Conceptual framework, methodology and analysis: what’s the difference?
Conceptual framework, methodology and analysis. Ping-pong, back and forth you go, wondering what belongs where and if you’re just going to end up with three identical paragraphs that will give your examiner a black cat moment when they read your thesis (Matrix analogy, sorry-not-sorry).
If you’ve ever cut a paragraph from one chapter of your thesis, pasted it into another, decided it doesn’t belong there either and moved it back again... welcome to thesis paragraph pinball.
This happens a lot when you’re trying to separate your conceptual framework, methodology and analysis because these elements of your work are interconnected so putting them into neat, separate boxes isn’t easy. Or desirable to be fair. Yep, hello synthesis my old friend.
What you DO need to keep in mind is that they’re doing different jobs. They’re all employees of My Thesis Inc. but working in different departments.
Here’s a simple way to think about them.
Imagine you’re researching:
How first-generation university students experience a sense of belonging at university.
Your conceptual framework: How am I THINKING about this?
Your conceptual framework contains the ideas that help you understand what you’re studying.
In our example, those ideas might include:
belonging, identity and social class.
These concepts give you something to think with. They help you decide what might be important when you're considering students’ experiences.
So ask:
What ideas am I using to help me understand my topic?
That's your conceptual framework.
Your methodology: How am I STUDYING this?
Now we have a different question.
How are you going to investigate this, and why does that approach make sense?
If you want to understand students’ experiences of belonging, for example, you might decide that you need to talk to students in depth and give them space to describe those experiences in their own words.
Your methodology explains the thinking behind decisions like these.
It’s not just:
“I did interviews.”
It’s:
“Why was this a sensible way to answer my research question?”
So ask:
How am I going to study this, and why?
Your analysis: How am I MAKING SENSE of this?
Now you’ve collected your data.
You have hours of interviews and approximately 7,000 pages of transcripts.
Okay, slight exaggeration, but that’s how it feels. Just word overwhelm, urgh.
Analysis is about how you’re going to make sense of all that data.
What are you noticing?
What patterns are developing?
What might those patterns mean?
How do they help you answer your research question?
So ask:
How am I going to make sense of the data I've collected?
That's analysis.
“But I still feel like I’m repeating myself”
You might be, I would be surprised if you weren’t. Not a problem though - the same idea can show up to do some work in all of your different thesis departments.
Key thing to ask when you have the deja-vu tingling feeling is:
“What job is this paragraph doing HERE?”
Is it explaining:
… how I’m thinking about my topic?
… how and why I’m studying it this way?
or
… how I’m making sense of my data?
That question can also reveal why some paragraphs feel impossible to place and you keep moving them around in a dizzying game of thesis muscial chairs. When you’re doing this, it’s probably because the paragraph is trying to do all three jobs at once.
In that case, stop moving the poor thing around your thesis and split it up.
TLDR
If you remember nothing else, remember this:
Conceptual framework: What ideas am I using to understand my topic?
Methodology: How am I going to study it, and why?
Analysis: How am I going to make sense of the data?
They should connect but they don’t need to say exactly the same thing.
Next time you find yourself playing thesis paragraph ping-pong, ask yourself what you need this particular section of text to do. Function over faffing, every time. 😉
Where next?
If your conceptual framework, methodology and analysis are starting to make more sense but you're still trying to work out how all the pieces fit together, here are three places to go next:
▶️ WATCH — Get your conceptual and theoretical frameworks straight
In my video on conceptual and theoretical frameworks, I use examples to explain what they are, what they're doing in your research and how to think about them more clearly.
→ Watch the conceptual & theoretical frameworks video
📥 FREE — Untangle ontology and epistemology
If sorting out your conceptual framework has opened another can of worms involving ontology, epistemology and research paradigms (of course it has 😂), grab my free cheat sheet for a straightforward explanation of what they mean and why they matter.
→ Get the free Ontology & Epistemology Cheat Sheet
📘 GO DEEPER — Make the foundations of your research fit together
If the bigger problem is working out how your research questions, concepts, theory, paradigm and methodology all connect, Clarifying Your Research helps you put those pieces together and explain why your choices make sense.