methodology

(mĕth'ə-dŏl'ə-jē)
n., pl., -gies.

1. 1. A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods: the methodology of genetic studies; a poll marred by faulty methodology.
   2. The study or theoretical analysis of such working methods.
2. The branch of logic that deals with the general principles of the formation of knowledge.
3. Usage Problem. Means, technique, or procedure; method.

methodological meth'od·o·log'i·cal (mĕth'ə-də-lŏj'ĭ-kəl) adj.
methodologically meth'od·o·log'i·cal·ly adv.

USAGE NOTE   Methodology can properly refer to the theoretical analysis of the methods appropriate to a field of study or to the body of methods and principles particular to a branch of knowledge. In this sense, one may speak of objections to the methodology of a geographic survey (that is, objections dealing with the appropriateness of the methods used) or of the methodology of modern cognitive psychology (that is, the principles and practices that underlie research in the field). In recent years, however, methodology has been increasingly used as a pretentious substitute for method in scientific and technical contexts, as in The oil company has not yet decided on a methodology for restoring the beaches. People may have taken to this practice by influence of the adjective methodological to mean "pertaining to methods." Methodological may have acquired this meaning because people had already been using the more ordinary adjective methodical to mean "orderly, systematic." But the misuse of methodology obscures an important conceptual distinction between the tools of scientific investigation (properly methods) and the principles that determine how such tools are deployed and interpreted.

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A specific way of performing an operation that implies precise deliverables at the end of each stage.

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The study of the methods to be used in any form of inquiry. The methods used in the study of politics include archival research; the study of previously printed materials; interview-based research; textual and contextual analysis of the arguments of past political thinkers; comparative government based on case studies, and quantitative research, often based on conducting one's own surveys or analysing other people's. All of these methods give rise to questions of methodology, although it is sometimes exclusively (but wrongly) associated with quantitative analysis.

The general study of method in particular fields of enquiry: science, history, mathematics, psychology, philosophy, ethics. Obviously any field can be approached more or less successfully and more or less intelligently. It is tempting, then, to suppose that there is one right mode of enquiry logically guaranteed to find the truth if any method can. The task of the philosopher of a discipline would then be to reveal the correct method and to unmask counterfeits. Although this belief lay behind much positivist philosophy of science, few philosophers now subscribe to it. It places too great a confidence in the possibility of a purely a priori ‘first philosophy’, or standpoint beyond that of the working practitioners, from which their best efforts can be measured as good or bad. This standpoint now seems to many philosophers to be a fantasy. The more modest task of methodology is to investigate the methods that are actually adopted at various historical stages of investigation into different areas, with the aim not so much of criticizing but more of systematizing the presuppositions of a particular field at a particular time (see also naturalized epistemology). There is still a role for local methodological disputes within the community of investigators of some phenomenon, with one approach charging that another is unsound or unscientific, but logic and philosophy will not, on the modern view, provide an independent arsenal of weapons for such battles, which indeed often come to seem more like political bids for ascendancy within a discipline.

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A general term applied to the procedures and approaches used to carry out a piece of archaeological research whether it is an excavation, survey, artefact study, or any other kind of analysis. Inherent to the methodology will be a series of underlying assumptions, theories, principles, and philosophies relating to the conceptualization of the material under study and the categories that will be used to define, describe, analyse, and talk about it. A methodology is usually written down as a method statement relating to a particular enquiry.

The science dealing with principles of procedure in research and study.

For a list of words related to methodology, see:

• Notions, Ideas, and Methods - methodology: study of the nature of inquiry

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See words rhyming with "methodology."

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - metodelære, metodologi, metode

Nederlands (Dutch)
methodologie

Français (French)
n. - méthodologie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Methodologie

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - μεθοδολογία

Italiano (Italian)
metodologia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - metodologia (f)

Русский (Russian)
методология

Español (Spanish)
n. - metodología

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - metodologi

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
方法学, 方法论

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 方法學, 方法論

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 방법론

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 方法学, 方法論, 教育方法論

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) طرائق, أساليب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תורת השיטות המדעיות, מתודולגיה‬

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