Refining and Formulating Research Methodology
Film and Television Studies · Department of Audiovisual Production
A guided ten-step path from your research problem and questions to a coherent, justified and feasible methodology — approach, paradigm, design, sampling, data collection, analysis, ethics and quality — with transparent rule-based feedback, an editable methodology draft and a final report.
Work through the ten steps. Each step explains what is needed, gives an example from film or television research, and checks your entries for consistency. Your progress is saved on this device only.
Methodological terms are often used as if they were interchangeable. They are not: a paradigm, an approach, a design, a data collection method and an analytical technique answer different questions about your study.
No matching term.
Each design is a logic for the whole study, with typical data, a discipline-specific example and a caution. Mixed-methods designs are distinguished by when the strands are collected and how they are integrated (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018).
In film and television research, the sample may be people, audiovisual texts, online content or documents. Each needs explicit selection criteria and an argument for adequacy rather than a fixed number.
Choose analysis that fits both your question and your data. The labels under each approach show the kinds of data it is usually applied to.
The Research Methodology Quality Checker and the Research Alignment Matrix read your Builder entries and update as you work. The five-point rubric and the final report are in Step 10 of the Builder.
The checks below read your Builder entries. They test consistency, not quality of thought.
How the problem, questions, objectives, theory, design, data collection and analysis connect. Filled cells are marked ●; links are checked by simple rules.
Two clearly separated kinds of example: hypothetical teaching examples written for this tool, and published studies whose methods are summarised from the articles themselves (see References).
The attached reference file — methodology tutorials and film, television and audiovisual research articles — is the foundation of this tool. It is supplemented with established methodological literature and recent studies on sampling, analysis, quality and reporting. Items marked “Details to be completed” still need full publication details.
Journal quartile rankings (Q1/Q2) and indexing are not stated here because SJR and JCR classifications change every year; check a journal’s current status at scimagojr.com or in Journal Citation Reports. No Arabic-language methodological source could be verified to the standard of the other references, so none is listed; the Arabic terminology follows common usage in Arabic research methods teaching. The tutorial videos in the attached file are practical guidance, not peer-reviewed research.
This platform helps researchers and postgraduate students in the Cinema and Television track of the Department of Audio-Visual Production to select, justify, develop, evaluate and refine a research methodology, with priority given to qualitative and mixed-methods research.
All suggestions, consistency checks, draft text and suggested scores come from transparent, rule-based JavaScript — word lists, option metadata and editable templates that can be read in the source files. The tool does not use artificial intelligence, does not verify references and does not judge the validity of a methodology.
Your answers are saved in this browser’s local storage only, so that you can return to them later. Nothing is sent to a server. You can export, import or delete your data at any time.