the material never teaches is in What This Material Does Not Teach.
What to carry forward
- Ten labels, zero definitions. The grid is an index of candidates, not teaching, and the source's "Methods include" makes it non-exhaustive as well.
- Content analysis, secondary data analysis, self-completion questionnaires and conversation or discourse analysis appear nowhere else in the two weeks. Treat them as terms you must source entirely from elsewhere.
- Structured observation, documentary analysis, ethnography with participant observation, and semi- or unstructured interviewing all reappear later under different names or a different structure. The source never says whether the pairs match.
- Four of the ten sit on the methodology tier of the framework taught earlier in the same subject. Pick a level, state it, keep it.
- Two of the week's three objectives depend on this slide and are defeated by it. Say so in your own work if you are asked to compare methods using this material alone.
Frequently asked questions
Why does this page not define the ten methods?
Because the supplied teaching material does not, and this library does not attribute invented definitions to a source that lacks them. A reader who knows they need a second source is better served than one given a plausible definition that no examiner could trace back to the unit material. Definitions are available in the cited methods texts, and the right move is to take one from a text you have read and cite it.
Are these ten methods the complete list?
No. The slide that introduces the grid says "Methods include", which makes the set explicitly non-exhaustive, and the source states no count and numbers nothing. The earlier material's pyramid carries thirteen data collection labels at its apex, which overlap only partly with these ten.
Is ethnography a method or a methodology?
The material says both. This week's grid lists "Ethnography / participant observation" among methods; the earlier pyramid places ethnography on the methodology tier; the qualitative week defines ethnography as an approach whose most common technique is participant observation. Nothing in the source reconciles these. Choose a level, state it in your methodology chapter, and be consistent.
What is the difference between structured observation and direct observation?
The source does not say. Structured observation is a bare label in this grid; direct observation is defined in the qualitative week as observation in which the researcher does not become a participant and tries to remain unobtrusive. The two names never appear in the same place, and no statement is made about whether they refer to the same method.
Where can I find out what semi-structured interviewing is?
Not in the supplied material - it is named once, inside a compound label, and defined nowhere. The material defines unstructured interviewing and uses structured interviewing as an undefined contrast, leaving the middle case empty. Take the definition from a methods text and cite it, and see the library's interview pages for how the later material handles interview types.
Can I use this grid as the method section of my proposal?
Not on its own. A label is not a method: a reader cannot tell from "documentary analysis" what you will read, how much of it, on what selection rule, or how you will treat it. Use the grid to pick a candidate, then specify the instrument and cite the definition you are working to.
References and source attribution
- O'Leary, Z. 2010, The essential guide to doing your research project, Sage Publications - the only work referenced by the research design week's slide deck.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing, Chapter 1, p. 50 - the source of the methodological pyramid referred to on this page.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge.
- The supplied teaching source: the research design week's slide deck, slides 12 and 13, read against the qualitative research and data collection weeks' treatment of the same labels.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Give me a cited definition for each of the ten methods in this grid.
- Which of the ten methods suits a question about how project teams make escalation decisions?
- Help me decide whether to treat documentary analysis as a method or a methodology in my proposal.
- Draft a specification for a semi-structured interview method, since the teaching material never defines one.
- Compare the ten method labels with the thirteen on the methodological pyramid and show me the overlap.