In any research project, many decisions have to be taken by the researcher, all of which influence the way the project is set up, the data collected and analysed, and the final results presented. Students are often unsure how to make these decisions and the purpose of this paper is to give them some advice. Research that includes people's attitudes and behaviour is generally more complex and difficult to control than traditional scientific research in which experiments can take place in a laboratory environment. Many different approaches, tools and techniques are available and a student has to be aware of these and make a careful choice among them. His or her results will almost certainly be influenced by this choice.
