It is for sure that your research will have some limitations and it is normal. However, it is critically important for you to be striving to minimize the range of scope of limitations throughout the research process. Also, you need to provide the acknowledgement of your research limitations in conclusions chapter honestly. It is always better to
identify and acknowledge shortcomings of your work, rather than to leave them pointed out to your by your dissertation assessor. While discussing your research limitations, don’t just provide the list and description of shortcomings of your work. It is also important for you to explain how these limitations have impacted your research findings. Your research may have multiple limitations, but you need to discuss only those limitations that directly relate to your research problems. For
example, if conducting a meta-analysis of the secondary data has not been stated as your research objective, no need to mention it as your research limitation. Research limitations in a typical dissertation may relate to the following points: 1. Formulation of research aims and objectives. You might have formulated research aims and objectives too broadly. You can specify in which ways the formulation of research aims and objectives could be narrowed so that the
level of focus of the study could be increased. 2. Implementation of data collection method. Because you do not have an extensive experience in primary data collection (otherwise you would not be reading this book), there is a great chance that the nature of implementation of data collection method is flawed. 3. Sample size. Sample size depends on the nature of the research problem. If sample size is too small, statistical tests would not be able to
identify significant relationships within data set. You can state that basing your study in larger sample size could have generated more accurate results. The importance of sample size is greater in quantitative studies compared to qualitative studies. 4. Lack of previous studies in the research area. Literature review is an important part of any research, because it helps to identify the scope of works that have been done so far in research area. Literature
review findings are used as the foundation for the researcher to be built upon to achieve her research objectives. However, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic if you have focused on the most contemporary and evolving research problem or too narrow research problem. For example, if you have chosen to explore the role of Bitcoins as the future currency, you may not be able to find tons of scholarly paper addressing the research problem, because Bitcoins are only a
recent phenomenon.
5. Scope of discussions. You can include this point as a limitation of your research regardless of the choice of the research area. Because (most likely) you don’t have many years of experience of conducing researches and producing academic papers of such a large size individually, the scope and depth of discussions in your paper is compromised in many levels compared to the works of experienced scholars.
You can discuss certain points from your research limitations as the suggestion for further research at conclusions chapter of your dissertation.
My e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Dissertation in Business Studies: a step by step assistance offers practical assistance to complete a dissertation with minimum or no stress. The e-book covers all stages of writing a dissertation starting from the selection to the research area to submitting the completed version of the work within the deadline. John Dudovskiy
If other researchers use the same methods as a paper but cannot achieve the same results, the paper could be said to lack:
- a. repetition
b. replicability
c. reliability
d. validityOne of the most important aspects of the results and discussion section is:
- a. an elaborate interpretation of the findings
b. a repeat of the literature review
c. a statement of how a research question was answered
d. a justification for why either quantitative or qualitative methods were usedWhen presenting the results from the interviews for the qualitative analysis:
- a. it is important to include the
participants' names
b. do not include any background information about the case
c. be sure to explain which codes, categories, and themes emerged from content analysis
d. it is important to explain how process tracing was used to link the independent and dependent variables togetherWhich of the following should not be included in the methods and data section?
-
a. The operationalization of the concepts used in the analysis
b. The source of data analyzed
c. An explanation of statistical tests performed
d. An interpretation of the research findingsAn abstract generally should:
- a. be short
b. include an argument for the validity of indicators
c. include an argument on how previous scholarship guided the researcher
d. not state the research questionWhere should a research paper's overall conclusion first be seen by a reader?
- a. Conclusions
b. Introduction
c. Theory and Hypotheses
d. AbstractWhich section should provide recommendations of how other researchers could improve on research be included?
- a. Methods and Data
b. Results and Discussion
c. References
d. ConclusionWhich of the following is NOT a likely reason for a negative finding?
- a. Indicators the researcher used were not reliable or valid
b. The sample was not an appropriate representation of the research population
c. The literature review was not complete
d. The theory is incorrectWhat is meant by the “frame” of a paper?
- a. The abstract and literature review
b. The literature review, methods and data, and results and conclusion section
c. The introduction and conclusion
d. The abstract, introduction, and conclusionWhich of the following is the correct order to write a research paper?
- a. Literature review, theory and hypotheses, methods and data, results and discussion, conclusion, introduction, abstract, references
b. Introduction, theory and hypotheses, literature review, methods and data,results and discussion, conclusion, abstract, references
c. Methods and data, theory and hypotheses, literature review, results and discussion, conclusion, abstract, references
d. Abstract, literature review, theory and hypothesis, results and discussion, methods and data, conclusion, referencesTrue or False: Correlation in quantitative analysis does not imply causation
- a. True
b. FalseThe Literature Review:
- a. is the main focus of a research paper
b. is not the main focus of a research paper
c. should thoroughly explain the hypotheses and theories
d. should explain the results of your own researchThe methods and data section should outline:
- a. how the researcher
answered his or her research question
b. the researcher's theories and hypotheses
c. the researcher's results
d. the researcher's conclusionsWhich of the following is a general outline organized by predetermined sections?
- a. Template
b. Platform
c. Sketch
d. ProposalA significant result should be balanced with its:
- a. magnitude
b. theory
c. conclusion
d. correlationWhat is ex post theorizing?
- a. The conclusion of your findings
b. Creating a theory prior to your research
c. How your hypothesis related to your theory
d. The development of new explanations based on what you now understandWhich of the following is NOT one of the three main points you should include in your conclusion?
- a. Reiterating whether or not you were able to support your hypotheses with the data you collected and analyzed with either the quantitative or qualitative analyses
b. Providing the reader an idea of how the research could have been improved and if new questions based on the research findings have emerged.
c. Creating a new control variable that will alter the findings in order to conform to your hypothesis
d. Containing a discussion of how the findings from the research can be generalized to other cases.Which word should you avoid using in your paper?
-
a. Prove
b. Conclude
c. Generalization
d. InconclusiveWhy is it important to write a strong abstract, introduction, and conclusion?
- a. Because these are often the sections that readers study first
b. Because these are the only sections that contain the research question and overall findings of the research project
c. Because these are the shortest sections of the paper
d. Because of replicabilityAn abstract can sometimes look like:
- a. a literature review
b. a methods and data section
c. an annotated bibliography
d. operationalization