Plan: How to choose methods and theme

Factor #3: Practicalities
When choosing a research methodology, there will always be a tension between doing what’s theoretically best (i.e., the most scientifically rigorous research design) and doing what’s practical, given your constraints. This is the nature of doing research and there are always trade-offs, as with anything else.
But what constraints, you ask?
When you’re evaluating your methodological options, you need to consider the following constraints:

1. 
   Data access
   
2. 
   Time
   
3. 
   Money
   
4. 
   Equipment and software
   
5. 
   Your knowledge and skills
   

Let’s look at each of these.
Constraint #1: Data access
The first practical constraint you need to consider is your access to data. If you’re going to be undertaking primary research, you need to think critically about the sample of respondents you realistically have access to. For example, if you plan to use in-person interviews, you need to ask yourself how many people you’ll need to interview, whether they’ll be agreeable to being interviewed, where they’re located, and so on.
If you’re wanting to undertake a quantitative approach using surveys to collect data, you’ll need to consider how many responses you’ll require to achieve statistically significant results. For many statistical tests, a sample of a few hundred respondents is typically needed to develop convincing conclusions.
So, think carefully about what data you’ll need access to, how much data you’ll need and how you’ll collect it. The last thing you want is to spend a huge amount of time on your research only to find that you can’t get access to the required data.

Constraint #2: Time

The next constraint is time. If you’re undertaking research as part of a PhD, you may have a fairly open-ended time limit, but this is unlikely to be the case for undergrad and Masters-level projects. So, pay attention to your timeline, as the data collection and analysis components of different methodologies have a