Research Methodology Selection and Tradeoffs Questions

Covers how to choose, justify, and execute research and analysis methods given research questions, stakeholder needs, and real world constraints such as limited time, budget, or access to users. Candidates should be able to compare qualitative methods such as interviews, usability testing, ethnography, and diary studies with quantitative methods such as surveys, analytics, split testing, and controlled experiments, and explain when and how to combine them into mixed methods designs. The topic includes core decision criteria and trade offs including generative versus evaluative goals, depth versus breadth, speed versus rigor, sample size and power considerations, cost versus validity, internal validity versus external generalizability, and short term versus longitudinal designs. Practical skills include aligning methodology to success metrics and business objectives, scoping minimal viable research designs, selecting sampling strategies and proxies, recruitment and instrumentation choices, pilot testing, estimation of sample size for quantitative work, mitigation of bias and threats to validity, documenting limitations and uncertainty, communicating and defending methodological choices to nonresearch stakeholders, and ensuring ethical and privacy safeguards and data quality in constrained or iterative studies.