The five decisions that matter most — test choice, sample size, p-values, and effect size — and how they fit together.
Research methods guides
Plain-English how-tos for the parts of research that trip people up — written by Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD, and paired with a free tool wherever the maths or structure can be automated. No jargon for its own sake, no signup.
Statistics
A four-question decision guide and table, from t-tests to regression — with a free selector tool.
What it is, the five things it isn’t, and what to report instead of “p < 0.05” alone.
Effect size in plain English — benchmarks, why it matters, and how d, r, and odds ratios convert.
Why studies miss real effects, the four interlocking quantities, and how to run a power analysis.
Research Design
The design decisions in order: methodology, design type, sampling, variables, and validity.
What each methodology is for, a side-by-side comparison, and how to choose from your question.
Experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, case study — what each answers and when to use it.
Probability vs non-probability sampling, the main methods, and how the choice affects generalizing.
IV vs DV, confounders and controls, and how to operationalize a variable so it can be measured.
Measuring the right thing vs measuring it consistently — the types of each and how to check them.
Literature Review
The five-step process — scope, search, synthesize, find the gap, structure — in plain English.
Databases, keywords and synonyms, Boolean operators, and inclusion/exclusion criteria.
How to synthesize across sources instead of summarizing each — with a template.
Which type of review you need — purpose, rigor, and effort compared.
The types of gap, how to spot them, and how to turn one into a defensible question.
Organize by theme and argument — never author-by-author — with an outline template.
Qualitative Methods
Analysis, coding, interviews, and rigor — how the pieces of a qualitative study fit together.
Braun & Clarke’s six phases, code vs theme, and reflexive vs coding-reliability TA.
Building theory from data — open/axial/selective coding, constant comparison, and the variants.
Inductive vs deductive coding, coding cycles, codebooks, and the software options.
Semi-structured interviews — open questions, probes, running it, and the ethics.
Credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability — and where saturation fits.
More clusters in progress
Proposals & Writing
Research questions, proposals, IMRaD, responding to reviewers.
Pair the guides with the tools
Every guide here links to a matching free tool — browse all 18, from the statistical test selector and power calculator to the PRISMA diagram generator and citation formatter. Or explore the Mastering Research book series the guides are drawn from.