Definition.
A philosophical and considered approach to research, methodology is the logos (logic, reason, order, study) of method. There are many established research methodologies: phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and hermeneutics are only a few. Each of these orients from a set of understandings and principles, employing a series of steps, the methods of the approach.
In The Art of Inquiry (2021) Coppin and Nelson suggest that methodology has a certain ritual value. This image is a powerful one. A ritual involves a series of symbolic steps, preparing the psyche for an experience that exceeds the boundaries of the workaday world. The steps of a methodology act similarly to create an environment for the emergence of new knowledge and epiphany — experiences which have doubtless carried a numinous glow for humans since we first discovered the cyclical phases of the moon.
Academics value methodology, in part, because it grounds the researcher in a tradition which holds certain values, ethics, commitments, and boundaries. Research is not an ‘anything goes’ sort of activity. (Philosopher and psychologist Daniel Robinson calls that sort of research ‘mucking about.’) Like the limits provided by formal poetry (meter, rhyme, etc.), the restrictions of methodology provide a fecund structure within which realization and creativity may arise.