The methodology chapter of a nursing PhD is where two different examiners meet: a methodologist who wants the design justified against the alternatives, and a clinical academic who wants to know how you got into the ward, who consented, and whether the NMC Code held. This guide sets out the chapter in eight steps, with the UK governance layer — HRA, IRAS, research passports, the NIHR route — that general methodology guides leave out. Research degree regulations differ by institution; check your own code of practice before acting on any step.
Step 1: Name the paradigm and let it do real work
Examiners have read a hundred paragraphs on pragmatism, constructivism and post-positivism that changed nothing downstream. Write the paradigm section only to the extent that it decides something. A realist evaluation of a ward-based intervention, a qualitative descriptive study of patient experience and a feasibility trial sit in different paradigms, and the sentence that matters is the one connecting the paradigm to the design you chose and the designs you rejected.
Expected output: two to four paragraphs ending in a sentence of the form “Because the question asks how and why the intervention works for whom, a realist design was adopted rather than an experimental one.”
Step 2: Choose the design the field recognises, and justify it against its nearest rival
Nursing has a small set of doctoral designs that examiners recognise on sight, each with a canonical source you should cite by name.
| Design | Doctoral use in nursing | Anchor source |
|---|---|---|
| Qualitative descriptive | Patient and staff experience where interpretation beyond the data is not the aim | Sandelowski (2000), Research in Nursing and Health |
| Interpretative phenomenological analysis or hermeneutic phenomenology | Lived experience of illness, caring, transition | Smith, Flowers and Larkin; van Manen |
| Grounded theory | Processes: how nurses make decisions, how families adapt | Charmaz (constructivist); Glaser and Strauss (classic) |
| Complex intervention development and evaluation | Developing or feasibility-testing a nursing intervention | Skivington et al. (2021), MRC and NIHR framework, BMJ 374:n2061 |
| Realist evaluation | What works for whom in what circumstances, in service change | Pawson and Tilley (1997) |
| Mixed methods | Instrument development, implementation studies | Creswell and Plano Clark |
The justification examiners read for is comparative: why qualitative descriptive rather than IPA, why a feasibility study rather than a definitive trial. The 2021 MRC and NIHR framework is worth citing precisely because it replaced the 2008 guidance most textbooks still describe; it frames complex intervention research around four phases — development or identification, feasibility, evaluation and implementation — with core elements that include context, programme theory and stakeholder engagement. A nursing doctorate typically occupies the first two phases, and saying so is a mark of methodological literacy.
Expected output: a design statement, a rejected-alternatives paragraph, and a sentence locating the study in the MRC and NIHR framework if it involves an intervention.
Step 3: Write the governance section as a procedure, not a disclaimer
This is the section that distinguishes a nursing methodology chapter from a generic one. In England the framework is published by the Health Research Authority, and its student research pages set the doctoral position plainly: doctoral “applicants are eligible to complete health and social care research, subject to relevant approvals being in place.” The HRA also states that students “should not normally take the role of chief investigator at any level of study,” but that “for PhD courses, the student may take the role of chief investigator if the supervisor and the sponsor agree.” Record which arrangement applied to you and why.
Then set out the route you actually took, with dates.
- Is it research? The HRA decision tool and the student research toolkit, which students and supervisors must complete before an application can be submitted through the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS). Service evaluation and audit follow a different route and do not need REC review.
- Sponsor. Usually your university. Name the sponsor and the date of sponsorship confirmation.
- Ethics. NHS Research Ethics Committee review where participants are NHS patients, relatives, or identifiable data; university ethics committee for staff-only or non-NHS studies. Give the REC reference and date of favourable opinion.
- HRA Approval (England) or the equivalent Health and Care Research Wales approval, with the date.
- Site access. Capacity and capability confirmation from each NHS organisation, and your own access status. The HRA describes the research passport as “the mechanism for non-NHS staff to obtain an Honorary Research Contract or Letter of Access (LOA) when they propose to carry out research in the NHS.” A nurse employed by the trust where the study runs will not need one; a nurse now in a university post returning to a former ward usually will.
- Data protection. UK GDPR lawful basis (for a university, usually public task), the data protection impact assessment if one was required, and the retention period.
Expected output: a governance table — approval, body, reference, date — followed by a paragraph on what the approvals required you to change in the design. That last paragraph is what examiners cannot get from the appendix.
Step 4: Describe the setting and the sample as a clinician would recognise them
Describe the setting in the terms a clinical examiner uses: the type of unit, the patient population, the staffing model, the shift pattern, and any service change during data collection — a ward move, a new electronic record, a winter pressures escalation. Naming them shows you understood the site as a nurse rather than a visitor.
For sampling, name the strategy and its source (purposive, maximum variation, theoretical, consecutive) and give the inclusion and exclusion criteria exactly as approved. For sample size, cite the convention that fits your design rather than a number: information power for qualitative work, a power calculation for a quantitative study, the feasibility conventions for pilot studies. Our companion guide to sample size in postgraduate nursing research sets out those conventions with their sources; cite them and report the achieved sample against the planned one.
Expected output: a setting paragraph, a sampling paragraph with criteria, a sample-size justification with a named source, and a recruitment flow — approached, declined, consented, withdrawn — as a figure or short table.
Step 5: Recruitment and consent, including the parts that went wrong
Nursing recruitment runs through gatekeepers — ward managers, clinical nurse specialists, research nurses — and the chapter should say who identified potential participants, who made first contact, and how you kept the approach from feeling like a request from a colleague that could not be refused. The NMC Code’s requirement to act in people’s best interests and obtain consent applies to a nurse-researcher exactly as it does to a nurse, and examiners from the profession will look for the point where you addressed the dual role.
Consent should be described as a process, not a signature: the participant information sheet version, the time given to decide, the capacity assessment where relevant, and the arrangements for participants who became unwell during the study. Report withdrawals and the reasons.
Expected output: a recruitment procedure in numbered steps with the gatekeeper role explicit, and a consent paragraph that names the dual-role problem and your response to it.
Step 6: Data collection described so that it could be repeated
For interviews: the topic guide and how it changed, the setting (a side room, a home visit, online), the recording device and transcription approach, and the average duration. For observation: the sampling of shifts and times, the position you took on the ward, and how patients and staff were informed. For surveys and instruments: the validated tool, its licence, the version used, and its reliability in your sample. For intervention studies: the TIDieR checklist items.
Where an instrument is not validated in your population, say so. Where interviews were transcribed by a service or a tool, name it and state the confidentiality arrangement; our comparison of transcription tools for PhD interviews covers the ethics and data-protection questions that belong in this section.
Expected output: one subsection per data source, each ending with what was actually collected — number of interviews, hours of observation, response rate.
Step 7: Analysis, with the version of the method named
Thematic analysis is the commonest analytic method in nursing theses, and the commonest examiner complaint is that the chapter cites Braun and Clarke’s 2006 paper and then describes something else. Braun and Clarke themselves, in Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 2019), revisit the unspoken assumptions of the 2006 paper and distinguish their reflexive approach from coding-reliability and codebook versions. Say which you used. If you claim reflexive thematic analysis, do not report inter-rater reliability; if you used a codebook approach with a second coder, say so and cite that tradition instead.
For grounded theory, describe coding stages and theoretical sampling. For quantitative analysis, state the software and version, the tests, the handling of missing data and the significance threshold. In every case include a worked example — one theme built from codes with two extracts, or one variable from raw score to test result — because that is how an examiner judges whether the analysis was done as described.
Expected output: a named method with its version, the steps as you performed them, the software, and one worked example.
Step 8: Rigour, reflexivity and the reporting checklist
Use the rigour vocabulary that matches the paradigm — trustworthiness criteria for interpretive work, validity and reliability for quantitative — and report against a published checklist. For interview and focus-group studies the standard is COREQ, the 32-item checklist by Tong, Sainsbury and Craig (International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 2007). For qualitative work that does not fit COREQ, the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (O’Brien and colleagues, Academic Medicine, 2014) are the alternative. For quantitative designs, CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies. Put the completed checklist in an appendix and cite it in the chapter.
Reflexivity in nursing is not a paragraph about your feelings; it is an account of how your clinical identity shaped access, questions, interpretation and what participants chose to tell you. A ward sister interviewing junior nurses gets different data from a stranger; say which you were and what it changed.
Expected output: a rigour subsection organised by the criteria you named, a reflexivity statement in the first person, and a checklist reference.
A worked opening for the chapter
A methodology chapter should open with the design decision, not the philosophy of science. A serviceable first paragraph for a qualitative descriptive study reads: “This chapter sets out the design and conduct of a qualitative descriptive study of how newly registered nurses experience the first year on an acute medical ward. It explains why a descriptive rather than interpretive design was chosen, the governance route through which access to two NHS trusts was obtained, the purposive sampling of fourteen participants, and the reflexive thematic analysis applied to the interview data. It closes with the measures taken to secure trustworthiness and a reflexive account of the researcher’s position as a former ward-based nurse.” Everything the examiner needs is there, and the chapter delivers it in the order announced.
The chapter is also the part of the thesis your upgrade or confirmation review panel reads most closely, because at upgrade the design is all there is to examine. Write the governance and design sections early, then update them as the study unfolds; the dates and deviations make the final version credible. If your study includes a systematic review chapter, its methods belong in that chapter rather than here, and our guide to the PRISMA systematic review chapter covers that separately.
Drafting the chapter alongside the study
The methodology chapter is written twice: once for ethics and upgrade, when it is a plan, and once for submission, when it is a record. Between the two, recruitment slips, a site withdraws and the topic guide changes. The chapter that survives examination records all of it.
Draft your nursing methodology chapter in Tesify: keep the protocol version, the governance table and the chapter in one workspace so that every deviation is logged where the examiner will read it. The design decisions, the clinical judgement and the reflexivity are yours alone; the tool keeps the record straight from IRAS submission to viva. There is a free plan, so you can start with the governance table today.
Frequently asked questions
Does a nursing PhD need NHS ethics approval?
If participants are NHS patients, their relatives or carers, or identifiable NHS data, yes: NHS Research Ethics Committee review and, in England, HRA Approval. Studies involving only NHS staff as participants usually need HRA Approval but not REC review.
Can a PhD student be the chief investigator?
The HRA states that students should not normally be chief investigator at any level, but that for PhD courses the student may take the role if the supervisor and the sponsor agree. Say which arrangement applied and why.
Do I need a research passport for my nursing PhD?
Only if you are not employed by the NHS organisation where the research takes place and need access to patients, data or premises. The research passport is the HRA mechanism for obtaining an honorary research contract or letter of access.
Which version of thematic analysis should I cite?
The one you used. Braun and Clarke’s 2019 paper distinguishes reflexive thematic analysis from coding-reliability and codebook approaches; citing the 2006 paper while reporting inter-rater agreement mixes two incompatible traditions and examiners notice.
Which reporting checklist applies to a qualitative nursing study?
COREQ, the 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups published by Tong, Sainsbury and Craig in 2007, is the standard. The Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research from 2014 cover designs that COREQ does not fit. Complete the checklist and put it in an appendix.
Should I cite the MRC complex intervention framework?
If your study develops or tests a nursing intervention, yes, and cite the 2021 update by Skivington and colleagues in the BMJ rather than the 2008 guidance. State which phase of the framework your doctoral study occupies, usually development or feasibility.
How do I handle having worked on the ward where I recruited?
Declare it, describe the dual-role problem for consent and data quality, and report what you did: an independent person for first contact, explicit statements that participation did not affect care or working relationships, and a reflexive account of how the relationship shaped the data.
Where does the systematic review method go?
In the review chapter itself, not in the methodology chapter. The methodology chapter covers the empirical study; a systematic review has its own methods, protocol registration and PRISMA reporting.
