scope and limitation of the study
October 30th, 2011 at 12:19 pm | Research methods | No response
What is the scope and limitation of the study and What is the difference between the scope and the limitation of the study. Walonick (2005) explained that all research studies should have limitations and a finite scope. Limitations literally mean kind of restraint or obstacles that the study might be gone through during the period.
In most of the research, limitations are often imposed by time and budget constraints, both time and budget are the most commonly restraining factors that will give its significant impacts on the study. If the limitation is not clearly defined and tackled carefully, the study may end up being invalid.
The researcher should precisely list the limitations of the study and describe the extent to which he/she believe the limitations degrade the quality of the research. This will help the researcher and the audience understands the actual situation that the study encounters.
While the scope of the study means the specific areas that the particular researcher wants to cover in his/her study. Library Research Skills (n.d) described that searching for resources on researcher’s subject will be more effective if he/she already defined the scope of the research. The questions to consider in the research scope should be:
(i) Does the research cover a particular time period?
(ii) Does the study cover a specific geographical area?
(iii) If the study involves people, what age group, gender and place of origin are to be included?
(iv) Are all dates of publication to be included?
(v) Is the research going to cover publications from other countries?
(vi) Will the research include other languages and scripts?
(vii) Are all perspectives to be considered? For example, philosophical, political, psychological, etc.
This means that the scope of the study may be referred to the specific element and content that the researcher wants to explore in his/her study. And he/she is responsible to set the scope realistically, the broader scope will make the study takes longer time while too little scope can make the study not worthy.
From the above discussion, we can conclude that the differences between limitation and scope of the research are:
(i) The research scope is the specific are that the researcher want to cover in his/her study while the research limitations is the constraint and obstacle that the research expects to encounter during the study; and
(ii) The research limitation is beyond the researcher’s control since it involves external factors which outside researcher’s authority while the research scope is under researcher’s control and manageable by him/her. The researcher will determine what scope to be cover and what scope to be left.
References and further readings at:
- David S. Walonick (2005). Elements of A Research Proposal And Report. Significance Of The Study.
- University of London Research Library Services (n.d). Library Research Skills. Research Scope.