Research Limitations: What You Need To Know

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One important truth that you have to come to terms with in your Research is that you will encounter what is termed "Research Limitations." That shouldn't seem strange to you because, in the world of research, it is a norm. However, what is most important for you to do in the course of your research is that you should try as much as possible to reduce the level of your research limitations to an acceptable minimum as you carry out your research. You should also honestly acknowledge the limitations of your research in the conclusion section.

It's always better to identify and acknowledge flaws in your work than to have reviewers point them out. In the process of discussing your research limitations, you should try as much as possible not to stop at just the provision of a list of shortcomings during your research, you should also go ahead and provide a detailed explanation of how your research limitations affected your study. This would go a long way to add credibility to your research work.

You most likely will experience research limitations, but do well to discuss only the ones that are directly related to your research question and do well not to discuss anything else aside from that. For example, if conducting a meta-analysis of secondary data was not identified as a study goal, it need not be identified as a study limitation.

Research Study limitations in a typical paper may relate to:

  1. Implementation of data collection methods. If you don't have extensive experience with primary data collection (or haven't read this book), it's more likely that there's a problem with how the data collection method is implemented.
  2. Formulation of research goals and objectives. Research goals may be set too broadly. It can show how to refine the formulation of research objectives to increase the focus of research.
  3. Size of Sample. The sample size is determined largely by the nature of the research query. If the sample size is too small, statistical tests may not identify important relationships within the data set. A larger survey sample size may yield more accurate results. The importance of sample size is greater in quantitative research than in qualitative research.
  4. Scope of Discussion. No matter the kind of research you are doing, you can as well include this point as a research Limitation. The reasons are not far-fetched, the primary of which could be that it is very much likely that you are conducting the research independently and probably have just got a few years of experience when it comes to coming up with such kind of large academic paper, the scope and depth of discussion are compromised on many levels.

In the final chapter of your paper, you can discuss specific points from your research boundaries as suggestions for further research.

  1. Lack of prior research in the field of study A literature review is an important part of any research project as it helps identify the volume of wok that must have been put into the field of research. The results of a literature survey can serve as a foundation for researchers to achieve their research goals.

However, if the focus is on a current research question or a research question that is too narrow in scope, there may be little, if any, prior research on the topic. For example, if you decide to study the role of Bitcoin as a currency in the future, you may not find many academic papers addressing the research problem since Bitcoin is only a recent phenomenon.

It is believed that you are now armed with the knowledge of research limitations as it relates to your research and how they can go a long way to help you. You can check online for further information on the subject matter.

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