ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what we mean by methodology and methods in the context of practice-based research and explains why this distinction matters. Very often the terms are used interchangeably, but for the practitioner researcher, particularly one undertaking a PhD programme of research, it is important to differentiate between them. In simple terms, a method is a process, a technique or a tool that is used in a research investigation. Practitioners coming to practice-based research are already well equipped with methods for practice which will be specific to the field they inhabit, and those methods will continue into the research. Here we consider method that can apply across any field or discipline, and only in the sense of having a research function. In any given research project, there will usually be several methods depending on the nature of the study, the questions to be addressed, the aims and procedures directed towards achieving certain results, the gaps in knowledge to be filled: in other words, the overall approach. We refer to the totality of the approach as the methodology, which literally means a study of methods undertaken in order to decide on which methods are most appropriate for the envisaged investigation. In a specific research context, the results of that study can be described as a system of methods comprising the research strategy and the selection of procedures, tools and techniques to be used. To illustrate what this means, we describe some of the methods adopted for practice-based PhD research programmes where the use of reflective practices and evidence-based studies frequently occur. In the chapters that follow, features of practice-based research methodology and its many kinds of methods are discussed, including models and frameworks for designing a practice-based research projects, how questions emerge through thinking, making, appraising and reflecting and the role and value of practice-based research to practice among other things.
