Research methodology

All thesis or dissertation work, in order to reach a successful conclusion, a minimally valuable final result, must follow a research methodology, a certain systematization in the use of tools and techniques that seek to provide an answer to a problem that can always be condensed into a series of questions, the real drivers of the research. The methodology must be coherent with what is going to be investigated, the proposed objectives and, eventually, corroborate the hypotheses that are proposed. Research activity -at its academic level- is an invigorating intellectual exercise for students in any area of knowledge; it stimulates critical judgment, argumentative skills, and the desire to explore, attributes that will be essential for them to join an increasingly demanding labor market. Before defining a research methodology, it is essential to analyze the available resources -physical, material and temporal-, define the epistemological approach or paradigm from which the problem is to be approached, and then determine whether to adopt a quantitative or qualitative approach, or a mixture of both, which could be a qualitative-quantitative study. In today's world, Internet research resources are available to millions of users, and by making intelligent use of them it is possible to develop a worthy and approvable research. In any case, whether the quantitative or qualitative approach was chosen, skills can be tested in the field, in face-to-face contact with the protagonists of the research, who can be surveyed, interviewed, participate in focus groups, or simply tell their stories.