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How to Present the Limitations of the Study Examples

What are the limitations of a study?

The limitations of a study are the elements of methodology or study design that impact the interpretation of your research results. The limitations essentially detail any flaws or shortcomings in your study. Study limitations can exist due to constraints on research design, methodology, materials, etc., and these factors may impact the findings of your study. However, researchers are often reluctant to discuss the limitations of their study in their papers, feeling that bringing up limitations may undermine its research value in the eyes of readers and reviewers.

In spite of the impact it might have (and perhaps because of it) you should clearly acknowledge any limitations in your research paper in order to show readers—whether journal editors, other researchers, or the general public—that you are aware of these limitations and to explain how they affect the conclusions that can be drawn from the research.

In this article, we provide some guidelines for writing about research limitations, show examples of some frequently seen study limitations, and recommend techniques for presenting this information. And after you have finished drafting and have received manuscript editing for your work, you still might want to follow this up with academic editing before submitting your work to your target journal.

Why do I need to include limitations of research in my paper?

Although limitations address the potential weaknesses of a study, writing about them toward the end of your paper actually strengthens your study by identifying any problems before other researchers or reviewers find them.

Furthermore, pointing out study limitations shows that you’ve considered the impact of research weakness thoroughly and have an in-depth understanding of your research topic. Since all studies face limitations, being honest and detailing these limitations will impress researchers and reviewers more than ignoring them.

limitations of the study examples, brick wall with blue sky

Where should I put the limitations of the study in my paper?

Some limitations might be evident to researchers before the start of the study, while others might become clear while you are conducting the research. Whether these limitations are anticipated or not, and whether they are due to research design or to methodology, they should be clearly identified and discussed in the discussion section —the final section of your paper. Most journals now require you to include a discussion of potential limitations of your work, and many journals now ask you to place this “limitations section” at the very end of your article.

Some journals ask you to also discuss the strengths of your work in this section, and some allow you to freely choose where to include that information in your discussion section—make sure to always check the author instructions of your target journal before you finalize a manuscript and submit it for peer review .

Limitations of the Study Examples

There are several reasons why limitations of research might exist. The two main categories of limitations are those that result from the methodology and those that result from issues with the researcher(s).

Common Methodological Limitations of Studies

Limitations of research due to methodological problems can be addressed by clearly and directly identifying the potential problem and suggesting ways in which this could have been addressed—and SHOULD be addressed in future studies. The following are some major potential methodological issues that can impact the conclusions researchers can draw from the research.

Issues with research samples and selection

Sampling errors occur when a probability sampling method is used to select a sample, but that sample does not reflect the general population or appropriate population concerned. This results in limitations of your study known as “sample bias” or “selection bias.”

For example, if you conducted a survey to obtain your research results, your samples (participants) were asked to respond to the survey questions. However, you might have had limited ability to gain access to the appropriate type or geographic scope of participants. In this case, the people who responded to your survey questions may not truly be a random sample.

Insufficient sample size for statistical measurements

When conducting a study, it is important to have a sufficient sample size in order to draw valid conclusions. The larger the sample, the more precise your results will be. If your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to identify significant relationships in the data.

Normally, statistical tests require a larger sample size to ensure that the sample is considered representative of a population and that the statistical result can be generalized to a larger population. It is a good idea to understand how to choose an appropriate sample size before you conduct your research by using scientific calculation tools—in fact, many journals now require such estimation to be included in every manuscript that is sent out for review.

Lack of previous research studies on the topic

Citing and referencing prior research studies constitutes the basis of the literature review for your thesis or study, and these prior studies provide the theoretical foundations for the research question you are investigating. However, depending on the scope of your research topic, prior research studies that are relevant to your thesis might be limited.

When there is very little or no prior research on a specific topic, you may need to develop an entirely new research typology. In this case, discovering a limitation can be considered an important opportunity to identify literature gaps and to present the need for further development in the area of study.

Methods/instruments/techniques used to collect the data

After you complete your analysis of the research findings (in the discussion section), you might realize that the manner in which you have collected the data or the ways in which you have measured variables has limited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results.

For example, you might realize that you should have addressed your survey questions from another viable perspective, or that you were not able to include an important question in the survey. In these cases, you should acknowledge the deficiency or deficiencies by stating a need for future researchers to revise their specific methods for collecting data that includes these missing elements.

Common Limitations of the Researcher(s)

Study limitations that arise from situations relating to the researcher or researchers (whether the direct fault of the individuals or not) should also be addressed and dealt with, and remedies to decrease these limitations—both hypothetically in your study, and practically in future studies—should be proposed.

Limited access to data

If your research involved surveying certain people or organizations, you might have faced the problem of having limited access to these respondents. Due to this limited access, you might need to redesign or restructure your research in a different way. In this case, explain the reasons for limited access and be sure that your finding is still reliable and valid despite this limitation.

Time constraints

Just as students have deadlines to turn in their class papers, academic researchers might also have to meet deadlines for submitting a manuscript to a journal or face other time constraints related to their research (e.g., participants are only available during a certain period; funding runs out; collaborators move to a new institution). The time available to study a research problem and to measure change over time might be constrained by such practical issues. If time constraints negatively impacted your study in any way, acknowledge this impact by mentioning a need for a future study (e.g., a longitudinal study) to answer this research problem.

Conflicts arising from cultural bias and other personal issues

Researchers might hold biased views due to their cultural backgrounds or perspectives of certain phenomena, and this can affect a study’s legitimacy. Also, it is possible that researchers will have biases toward data and results that only support their hypotheses or arguments. In order to avoid these problems, the author(s) of a study should examine whether the way the research problem was stated and the data-gathering process was carried out appropriately.

Steps for Organizing Your Study Limitations Section

When you discuss the limitations of your study, don’t simply list and describe your limitations—explain how these limitations have influenced your research findings. There might be multiple limitations in your study, but you only need to point out and explain those that directly relate to and impact how you address your research questions.

We suggest that you divide your limitations section into three steps: (1) identify the study limitations; (2) explain how they impact your study in detail; and (3) propose a direction for future studies and present alternatives. By following this sequence when discussing your study’s limitations, you will be able to clearly demonstrate your study’s weakness without undermining the quality and integrity of your research.

Step 1. Identify the limitation(s) of the study

This part should comprise around 10%-20% of your discussion of study limitations.

The first step is to identify the particular limitation(s) that affected your study. There are many possible limitations of research that can affect your study, but you don’t need to write a long review of all possible study limitations. A 200-500 word critique is an appropriate length for a research limitations section. In the beginning of this section, identify what limitations your study has faced and how important these limitations are.

You only need to identify limitations that had the greatest potential impact on: (1) the quality of your findings, and (2) your ability to answer your research question.

Step 2. Explain these study limitations in detail

This part should comprise around 60-70% of your discussion of limitations.

After identifying your research limitations, it’s time to explain the nature of the limitations and how they potentially impacted your study. For example, when you conduct quantitative research, a lack of probability sampling is an important issue that you should mention. On the other hand, when you conduct qualitative research, the inability to generalize the research findings could be an issue that deserves mention.

Explain the role these limitations played on the results and implications of the research and justify the choice you made in using this “limiting” methodology or other action in your research. Also, make sure that these limitations didn’t undermine the quality of your dissertation .

Step 3. Propose a direction for future studies and present alternatives (optional)

This part should comprise around 10-20% of your discussion of limitations.

After acknowledging the limitations of the research, you need to discuss some possible ways to overcome these limitations in future studies. One way to do this is to present alternative methodologies and ways to avoid issues with, or “fill in the gaps of” the limitations of this study you have presented. Discuss both the pros and cons of these alternatives and clearly explain why researchers should choose these approaches.

Make sure you are current on approaches used by prior studies and the impacts they have had on their findings. Cite review articles or scientific bodies that have recommended these approaches and why. This might be evidence in support of the approach you chose, or it might be the reason you consider your choices to be included as limitations. This process can act as a justification for your approach and a defense of your decision to take it while acknowledging the feasibility of other approaches.

P hrases and Tips for Introducing Your Study Limitations in the Discussion Section

The following phrases are frequently used to introduce the limitations of the study:

“There may be some possible limitations in this study.”
“The findings of this study have to be seen in light of some limitations.”
“The first is the…The second limitation concerns the…”
“The empirical results reported herein should be considered in the light of some limitations.”
“This research, however, is subject to several limitations.”
“The primary limitation to the generalization of these results is…”
“Nonetheless, these results must be interpreted with caution and a number of limitations should be borne in mind.”
“As with the majority of studies, the design of the current study is subject to limitations.”
“There are two major limitations in this study that could be addressed in future research. First, the study focused on …. Second ….”

For more articles on research writing and the journal submissions and publication process, visit Wordvice’s Academic Resources page.

And be sure to receive professional English editing and proofreading services , including paper editing services , for your journal manuscript before submitting it to journal editors.

Wordvice Resources

Proofreading & Editing Guide

Writing the Results Section for a Research Paper

How to Write a Literature Review

Research Writing Tips: How to Draft a Powerful Discussion Section

How to Captivate Journal Readers with a Strong Introduction

Tips That Will Make Your Abstract a Success!

APA In-Text Citation Guide for Research Writing

Additional Resources

Diving Deeper into Limitations and Delimitations (PhD student)
Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Limitations of the Study (USC Library)
Research Limitations (Research Methodology)
How to Present Limitations and Alternatives (UMASS)

Article References

Pearson-Stuttard, J., Kypridemos, C., Collins, B., Mozaffarian, D., Huang, Y., Bandosz, P.,…Micha, R. (2018). Estimating the health and economic effects of the proposed US Food and Drug Administration voluntary sodium reformulation: Microsimulation cost-effectiveness analysis. PLOS. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002551

Xu, W.L, Pedersen, N.L., Keller, L., Kalpouzos, G., Wang, H.X., Graff, C,. Fratiglioni, L. (2015). HHEX_23 AA Genotype Exacerbates Effect of Diabetes on Dementia and Alzheimer Disease: A Population-Based Longitudinal Study. PLOS. Retrieved from https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001853

How to Write Limitations of the Study (with examples)

This blog emphasizes the importance of recognizing and effectively writing about limitations in research. It discusses the types of limitations, their significance, and provides guidelines for writing about them, highlighting their role in advancing scholarly research.

Updated on August 24, 2023

a group of researchers writing their limitation of their study

No matter how well thought out, every research endeavor encounters challenges. There is simply no way to predict all possible variances throughout the process.

These uncharted boundaries and abrupt constraints are known as limitations in research . Identifying and acknowledging limitations is crucial for conducting rigorous studies. Limitations provide context and shed light on gaps in the prevailing inquiry and literature.

This article explores the importance of recognizing limitations and discusses how to write them effectively. By interpreting limitations in research and considering prevalent examples, we aim to reframe the perception from shameful mistakes to respectable revelations.

What are limitations in research?

In the clearest terms, research limitations are the practical or theoretical shortcomings of a study that are often outside of the researcher’s control . While these weaknesses limit the generalizability of a study’s conclusions, they also present a foundation for future research.

Sometimes limitations arise from tangible circumstances like time and funding constraints, or equipment and participant availability. Other times the rationale is more obscure and buried within the research design. Common types of limitations and their ramifications include:

Theoretical: limits the scope, depth, or applicability of a study.
Methodological: limits the quality, quantity, or diversity of the data.
Empirical: limits the representativeness, validity, or reliability of the data.
Analytical: limits the accuracy, completeness, or significance of the findings.
Ethical: limits the access, consent, or confidentiality of the data.

Regardless of how, when, or why they arise, limitations are a natural part of the research process and should never be ignored . Like all other aspects, they are vital in their own purpose.

Why is identifying limitations important?

Whether to seek acceptance or avoid struggle, humans often instinctively hide flaws and mistakes. Merging this thought process into research by attempting to hide limitations, however, is a bad idea. It has the potential to negate the validity of outcomes and damage the reputation of scholars.

By identifying and addressing limitations throughout a project, researchers strengthen their arguments and curtail the chance of peer censure based on overlooked mistakes. Pointing out these flaws shows an understanding of variable limits and a scrupulous research process.

Showing awareness of and taking responsibility for a project’s boundaries and challenges validates the integrity and transparency of a researcher. It further demonstrates the researchers understand the applicable literature and have thoroughly evaluated their chosen research methods.

Presenting limitations also benefits the readers by providing context for research findings. It guides them to interpret the project’s conclusions only within the scope of very specific conditions. By allowing for an appropriate generalization of the findings that is accurately confined by research boundaries and is not too broad, limitations boost a study’s credibility .

Limitations are true assets to the research process. They highlight opportunities for future research. When researchers identify the limitations of their particular approach to a study question, they enable precise transferability and improve chances for reproducibility.

Simply stating a project’s limitations is not adequate for spurring further research, though. To spark the interest of other researchers, these acknowledgements must come with thorough explanations regarding how the limitations affected the current study and how they can potentially be overcome with amended methods.

How to write limitations

Typically, the information about a study’s limitations is situated either at the beginning of the discussion section to provide context for readers or at the conclusion of the discussion section to acknowledge the need for further research. However, it varies depending upon the target journal or publication guidelines.

Don’t hide your limitations

It is also important to not bury a limitation in the body of the paper unless it has a unique connection to a topic in that section. If so, it needs to be reiterated with the other limitations or at the conclusion of the discussion section. Wherever it is included in the manuscript, ensure that the limitations section is prominently positioned and clearly introduced.

While maintaining transparency by disclosing limitations means taking a comprehensive approach, it is not necessary to discuss everything that could have potentially gone wrong during the research study. If there is no commitment to investigation in the introduction, it is unnecessary to consider the issue a limitation to the research. Wholly consider the term ‘limitations’ and ask, “Did it significantly change or limit the possible outcomes?” Then, qualify the occurrence as either a limitation to include in the current manuscript or as an idea to note for other projects.

Writing limitations

Once the limitations are concretely identified and it is decided where they will be included in the paper, researchers are ready for the writing task. Including only what is pertinent, keeping explanations detailed but concise, and employing the following guidelines is key for crafting valuable limitations:

1) Identify and describe the limitations : Clearly introduce the limitation by classifying its form and specifying its origin. For example:

An unintentional bias encountered during data collection
An intentional use of unplanned post-hoc data analysis

2) Explain the implications : Describe how the limitation potentially influences the study’s findings and how the validity and generalizability are subsequently impacted. Provide examples and evidence to support claims of the limitations’ effects without making excuses or exaggerating their impact. Overall, be transparent and objective in presenting the limitations, without undermining the significance of the research.

3) Provide alternative approaches for future studies : Offer specific suggestions for potential improvements or avenues for further investigation. Demonstrate a proactive approach by encouraging future research that addresses the identified gaps and, therefore, expands the knowledge base.

Whether presenting limitations as an individual section within the manuscript or as a subtopic in the discussion area, authors should use clear headings and straightforward language to facilitate readability. There is no need to complicate limitations with jargon, computations, or complex datasets.

Examples of common limitations

Limitations are generally grouped into two categories , methodology and research process .

Methodology limitations

Methodology may include limitations due to:

Sample size
Lack of available or reliable data
Lack of prior research studies on the topic
Measure used to collect the data
Self-reported data

The researcher is addressing how the large sample size requires a reassessment of the measures used to collect and analyze the data.

Research process limitations

Limitations during the research process may arise from:

Access to information
Longitudinal effects
Cultural and other biases
Language fluency
Time constraints

The author is pointing out that the model’s estimates are based on potentially biased observational studies.

Final thoughts

Successfully proving theories and touting great achievements are only two very narrow goals of scholarly research. The true passion and greatest efforts of researchers comes more in the form of confronting assumptions and exploring the obscure.

In many ways, recognizing and sharing the limitations of a research study both allows for and encourages this type of discovery that continuously pushes research forward. By using limitations to provide a transparent account of the project's boundaries and to contextualize the findings, researchers pave the way for even more robust and impactful research in the future.

Charla Viera, MS

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The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your research. Study limitations are the constraints placed on the ability to generalize from the results, to further describe applications to practice, and/or related to the utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you initially chose to design the study or the method used to establish internal and external validity or the result of unanticipated challenges that emerged during the study.

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Theofanidis, Dimitrios and Antigoni Fountouki. "Limitations and Delimitations in the Research Process." Perioperative Nursing 7 (September-December 2018): 155-163. .

Importance of...

Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better that you identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and have your grade lowered because you appeared to have ignored them or didn't realize they existed.

Keep in mind that acknowledgment of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.

Acknowledgment of a study's limitations also provides you with opportunities to demonstrate that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.

Claiming limitations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the results and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.

Descriptions of Possible Limitations

All studies have limitations . However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in the introduction of your paper.

Here are examples of limitations related to methodology and the research process you may need to describe and discuss how they possibly impacted your results. Note that descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense because they were discovered after you completed your research.

Possible Methodological Limitations

Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred. Note that sample size is generally less relevant in qualitative research if explained in the context of the research problem.
Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but provide cogent reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe a need for future research based on designing a different method for gathering data.
Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, though, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is little or no prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design ]. Note again that discovering a limitation can serve as an important opportunity to identify new gaps in the literature and to describe the need for further research.
Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need for future researchers to revise the specific method for gathering data.
Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to the accuracy of what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data can contain several potential sources of bias that you should be alert to and note as limitations. These biases become apparent if they are incongruent with data from other sources. These are: (1) selective memory [remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past]; (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency, but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].

Possible Limitations of the Researcher

Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, data, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or limited in some way, the reasons for this needs to be described. Also, include an explanation why being denied or limited access did not prevent you from following through on your study.
Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can literally devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single topic, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability over time is constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a research problem that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure whether you can complete your research within the confines of the assignment's due date, talk to your professor.
Cultural and other type of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, event, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. Bias is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well, especially if that bias reflects your reliance on research that only support your hypothesis. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the manner in which you have ordered events, people, or places, how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation. NOTE : If you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating that bias. For example, if a previous study only used boys to examine how music education supports effective math skills, describe how your research expands the study to include girls.
Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses , for example, on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican-American ESL [English as a Second Language] students and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic or to speak with these students in their primary language. This deficiency should be acknowledged.

Structure and Writing Style

If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as an exploratory study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in a new study.

But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic . If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to revise your study.

When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:

Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
Explain why each limitation exists;
Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to acquire or gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.

Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't interview a group of people that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in a future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to show what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.

Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed. January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

Writing Tip

Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings!

After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitations of your study. Inflating the importance of your study's findings could be perceived by your readers as an attempt hide its flaws or encourage a biased interpretation of the results. A small measure of humility goes a long way!

Another Writing Tip

Negative Results are Not a Limitation!

Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated. Or, perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may very well be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.

Lewis, George H. and Jonathan F. Lewis. “The Dog in the Night-Time: Negative Evidence in Social Research.” The British Journal of Sociology 31 (December 1980): 544-558.

Yet Another Writing Tip

Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research

Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgment about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.

Boddy, Clive Roland. "Sample Size for Qualitative Research." Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 19 (2016): 426-432; Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. "Data Management and Analysis Methods." In Handbook of Qualitative Research . Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444; Blaikie, Norman. "Confounding Issues Related to Determining Sample Size in Qualitative Research." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 21 (2018): 635-641; Oppong, Steward Harrison. "The Problem of Sampling in qualitative Research." Asian Journal of Management Sciences and Education 2 (2013): 202-210.

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GETTING STARTED
Introduction
FUNDAMENTALS
Acknowledgements
Research questions & hypotheses
Concepts, constructs & variables
Research limitations
Getting started
Sampling Strategy
Research Quality
Research Ethics
Data Analysis

How to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation

There is no "one best way" to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation. However, we recommend a structure based on three moves : the announcing , reflecting and forward looking move. The announcing move immediately allows you to identify the limitations of your dissertation and explain how important each of these limitations is. The reflecting move provides greater depth, helping to explain the nature of the limitations and justify the choices that you made during the research process. Finally, the forward looking move enables you to suggest how such limitations could be overcome in future. The collective aim of these three moves is to help you walk the reader through your Research Limitations section in a succinct and structured way. This will make it clear to the reader that you recognise the limitations of your own research, that you understand why such factors are limitations, and can point to ways of combating these limitations if future research was carried out. This article explains what should be included in each of these three moves :

THE ANNOUNCING MOVE: Identifying limitations and explaining how important they are
THE REFLECTING MOVE: Explaining the nature of the limitations and justifying the choices you made
THE FORWARD LOOKING MOVE: Suggesting how such limitations could be overcome in future

THE ANNOUNCING MOVE Identifying limitations, and explaining how important they are

There are many possible limitations that your research may have faced. However, is not necessary for you to discuss all of these limitations in your Research Limitations section. After all, you are not writing a 2000 word critical review of the limitations of your dissertation, just a 200-500 word critique that is only one section long (i.e., the Research Limitations section within your Conclusions chapter). Therefore, in this first announcing move , we would recommend that you identify only those limitations that had the greatest potential impact on: (a) the quality of your findings; and (b) your ability to effectively answer your research questions and/or hypotheses.

We use the word potential impact because we often do not know the degree to which different factors limited our findings or our ability to effectively answer our research questions and/or hypotheses. For example, we know that when adopting a quantitative research design, a failure to use a probability sampling technique significantly limits our ability to make broader generalisations from our results (i.e., our ability to make statistical inferences from our sample to the population being studied). However, the degree to which this reduces the quality of our findings is a matter of debate. Also, whilst the lack of a probability sampling technique when using a quantitative research design is a very obvious example of a research limitation, other limitations are far less clear. Therefore, the key point is to focus on those limitations that you feel had the greatest impact on your findings, as well as your ability to effectively answer your research questions and/or hypotheses.

Overall, the announcing move should be around 10-20% of the total word count of the Research Limitations section.

THE REFLECTING MOVE Explaining the nature of the limitations and justifying the choices you made

Having identified the most important limitations to your dissertation in the announcing move , the reflecting move focuses on explaining the nature of these limitations and justifying the choices that you made during the research process. This part should be around 60-70% of the total word count of the Research Limitations section.

It is important to remember at this stage that all research suffers from limitations, whether it is performed by undergraduate and master's level dissertation students, or seasoned academics. Acknowledging such limitations should not be viewed as a weakness, highlighting to the person marking your work the reasons why you should receive a lower grade. Instead, the reader is more likely to accept that you recognise the limitations of your own research if you write a high quality reflecting move . This is because explaining the limitations of your research and justifying the choices you made during the dissertation process demonstrates the command that you had over your research.

We talk about explaining the nature of the limitations in your dissertation because such limitations are highly research specific. Let's take the example of potential limitations to your sampling strategy. Whilst you may have a number of potential limitations in sampling strategy, let's focus on the lack of probability sampling ; that is, of all the different types of sampling technique that you could have used [see Types of probability sampling and Types of non-probability sampling ], you choose not to use a probability sampling technique (e.g., simple random sampling , systematic random sampling , stratified random sampling ). As mentioned, if you used a quantitative research design in your dissertation, the lack of probability sampling is an important, obvious limitation to your research. This is because it prevents you from making generalisations about the population you are studying (e.g. Facebook usage at a single university of 20,000 students) from the data you have collected (e.g., a survey of 400 students at the same university). Since an important component of quantitative research is such generalisation, this is a clear limitation. However, the lack of a probability sampling technique is not viewed as a limitation if you used a qualitative research design. In qualitative research designs, a non-probability sampling technique is typically selected over a probability sampling technique.

And this is just part of the puzzle?

Even if you used a quantitative research design, but failed to employ a probability sampling technique, there are still many perfectly justifiable reasons why you could have made such a choice. For example, it may have been impossible (or near on impossible) to get a list of the population you were studying (e.g., a list of all the 20,000 students at the single university you were interested in). Since probability sampling is only possible when we have such a list, the lack of such a list or inability to attain such a list is a perfectly justifiable reason for not using a probability sampling technique; even if such a technique is the ideal.

As such, the purpose of all the guides we have written on research limitations is to help you: (a) explain the nature of the limitations in your dissertation; and (b) justify the choices you made.

In helping you to justifying the choices that you made, these articles explain not only when something is, in theory , an obvious limitation, but how, in practice , such a limitation was not necessarily so damaging to the quality of your dissertation. This should significantly strengthen the quality of your Research Limitations section.

THE FORWARD LOOKING MOVE Suggesting how such limitations could be overcome in future

Finally, the forward looking move builds on the reflecting move by suggesting how the limitations you have discuss could be overcome through future research. Whilst a lot could be written in this part of the Research Limitations section, we would recommend that it is only around 10-20% of the total word count for this section.

Stating the Obvious: Writing Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations

During the process of writing your thesis or dissertation, you might suddenly realize that your research has inherent flaws. Don’t worry! Virtually all projects contain restrictions to your research. However, being able to recognize and accurately describe these problems is the difference between a true researcher and a grade-school kid with a science-fair project. Concerns with truthful responding, access to participants, and survey instruments are just a few of examples of restrictions on your research. In the following sections, the differences among delimitations, limitations, and assumptions of a dissertation will be clarified.

Delimitations

Delimitations are the definitions you set as the boundaries of your own thesis or dissertation, so delimitations are in your control. Delimitations are set so that your goals do not become impossibly large to complete. Examples of delimitations include objectives, research questions, variables, theoretical objectives that you have adopted, and populations chosen as targets to study. When you are stating your delimitations, clearly inform readers why you chose this course of study. The answer might simply be that you were curious about the topic and/or wanted to improve standards of a professional field by revealing certain findings. In any case, you should clearly list the other options available and the reasons why you did not choose these options immediately after you list your delimitations. You might have avoided these options for reasons of practicality, interest, or relativity to the study at hand. For example, you might have only studied Hispanic mothers because they have the highest rate of obese babies. Delimitations are often strongly related to your theory and research questions. If you were researching whether there are different parenting styles between unmarried Asian, Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic women, then a delimitation of your study would be the inclusion of only participants with those demographics and the exclusion of participants from other demographics such as men, married women, and all other ethnicities of single women (inclusion and exclusion criteria). A further delimitation might be that you only included closed-ended Likert scale responses in the survey, rather than including additional open-ended responses, which might make some people more willing to take and complete your survey. Remember that delimitations are not good or bad. They are simply a detailed description of the scope of interest for your study as it relates to the research design. Don’t forget to describe the philosophical framework you used throughout your study, which also delimits your study.

Limitations

Limitations of a dissertation are potential weaknesses in your study that are mostly out of your control, given limited funding, choice of research design, statistical model constraints, or other factors. In addition, a limitation is a restriction on your study that cannot be reasonably dismissed and can affect your design and results. Do not worry about limitations because limitations affect virtually all research projects, as well as most things in life. Even when you are going to your favorite restaurant, you are limited by the menu choices. If you went to a restaurant that had a menu that you were craving, you might not receive the service, price, or location that makes you enjoy your favorite restaurant. If you studied participants’ responses to a survey, you might be limited in your abilities to gain the exact type or geographic scope of participants you wanted. The people whom you managed to get to take your survey may not truly be a random sample, which is also a limitation. If you used a common test for data findings, your results are limited by the reliability of the test. If your study was limited to a certain amount of time, your results are affected by the operations of society during that time period (e.g., economy, social trends). It is important for you to remember that limitations of a dissertation are often not something that can be solved by the researcher. Also, remember that whatever limits you also limits other researchers, whether they are the largest medical research companies or consumer habits corporations. Certain kinds of limitations are often associated with the analytical approach you take in your research, too. For example, some qualitative methods like heuristics or phenomenology do not lend themselves well to replicability. Also, most of the commonly used quantitative statistical models can only determine correlation, but not causation.

Assumptions

Assumptions are things that are accepted as true, or at least plausible, by researchers and peers who will read your dissertation or thesis. In other words, any scholar reading your paper will assume that certain aspects of your study is true given your population, statistical test, research design, or other delimitations. For example, if you tell your friend that your favorite restaurant is an Italian place, your friend will assume that you don’t go there for the sushi. It’s assumed that you go there to eat Italian food. Because most assumptions are not discussed in-text, assumptions that are discussed in-text are discussed in the context of the limitations of your study, which is typically in the discussion section. This is important, because both assumptions and limitations affect the inferences you can draw from your study. One of the more common assumptions made in survey research is the assumption of honesty and truthful responses. However, for certain sensitive questions this assumption may be more difficult to accept, in which case it would be described as a limitation of the study. For example, asking people to report their criminal behavior in a survey may not be as reliable as asking people to report their eating habits. It is important to remember that your limitations and assumptions should not contradict one another. For instance, if you state that generalizability is a limitation of your study given that your sample was limited to one city in the United States, then you should not claim generalizability to the United States population as an assumption of your study. Statistical models in quantitative research designs are accompanied with assumptions as well, some more strict than others. These assumptions generally refer to the characteristics of the data, such as distributions, correlational trends, and variable type, just to name a few. Violating these assumptions can lead to drastically invalid results, though this often depends on sample size and other considerations.

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Organizing Academic Research Papers: Limitations of the Study

Purpose of Guide
Design Flaws to Avoid
Glossary of Research Terms
Narrowing a Topic Idea
Broadening a Topic Idea
Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
Academic Writing Style
Choosing a Title
Making an Outline
Paragraph Development
Executive Summary
Background Information
The Research Problem/Question
Theoretical Framework
Citation Tracking
Content Alert Services
Evaluating Sources
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Tertiary Sources
What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
Qualitative Methods
Quantitative Methods
Using Non-Textual Elements
Limitations of the Study
Common Grammar Mistakes
Avoiding Plagiarism
Footnotes or Endnotes?
Further Readings
Annotated Bibliography
Dealing with Nervousness
Using Visual Aids
Grading Someone Else's Paper
How to Manage Group Projects
Multiple Book Review Essay
Reviewing Collected Essays
About Informed Consent
Writing Field Notes
Writing a Policy Memo
Writing a Research Proposal
Acknowledgements

The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. They are the constraints on generalizability and utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.

Importance of...

Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better for you to identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.

Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.

Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate to your professor that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.

Claiming limitiations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the findings and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?

Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.

Descriptions of Possible Limitations

Here are examples of limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your findings. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense.

Possible Methodological Limitations

Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred.
Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is a lack of prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note that this limitation can serve as an important opportunity to describe the need for further research.
Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need in future research to revise the specific method for gathering data.
Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing self-reported data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data contain several potential sources of bias that should be noted as limitations: (1) selective memory (remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past); (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].

Possible Limitations of the Researcher

Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or otherwise limited, the reasons for this need to be described.
Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can literally devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single research problem, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability within a sample is constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a topic that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure, talk to your professor.
Cultural and other type of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. It is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the manner in which you have ordered events, people, or places and how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation. Note that if you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating bias.
Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican-American ESL [English as a Second Language] students, for example, and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic. This deficiency should be acknowledged.

Structure and Writing Style

If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as a pilot study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in later studies.

When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:

Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
Explain why each limitation exists;
Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.

Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't ask a particular question in a survey that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in any future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to prove what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.

Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

Writing Tip

Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings! After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitiations of your study. Inflating of the importance of your study's findings in an attempt hide its flaws is a big turn off to your readers. A measure of humility goes a long way!

Another Writing Tip

Negative Results are Not a Limitation!

Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated, or, perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.

Yet Another Writing Tip

A Note about Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research

Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgement about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.

Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. Data Management and Analysis Methods. In Handbook of Qualitative Research. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444.

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Next: 9. The Conclusion >>
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Research Limitations

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

Writing Limitations of Research Study — 4 Reasons Why It Is Important!

It is not unusual for researchers to come across the term limitations of research during their academic paper writing. More often this is interpreted as something terrible. However, when it comes to research study, limitations can help structure the research study better. Therefore, do not underestimate significance of limitations of research study.

Allow us to take you through the context of how to evaluate the limits of your research and conclude an impactful relevance to your results.

Table of Contents

What Are the Limitations of a Research Study?

Every research has its limit and these limitations arise due to restrictions in methodology or research design. This could impact your entire research or the research paper you wish to publish. Unfortunately, most researchers choose not to discuss their limitations of research fearing it will affect the value of their article in the eyes of readers.

However, it is very important to discuss your study limitations and show it to your target audience (other researchers, journal editors, peer reviewers etc.). It is very important that you provide an explanation of how your research limitations may affect the conclusions and opinions drawn from your research. Moreover, when as an author you state the limitations of research, it shows that you have investigated all the weaknesses of your study and have a deep understanding of the subject. Being honest could impress your readers and mark your study as a sincere effort in research.

Why and Where Should You Include the Research Limitations?

The main goal of your research is to address your research objectives. Conduct experiments, get results and explain those results, and finally justify your research question . It is best to mention the limitations of research in the discussion paragraph of your research article.

At the very beginning of this paragraph, immediately after highlighting the strengths of the research methodology, you should write down your limitations. You can discuss specific points from your research limitations as suggestions for further research in the conclusion of your thesis.

1. Common Limitations of the Researchers

Limitations that are related to the researcher must be mentioned. This will help you gain transparency with your readers. Furthermore, you could provide suggestions on decreasing these limitations in you and your future studies.

2. Limited Access to Information

Your work may involve some institutions and individuals in research, and sometimes you may have problems accessing these institutions. Therefore, you need to redesign and rewrite your work. You must explain your readers the reason for limited access.

3. Limited Time

All researchers are bound by their deadlines when it comes to completing their studies. Sometimes, time constraints can affect your research negatively. However, the best practice is to acknowledge it and mention a requirement for future study to solve the research problem in a better way.

4. Conflict over Biased Views and Personal Issues

Biased views can affect the research. In fact, researchers end up choosing only those results and data that support their main argument, keeping aside the other loose ends of the research.

Types of Limitations of Research

Before beginning your research study, know that there are certain limitations to what you are testing or possible research results. There are different types that researchers may encounter, and they all have unique characteristics, such as:

1. Research Design Limitations

Certain restrictions on your research or available procedures may affect your final results or research outputs. You may have formulated research goals and objectives too broadly. However, this can help you understand how you can narrow down the formulation of research goals and objectives, thereby increasing the focus of your study.

2. Impact Limitations

Even if your research has excellent statistics and a strong design, it can suffer from the influence of the following factors:

Presence of increasing findings as researched
Being population specific
A strong regional focus.

3. Data or statistical limitations

In some cases, it is impossible to collect sufficient data for research or very difficult to get access to the data. This could lead to incomplete conclusion to your study. Moreover, this insufficiency in data could be the outcome of your study design. The unclear, shabby research outline could produce more problems in interpreting your findings.

How to Correctly Structure Your Research Limitations?

There are strict guidelines for narrowing down research questions, wherein you could justify and explain potential weaknesses of your academic paper. You could go through these basic steps to get a well-structured clarity of research limitations:

Declare that you wish to identify your limitations of research and explain their importance,
Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices.
Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future.

In this section, your readers will see that you are aware of the potential weaknesses in your business, understand them and offer effective solutions, and it will positively strengthen your article as you clarify all limitations of research to your target audience.

Know that you cannot be perfect and there is no individual without flaws. You could use the limitations of research as a great opportunity to take on a new challenge and improve the future of research. In a typical academic paper, research limitations may relate to:

1. Formulating your goals and objectives

If you formulate goals and objectives too broadly, your work will have some shortcomings. In this case, specify effective methods or ways to narrow down the formula of goals and aim to increase your level of study focus.

2. Application of your data collection methods in research

If you do not have experience in primary data collection, there is a risk that there will be flaws in the implementation of your methods. It is necessary to accept this, and learn and educate yourself to understand data collection methods.

3. Sample sizes

This depends on the nature of problem you choose. Sample size is of a greater importance in quantitative studies as opposed to qualitative ones. If your sample size is too small, statistical tests cannot identify significant relationships or connections within a given data set.

You could point out that other researchers should base the same study on a larger sample size to get more accurate results.

4. The absence of previous studies in the field you have chosen

Writing a literature review is an important step in any scientific study because it helps researchers determine the scope of current work in the chosen field. It is a major foundation for any researcher who must use them to achieve a set of specific goals or objectives.

However, if you are focused on the most current and evolving research problem or a very narrow research problem, there may be very little prior research on your topic. For example, if you chose to explore the role of Bitcoin as the currency of the future, you may not find tons of scientific papers addressing the research problem as Bitcoins are only a new phenomenon.

It is important that you learn to identify research limitations examples at each step. Whatever field you choose, feel free to add the shortcoming of your work. This is mainly because you do not have many years of experience writing scientific papers or completing complex work. Therefore, the depth and scope of your discussions may be compromised at different levels compared to academics with a lot of expertise. Include specific points from limitations of research. Use them as suggestions for the future.

Have you ever faced a challenge of writing the limitations of research study in your paper? How did you overcome it? What ways did you follow? Were they beneficial? Let us know in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions

Setting limitations in our study helps to clarify the outcomes drawn from our research and enhance understanding of the subject. Moreover, it shows that the author has investigated all the weaknesses in the study.

Scope is the range and limitations of a research project which are set to define the boundaries of a project. Limitations are the impacts on the overall study due to the constraints on the research design.

Limitation in research is an impact of a constraint on the research design in the overall study. They are the flaws or weaknesses in the study, which may influence the outcome of the research.

1. Limitations in research can be written as follows: Formulate your goals and objectives 2. Analyze the chosen data collection method and the sample sizes 3. Identify your limitations of research and explain their importance 4. Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices 5. Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future

Excellent article ,,,it has helped me big

This is very helpful information. It has given me an insight on how to go about my study limitations.

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Research Limitations & Delimitations

What they are and how they’re different (with examples)

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | September 2022

If you’re new to the world of research, you’ve probably heard the terms “ research limitations ” and “ research delimitations ” being thrown around, often quite loosely. In this post, we’ll unpack what both of these mean, how they’re similar and how they’re different – so that you can write up these sections the right way.

Overview: Limitations vs Delimitations

Are they the same?
What are research limitations
What are research delimitations
Limitations vs delimitations

First things first…

Let’s start with the most important takeaway point of this post – research limitations and research delimitations are not the same – but they are related to each other (we’ll unpack that a little later). So, if you hear someone using these two words interchangeably, be sure to share this post with them!

Research Limitations

Research limitations are, at the simplest level, the weaknesses of the study, based on factors that are often outside of your control as the researcher. These factors could include things like time , access to funding, equipment , data or participants . For example, if you weren’t able to access a random sample of participants for your study and had to adopt a convenience sampling strategy instead, that would impact the generalizability of your findings and therefore reflect a limitation of your study.

Research limitations can also emerge from the research design itself . For example, if you were undertaking a correlational study, you wouldn’t be able to infer causality (since correlation doesn’t mean certain causation). Similarly, if you utilised online surveys to collect data from your participants, you naturally wouldn’t be able to get the same degree of rich data that you would from in-person interviews .

Simply put, research limitations reflect the shortcomings of a study , based on practical (or theoretical) constraints that the researcher faced. These shortcomings limit what you can conclude from a study, but at the same time, present a foundation for future research . Importantly, all research has limitations , so there’s no need to hide anything here – as long as you discuss how the limitations might affect your findings, it’s all good.

Research Delimitations

Alright, now that we’ve unpacked the limitations, let’s move on to the delimitations .

Research delimitations are similar to limitations in that they also “ limit ” the study, but their focus is entirely different. Specifically, the delimitations of a study refer to the scope of the research aims and research questions . In other words, delimitations reflect the choices you, as the researcher, intentionally make in terms of what you will and won’t try to achieve with your study. In other words, what your research aims and research questions will and won’t include.

As we’ve spoken about many times before, it’s important to have a tight, narrow focus for your research, so that you can dive deeply into your topic, apply your energy to one specific area and develop meaningful insights. If you have an overly broad scope or unfocused topic, your research will often pull in multiple, even opposing directions, and you’ll just land up with a muddy mess of findings .

So, the delimitations section is where you’ll clearly state what your research aims and research questions will focus on – and just as importantly, what they will exclude . For example, you might investigate a widespread phenomenon, but choose to focus your study on a specific age group, ethnicity or gender. Similarly, your study may focus exclusively on one country, city or even organization. As long as the scope is well justified (in other words, it represents a novel, valuable research topic), this is perfectly acceptable – in fact, it’s essential. Remember, focus is your friend.

Need a helping hand?

Conclusion: Limitations vs Delimitations

Ok, so let’s recap.

Research limitations and research delimitations are related in that they both refer to “limits” within a study. But, they are distinctly different. Limitations reflect the shortcomings of your study, based on practical or theoretical constraints that you faced.

Contrasted to that, delimitations reflect the choices that you made in terms of the focus and scope of your research aims and research questions. If you want to learn more about research aims and questions, you can check out this video post , where we unpack those concepts in detail.

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project.

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18 Comments

Good clarification of ideas on how a researcher ought to do during Process of choice

Thank you so much for this very simple but explicit explanation on limitation and delimitation. It has so helped me to develop my masters proposal. hope to recieve more from your site as time progresses

Thank you for this explanation – very clear.

Thanks for the explanation, really got it well.

This website is really helpful for my masters proposal

Thank you very much for helping to explain these two terms

I spent almost the whole day trying to figure out the differences

when I came across your notes everything became very clear

thanks for the clearly outlined explanation on the two terms, limitation and delimitation.

Very helpful Many thanks 🙏

Excellent it resolved my conflict .

I would like you to assist me please. If in my Research, I interviewed some participants and I submitted Questionnaires to other participants to answered to the questions, in the same organization, Is this a Qualitative methodology , a Quantitative Methodology or is it a Mixture Methodology I have used in my research? Please help me

How do I cite this article in APA format

Really so great ,finally have understood it’s difference now

Getting more clear regarding Limitations and Delimitation and concepts

I really appreciate your apt and precise explanation of the two concepts namely ; Limitations and Delimitations.

This is a good sources of research information for learners.

thank you for this, very helpful to researchers

Very good explained

Great and clear explanation, after a long confusion period on the two words, i can now explain to someone with ease.

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21 Research Limitations Examples

research limitations examples and definition, explained below

Research limitations refer to the potential weaknesses inherent in a study. All studies have limitations of some sort, meaning declaring limitations doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing, so long as your declaration of limitations is well thought-out and explained.

Rarely is a study perfect. Researchers have to make trade-offs when developing their studies, which are often based upon practical considerations such as time and monetary constraints, weighing the breadth of participants against the depth of insight, and choosing one methodology or another.

In research, studies can have limitations such as limited scope, researcher subjectivity, and lack of available research tools.

Acknowledging the limitations of your study should be seen as a strength. It demonstrates your willingness for transparency, humility, and submission to the scientific method and can bolster the integrity of the study. It can also inform future research direction.

Typically, scholars will explore the limitations of their study in either their methodology section, their conclusion section, or both.

Research Limitations Examples

Qualitative and quantitative research offer different perspectives and methods in exploring phenomena, each with its own strengths and limitations. So, I’ve split the limitations examples sections into qualitative and quantitative below.

Qualitative Research Limitations

Qualitative research seeks to understand phenomena in-depth and in context. It focuses on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.

It’s often used to explore new or complex issues, and it provides rich, detailed insights into participants’ experiences, behaviors, and attitudes. However, these strengths also create certain limitations, as explained below.

1. Subjectivity

Qualitative research often requires the researcher to interpret subjective data. One researcher may examine a text and identify different themes or concepts as more dominant than others.

Close qualitative readings of texts are necessarily subjective – and while this may be a limitation, qualitative researchers argue this is the best way to deeply understand everything in context.

Suggested Solution and Response: To minimize subjectivity bias, you could consider cross-checking your own readings of themes and data against other scholars’ readings and interpretations. This may involve giving the raw data to a supervisor or colleague and asking them to code the data separately, then coming together to compare and contrast results.

2. Researcher Bias

The concept of researcher bias is related to, but slightly different from, subjectivity.

Researcher bias refers to the perspectives and opinions you bring with you when doing your research.

For example, a researcher who is explicitly of a certain philosophical or political persuasion may bring that persuasion to bear when interpreting data.

In many scholarly traditions, we will attempt to minimize researcher bias through the utilization of clear procedures that are set out in advance or through the use of statistical analysis tools.

However, in other traditions, such as in postmodern feminist research , declaration of bias is expected, and acknowledgment of bias is seen as a positive because, in those traditions, it is believed that bias cannot be eliminated from research, so instead, it is a matter of integrity to present it upfront.

Suggested Solution and Response: Acknowledge the potential for researcher bias and, depending on your theoretical framework , accept this, or identify procedures you have taken to seek a closer approximation to objectivity in your coding and analysis.

3. Generalizability

If you’re struggling to find a limitation to discuss in your own qualitative research study, then this one is for you: all qualitative research, of all persuasions and perspectives, cannot be generalized.

This is a core feature that sets qualitative data and quantitative data apart.

The point of qualitative data is to select case studies and similarly small corpora and dig deep through in-depth analysis and thick description of data.

Often, this will also mean that you have a non-randomized sample size.

While this is a positive – you’re going to get some really deep, contextualized, interesting insights – it also means that the findings may not be generalizable to a larger population that may not be representative of the small group of people in your study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that take a quantitative approach to the question.

4. The Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect refers to the phenomenon where research participants change their ‘observed behavior’ when they’re aware that they are being observed.

This effect was first identified by Elton Mayo who conducted studies of the effects of various factors ton workers’ productivity. He noticed that no matter what he did – turning up the lights, turning down the lights, etc. – there was an increase in worker outputs compared to prior to the study taking place.

Mayo realized that the mere act of observing the workers made them work harder – his observation was what was changing behavior.

So, if you’re looking for a potential limitation to name for your observational research study , highlight the possible impact of the Hawthorne effect (and how you could reduce your footprint or visibility in order to decrease its likelihood).

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight ways you have attempted to reduce your footprint while in the field, and guarantee anonymity to your research participants.

5. Replicability

Quantitative research has a great benefit in that the studies are replicable – a researcher can get a similar sample size, duplicate the variables, and re-test a study. But you can’t do that in qualitative research.

Qualitative research relies heavily on context – a specific case study or specific variables that make a certain instance worthy of analysis. As a result, it’s often difficult to re-enter the same setting with the same variables and repeat the study.

Furthermore, the individual researcher’s interpretation is more influential in qualitative research, meaning even if a new researcher enters an environment and makes observations, their observations may be different because subjectivity comes into play much more. This doesn’t make the research bad necessarily (great insights can be made in qualitative research), but it certainly does demonstrate a weakness of qualitative research.

6. Limited Scope

“Limited scope” is perhaps one of the most common limitations listed by researchers – and while this is often a catch-all way of saying, “well, I’m not studying that in this study”, it’s also a valid point.

No study can explore everything related to a topic. At some point, we have to make decisions about what’s included in the study and what is excluded from the study.

So, you could say that a limitation of your study is that it doesn’t look at an extra variable or concept that’s certainly worthy of study but will have to be explored in your next project because this project has a clearly and narrowly defined goal.

Suggested Solution and Response: Be clear about what’s in and out of the study when writing your research question.

7. Time Constraints

This is also a catch-all claim you can make about your research project: that you would have included more people in the study, looked at more variables, and so on. But you’ve got to submit this thing by the end of next semester! You’ve got time constraints.

And time constraints are a recognized reality in all research.

But this means you’ll need to explain how time has limited your decisions. As with “limited scope”, this may mean that you had to study a smaller group of subjects, limit the amount of time you spent in the field, and so forth.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will build on your current work, possibly as a PhD project.

8. Resource Intensiveness

Qualitative research can be expensive due to the cost of transcription, the involvement of trained researchers, and potential travel for interviews or observations.

So, resource intensiveness is similar to the time constraints concept. If you don’t have the funds, you have to make decisions about which tools to use, which statistical software to employ, and how many research assistants you can dedicate to the study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will gain more funding on the back of this ‘ exploratory study ‘.

9. Coding Difficulties

Data analysis in qualitative research often involves coding, which can be subjective and complex, especially when dealing with ambiguous or contradicting data.

After naming this as a limitation in your research, it’s important to explain how you’ve attempted to address this. Some ways to ‘limit the limitation’ include:

Triangulation: Have 2 other researchers code the data as well and cross-check your results with theirs to identify outliers that may need to be re-examined, debated with the other researchers, or removed altogether.
Procedure: Use a clear coding procedure to demonstrate reliability in your coding process. I personally use the thematic network analysis method outlined in this academic article by Attride-Stirling (2001).

Suggested Solution and Response: Triangulate your coding findings with colleagues, and follow a thematic network analysis procedure.

10. Risk of Non-Responsiveness

There is always a risk in research that research participants will be unwilling or uncomfortable sharing their genuine thoughts and feelings in the study.

This is particularly true when you’re conducting research on sensitive topics, politicized topics, or topics where the participant is expressing vulnerability .

This is similar to the Hawthorne effect (aka participant bias), where participants change their behaviors in your presence; but it goes a step further, where participants actively hide their true thoughts and feelings from you.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be non-responsiveness from some participants.

11. Risk of Attrition

Attrition refers to the process of losing research participants throughout the study.

This occurs most commonly in longitudinal studies , where a researcher must return to conduct their analysis over spaced periods of time, often over a period of years.

Things happen to people over time – they move overseas, their life experiences change, they get sick, change their minds, and even die. The more time that passes, the greater the risk of attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be attrition over time.

12. Difficulty in Maintaining Confidentiality and Anonymity

Given the detailed nature of qualitative data , ensuring participant anonymity can be challenging.

If you have a sensitive topic in a specific case study, even anonymizing research participants sometimes isn’t enough. People might be able to induce who you’re talking about.

Sometimes, this will mean you have to exclude some interesting data that you collected from your final report. Confidentiality and anonymity come before your findings in research ethics – and this is a necessary limiting factor.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight the efforts you have taken to anonymize data, and accept that confidentiality and accountability place extremely important constraints on academic research.

13. Difficulty in Finding Research Participants

A study that looks at a very specific phenomenon or even a specific set of cases within a phenomenon means that the pool of potential research participants can be very low.

Compile on top of this the fact that many people you approach may choose not to participate, and you could end up with a very small corpus of subjects to explore. This may limit your ability to make complete findings, even in a quantitative sense.

You may need to therefore limit your research question and objectives to something more realistic.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that this is going to limit the study’s generalizability significantly.

14. Ethical Limitations

Ethical limitations refer to the things you cannot do based on ethical concerns identified either by yourself or your institution’s ethics review board.

This might include threats to the physical or psychological well-being of your research subjects, the potential of releasing data that could harm a person’s reputation, and so on.

Furthermore, even if your study follows all expected standards of ethics, you still, as an ethical researcher, need to allow a research participant to pull out at any point in time, after which you cannot use their data, which demonstrates an overlap between ethical constraints and participant attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that these ethical limitations are inevitable but important to sustain the integrity of the research.

For more on Qualitative Research, Explore my Qualitative Research Guide

Quantitative Research Limitations

Quantitative research focuses on quantifiable data and statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. It’s often used to test hypotheses, assess relationships and causality, and generalize findings across larger populations.

Quantitative research is widely respected for its ability to provide reliable, measurable, and generalizable data (if done well!). Its structured methodology has strengths over qualitative research, such as the fact it allows for replication of the study, which underpins the validity of the research.

However, this approach is not without it limitations, explained below.

1. Over-Simplification

Quantitative research is powerful because it allows you to measure and analyze data in a systematic and standardized way. However, one of its limitations is that it can sometimes simplify complex phenomena or situations.

In other words, it might miss the subtleties or nuances of the research subject.

For example, if you’re studying why people choose a particular diet, a quantitative study might identify factors like age, income, or health status. But it might miss other aspects, such as cultural influences or personal beliefs, that can also significantly impact dietary choices.

When writing about this limitation, you can say that your quantitative approach, while providing precise measurements and comparisons, may not capture the full complexity of your subjects of study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest a follow-up case study using the same research participants in order to gain additional context and depth.

2. Lack of Context

Another potential issue with quantitative research is that it often focuses on numbers and statistics at the expense of context or qualitative information.

Let’s say you’re studying the effect of classroom size on student performance. You might find that students in smaller classes generally perform better. However, this doesn’t take into account other variables, like teaching style , student motivation, or family support.

When describing this limitation, you might say, “Although our research provides important insights into the relationship between class size and student performance, it does not incorporate the impact of other potentially influential variables. Future research could benefit from a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights.”

3. Applicability to Real-World Settings

Oftentimes, experimental research takes place in controlled environments to limit the influence of outside factors.

This control is great for isolation and understanding the specific phenomenon but can limit the applicability or “external validity” of the research to real-world settings.

For example, if you conduct a lab experiment to see how sleep deprivation impacts cognitive performance, the sterile, controlled lab environment might not reflect real-world conditions where people are dealing with multiple stressors.

Therefore, when explaining the limitations of your quantitative study in your methodology section, you could state:

“While our findings provide valuable information about [topic], the controlled conditions of the experiment may not accurately represent real-world scenarios where extraneous variables will exist. As such, the direct applicability of our results to broader contexts may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will engage in real-world observational research, such as ethnographic research.

4. Limited Flexibility

Once a quantitative study is underway, it can be challenging to make changes to it. This is because, unlike in grounded research, you’re putting in place your study in advance, and you can’t make changes part-way through.

Your study design, data collection methods, and analysis techniques need to be decided upon before you start collecting data.

For example, if you are conducting a survey on the impact of social media on teenage mental health, and halfway through, you realize that you should have included a question about their screen time, it’s generally too late to add it.

When discussing this limitation, you could write something like, “The structured nature of our quantitative approach allows for consistent data collection and analysis but also limits our flexibility to adapt and modify the research process in response to emerging insights and ideas.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use mixed-methods or qualitative research methods to gain additional depth of insight.

5. Risk of Survey Error

Surveys are a common tool in quantitative research, but they carry risks of error.

There can be measurement errors (if a question is misunderstood), coverage errors (if some groups aren’t adequately represented), non-response errors (if certain people don’t respond), and sampling errors (if your sample isn’t representative of the population).

For instance, if you’re surveying college students about their study habits , but only daytime students respond because you conduct the survey during the day, your results will be skewed.

In discussing this limitation, you might say, “Despite our best efforts to develop a comprehensive survey, there remains a risk of survey error, including measurement, coverage, non-response, and sampling errors. These could potentially impact the reliability and generalizability of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use other survey tools to compare and contrast results.

6. Limited Ability to Probe Answers

With quantitative research, you typically can’t ask follow-up questions or delve deeper into participants’ responses like you could in a qualitative interview.

For instance, imagine you are surveying 500 students about study habits in a questionnaire. A respondent might indicate that they study for two hours each night. You might want to follow up by asking them to elaborate on what those study sessions involve or how effective they feel their habits are.

However, quantitative research generally disallows this in the way a qualitative semi-structured interview could.

When discussing this limitation, you might write, “Given the structured nature of our survey, our ability to probe deeper into individual responses is limited. This means we may not fully understand the context or reasoning behind the responses, potentially limiting the depth of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that engage in mixed-method or qualitative methodologies to address the issue from another angle.

7. Reliance on Instruments for Data Collection

In quantitative research, the collection of data heavily relies on instruments like questionnaires, surveys, or machines.

The limitation here is that the data you get is only as good as the instrument you’re using. If the instrument isn’t designed or calibrated well, your data can be flawed.

For instance, if you’re using a questionnaire to study customer satisfaction and the questions are vague, confusing, or biased, the responses may not accurately reflect the customers’ true feelings.

When discussing this limitation, you could say, “Our study depends on the use of questionnaires for data collection. Although we have put significant effort into designing and testing the instrument, it’s possible that inaccuracies or misunderstandings could potentially affect the validity of the data collected.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use different instruments but examine the same variables to triangulate results.

8. Time and Resource Constraints (Specific to Quantitative Research)

Quantitative research can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially when dealing with large samples.

It often involves systematic sampling, rigorous design, and sometimes complex statistical analysis.

If resources and time are limited, it can restrict the scale of your research, the techniques you can employ, or the extent of your data analysis.

For example, you may want to conduct a nationwide survey on public opinion about a certain policy. However, due to limited resources, you might only be able to survey people in one city.

When writing about this limitation, you could say, “Given the scope of our research and the resources available, we are limited to conducting our survey within one city, which may not fully represent the nationwide public opinion. Hence, the generalizability of the results may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will have more funding or longer timeframes.

How to Discuss Your Research Limitations

1. in your research proposal and methodology section.

In the research proposal, which will become the methodology section of your dissertation, I would recommend taking the four following steps, in order:

Be Explicit about your Scope – If you limit the scope of your study in your research question, aims, and objectives, then you can set yourself up well later in the methodology to say that certain questions are “outside the scope of the study.” For example, you may identify the fact that the study doesn’t address a certain variable, but you can follow up by stating that the research question is specifically focused on the variable that you are examining, so this limitation would need to be looked at in future studies.
Acknowledge the Limitation – Acknowledging the limitations of your study demonstrates reflexivity and humility and can make your research more reliable and valid. It also pre-empts questions the people grading your paper may have, so instead of them down-grading you for your limitations; they will congratulate you on explaining the limitations and how you have addressed them!
Explain your Decisions – You may have chosen your approach (despite its limitations) for a very specific reason. This might be because your approach remains, on balance, the best one to answer your research question. Or, it might be because of time and monetary constraints that are outside of your control.
Highlight the Strengths of your Approach – Conclude your limitations section by strongly demonstrating that, despite limitations, you’ve worked hard to minimize the effects of the limitations and that you have chosen your specific approach and methodology because it’s also got some terrific strengths. Name the strengths.

Overall, you’ll want to acknowledge your own limitations but also explain that the limitations don’t detract from the value of your study as it stands.

2. In the Conclusion Section or Chapter

In the conclusion of your study, it is generally expected that you return to a discussion of the study’s limitations. Here, I recommend the following steps:

Acknowledge issues faced – After completing your study, you will be increasingly aware of issues you may have faced that, if you re-did the study, you may have addressed earlier in order to avoid those issues. Acknowledge these issues as limitations, and frame them as recommendations for subsequent studies.
Suggest further research – Scholarly research aims to fill gaps in the current literature and knowledge. Having established your expertise through your study, suggest lines of inquiry for future researchers. You could state that your study had certain limitations, and “future studies” can address those limitations.
Suggest a mixed methods approach – Qualitative and quantitative research each have pros and cons. So, note those ‘cons’ of your approach, then say the next study should approach the topic using the opposite methodology or could approach it using a mixed-methods approach that could achieve the benefits of quantitative studies with the nuanced insights of associated qualitative insights as part of an in-study case-study.

Overall, be clear about both your limitations and how those limitations can inform future studies.

In sum, each type of research method has its own strengths and limitations. Qualitative research excels in exploring depth, context, and complexity, while quantitative research excels in examining breadth, generalizability, and quantifiable measures. Despite their individual limitations, each method contributes unique and valuable insights, and researchers often use them together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative research , 1 (3), 385-405. ( Source )

Atkinson, P., Delamont, S., Cernat, A., Sakshaug, J., & Williams, R. A. (2021). SAGE research methods foundations . London: Sage Publications.

Clark, T., Foster, L., Bryman, A., & Sloan, L. (2021). Bryman’s social research methods . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Köhler, T., Smith, A., & Bhakoo, V. (2022). Templates in qualitative research methods: Origins, limitations, and new directions. Organizational Research Methods , 25 (2), 183-210. ( Source )

Lenger, A. (2019). The rejection of qualitative research methods in economics. Journal of Economic Issues , 53 (4), 946-965. ( Source )

Taherdoost, H. (2022). What are different research approaches? Comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research, their applications, types, and limitations. Journal of Management Science & Engineering Research , 5 (1), 53-63. ( Source )

Walliman, N. (2021). Research methods: The basics . New York: Routledge.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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How to write the ‘limitations or shortcomings of the study’ in a research paper?

‘Limitations or shortcomings of the study’ is the last stage of a thesis. After the study is completed, as a researcher, you may have identified shortcomings. Enlisting those areas in the thesis serves many purposes.

Identifying limitations or shortcomings in a study means that you have carefully considered their potential impact on your findings. So, when readers frame an opinion about your study, they know the conditions under which your findings are valid. Secondly, it establishes the credibility of your research. No study is complete without its set of limitations. Therefore identifying these limitations formally acknowledges that your research was carried out ethically. Finally, it establishes the validity of the research.

Researcher versus methodology

Researcher’s limitation occurs due to the researcher’s shortcomings. This may include sampling errors such as using a cluster random sampling instead of simple random sampling. Another type of it is the inability of the researcher to cover a wide range of respondents from a large geographical location. Another researcher based shortcoming is while conducting research that has poor literature support. The research may lack direction of the study, which leads to poor methodology implementation. On the other hand methodology, related limitations include poor methods of data collection.

For example, including fewer questions or irrelevant questions in the survey or interview questionnaire to collect data. In addition, methodological limitations also involve using wrong or irrelevant data analysis methods to present the findings or address the aim of the study. In this case, the limitation is an inadequate questionnaire for data collection to address the aim of the study.

Impact and data related shortcomings

Impact related shortcomings are those where the research suffers from poor impact by the causal factors that do not show a variation of the findings. This mainly occurs when you use manipulated data or have poorly planned the methodology. As a result, the findings may seem to be a too obvious or small positive or negative change in a variable quantity or function. On the other hand, data limitations are almost the same as methodological limitations mentioned in the previous type. Poor data collection methods and lack of large sample size for survey make for poor data.

Pre-research and post-research shortcomings

Pre-research shortcomings are the ones that you are aware of or expect during the conduction of the study. Usually, pre-research shortcomings are presented in the proposal or synopsis of the main research. However, there are no solutions to these problems. On the other hand, post-research limitations are the ones that are identified after the study was conducted. For instance, biased findings or contradictory findings comes under post-research limitations. This may also occur while conducting triangulation, and the findings of quantitative and qualitative do not match the secondary literature findings.

Steps to follow

There are many ways to write this section, but the three-step formula is popular.

Step 1: Announcement

In this step clearly mention the shortcomings that were faced in the study. List out all the shortcomings faced starting from methods to the statistical findings, such as bias in sampling, lack of respondent participation, etc. This section of the limitation should be only 10% of the total content.

Step 2: Reflection

In this step, justify and elaborate on the limitations. Justify why the limitations occurred. This should have the maximum content, of about 60%.

For instance, the biases of the responses may have occurred from poor knowledge of the participants or the participants were not aware of the importance of the study. Another possibility of biases of the responses is that they did not want to display the negative aspects and responded positively for the sake of the study. In addition, research limitation may also be possible as the study chose only one case for the collection of data.

Step 3: Look forward

This mainly comprises of the future scope of the study. Suggest what should be done in the future by researchers looking to conduct similar studies. This section should comprise the remaining 30% of the total content.

For instance, since, the study found the limitation of response biases; it is suggested that future researchers must choose more than one organization for distribution and collection of the survey or interview. In addition, a pilot study can be conducted well before the collection of final data.

Steps to write 'limitations or shortcomings of the study'

What not to write?

Do not apologize for writing the limitations of the study or never apologize for the occurrence of the limitations. Without it, the research is never complete, and the study will never move in the right direction.
Avoid referring to personal limitations such as poor data collection due to lack of time. Do not mention points that will show negative impression your due diligence in the research. Avoid statements that will lead to the lack of your credibility. This may include statements such as ‘since the study was on secondary data gathered, many missing variables were discovered. Since the variables are important and cannot be ignored; there was a manipulation of the missing data’.
Never mention shortcomings that have already been mentioned in the previous studies. Research is initiated by identifying the limitations of past research published in the same field. Do not use sentences like, ‘we found similar limitations as were mentioned by ABD, (2018) in the study ‘how to write limitations’? Or ‘the current study tried to avoid the limitations as mentioned in ABD, (2018), but the same still occurred.’
Do not over-write or paraphrase just for the sake of filling up words. Never repeat the same points over and over again. For instance, once spoken of the sample size limitations, do not write that, ‘the study also saw the limitation of less number of people turning up for the survey questionnaire fill-ins.’

Sample of ‘limitations of the study’

The following is a classic example of how to write the limitations in a thesis.

The main aim of the study was to assess the factors that lead to poor limitations writing in a research paper by research scholars. Although the study conducted a thorough survey, there were certain limitations while exploring the aim of the study. It is expected that these points will help future researchers to avoid facing the same shortcomings.

While conducting the pilot study it was expected that the number of participants will be a minimum of 200. However, after the final data collection and compilation of data, there were only 129 participants for the study. This might be from the fact that the participants were not interested in participating or did not have the time to completely fill in the questionnaire. Since the sample populations were mainly research scholars from a tertiary institute, maybe they did not have enough time to fill in the questionnaires. Therefore, in future studies that use research scholars as a sample population but consider providing questionnaires or collect data from a much larger group or choose more than one institutions for the collection of data.
It was found from the study that, the current findings contradict the findings of previous studies on factors that lead to poor limitations writing in a research paper by research scholars. This may be from the fact that the studies conducted previously were based on European countries and America. Therefore, the perspective of the research scholars may have varied. Again, the methods of research differ from one place to another and the challenges faced by researchers also differ. This may have led to the limitation of contradictory findings. Therefore, it is suggested that the researchers must consider the factors found from different regions and assess them or make a comparative study to find the factors and how they differ.

Concluding note

Limitations of the study is a very important part of the research. It helps future studies and researches to focus on more innovative ways to conduct research and ignore the issues faced. Be honest, pragmatic and structured while writing this section. Go through ample examples from different authors before writing your own. I suggest you using pointers to specifically write or inform the limitations as indicated in the limitation example. Be specific about the limitations and try not to make up to the limitations.

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Proofreading.

CPS Online Graduate Studies Research Paper (UNH Manchester Library): Limitations of the Study

Overview of the Research Process for Capstone Projects
Types of Research Design
Selecting a Research Problem
The Title of Your Research Paper
Before You Begin Writing
7 Parts of the Research Paper
Background Information
Quanitative and Qualitative Methods
Qualitative Methods
Quanitative Methods
Resources to Help You With the Literature Review
Non-Textual Elements

Limitations of the Study

Format of Capstone Research Projects at GSC
Editing and Proofreading Your Paper
Acknowledgements
UNH Scholar's Repository

The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your research. They are the constraints on generalizability, applications to practice, and/or utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you initially chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67.

Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better that you identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.

Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but to also confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.

Descriptions of Possible Limitations

Here are examples of limitations related to methodology and the research process you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your results. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense because they were discovered after you completed your research.

Possible Methodological Limitations

Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred. Note that sample size is less relevant in qualitative research.
Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, though, consult with a librarian. In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is no prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note again that discovering a limitation can serve as an important opportunity to identify new gaps in the literature and to describe the need for further research.
Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need for future researchers to revise the specific method for gathering data.
Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data can contain several potential sources of bias that you should be alert to and note as limitations. These biases become apparent if they are incongruent with data from other sources. These are: (1) selective memory [remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past]; (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].

Possible Limitations of the Researcher

Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or limited in some way, the reasons for this need to be described.
Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can literally devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single topic, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability over time is pretty much constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a research problem that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure whether you can complete your research within the confines of the assignment's due date, talk to your professor.
Cultural and other type of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. Bias is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well, especially if that bias reflects your reliance on research that only support for your hypothesis. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the manner in which you have ordered events, people, or places, how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation.

NOTE: If you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating that bias.

Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican-American ESL [English as a Second Language] students, for example, and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic. This deficiency should be acknowledged.

Structure and Writing Style

Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section. If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations, such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as an exploratory study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in a new study. But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic. If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to revise your study. When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to: Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms; Explain why each limitation exists; Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to acquire or gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible]; Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and, If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research. Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't interview a group of people that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in a future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to show what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification. Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed. January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:

Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
Explain why each limitation exists;
Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to acquire or gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.

Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion . The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

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Delimitations in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

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Delimitations

Definition:

Delimitations refer to the specific boundaries or limitations that are set in a research study in order to narrow its scope and focus. Delimitations may be related to a variety of factors, including the population being studied, the geographical location, the time period, the research design , and the methods or tools being used to collect data .

The Importance of Delimitations in Research Studies

Here are some reasons why delimitations are important in research studies:

Provide focus : Delimitations help researchers focus on a specific area of interest and avoid getting sidetracked by tangential topics. By setting clear boundaries, researchers can concentrate their efforts on the most relevant and significant aspects of the research question.
Increase validity : Delimitations ensure that the research is more valid by defining the boundaries of the study. When researchers establish clear criteria for inclusion and exclusion, they can better control for extraneous variables that might otherwise confound the results.
Improve generalizability : Delimitations help researchers determine the extent to which their findings can be generalized to other populations or contexts. By specifying the sample size, geographic region, time frame, or other relevant factors, researchers can provide more accurate estimates of the generalizability of their results.
Enhance feasibility : Delimitations help researchers identify the resources and time required to complete the study. By setting realistic parameters, researchers can ensure that the study is feasible and can be completed within the available time and resources.
Clarify scope: Delimitations help readers understand the scope of the research project. By explicitly stating what is included and excluded, researchers can avoid confusion and ensure that readers understand the boundaries of the study.

Types of Delimitations in Research

Here are some types of delimitations in research and their significance:

Time Delimitations

This type of delimitation refers to the time frame in which the research will be conducted. Time delimitations are important because they help to narrow down the scope of the study and ensure that the research is feasible within the given time constraints.

Geographical Delimitations

Geographical delimitations refer to the geographic boundaries within which the research will be conducted. These delimitations are significant because they help to ensure that the research is relevant to the intended population or location.

Population Delimitations

Population delimitations refer to the specific group of people that the research will focus on. These delimitations are important because they help to ensure that the research is targeted to a specific group, which can improve the accuracy of the results.

Data Delimitations

Data delimitations refer to the specific types of data that will be used in the research. These delimitations are important because they help to ensure that the data is relevant to the research question and that the research is conducted using reliable and valid data sources.

Scope Delimitations

Scope delimitations refer to the specific aspects or dimensions of the research that will be examined. These delimitations are important because they help to ensure that the research is focused and that the findings are relevant to the research question.

How to Write Delimitations

In order to write delimitations in research, you can follow these steps:

Identify the scope of your study : Determine the extent of your research by defining its boundaries. This will help you to identify the areas that are within the scope of your research and those that are outside of it.
Determine the time frame : Decide on the time period that your research will cover. This could be a specific period, such as a year, or it could be a general time frame, such as the last decade.
I dentify the population : Determine the group of people or objects that your study will focus on. This could be a specific age group, gender, profession, or geographic location.
Establish the sample size : Determine the number of participants that your study will involve. This will help you to establish the number of people you need to recruit for your study.
Determine the variables: Identify the variables that will be measured in your study. This could include demographic information, attitudes, behaviors, or other factors.
Explain the limitations : Clearly state the limitations of your study. This could include limitations related to time, resources, sample size, or other factors that may impact the validity of your research.
Justify the limitations : Explain why these limitations are necessary for your research. This will help readers understand why certain factors were excluded from the study.

When to Write Delimitations in Research

Here are some situations when you may need to write delimitations in research:

When defining the scope of the study: Delimitations help to define the boundaries of your research by specifying what is and what is not included in your study. For instance, you may delimit your study by focusing on a specific population, geographic region, time period, or research methodology.
When addressing limitations: Delimitations can also be used to address the limitations of your research. For example, if your data is limited to a certain timeframe or geographic area, you can include this information in your delimitations to help readers understand the limitations of your findings.
When justifying the relevance of the study : Delimitations can also help you to justify the relevance of your research. For instance, if you are conducting a study on a specific population or region, you can explain why this group or area is important and how your research will contribute to the understanding of this topic.
When clarifying the research question or hypothesis : Delimitations can also be used to clarify your research question or hypothesis. By specifying the boundaries of your study, you can ensure that your research question or hypothesis is focused and specific.
When establishing the context of the study : Finally, delimitations can help you to establish the context of your research. By providing information about the scope and limitations of your study, you can help readers to understand the context in which your research was conducted and the implications of your findings.

Examples of Delimitations in Research

Examples of Delimitations in Research are as follows:

Research Title : “Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Cybersecurity Threat Detection”

Delimitations :

The study will focus solely on the use of artificial intelligence in detecting and mitigating cybersecurity threats.
The study will only consider the impact of AI on threat detection and not on other aspects of cybersecurity such as prevention, response, or recovery.
The research will be limited to a specific type of cybersecurity threats, such as malware or phishing attacks, rather than all types of cyber threats.
The study will only consider the use of AI in a specific industry, such as finance or healthcare, rather than examining its impact across all industries.
The research will only consider AI-based threat detection tools that are currently available and widely used, rather than including experimental or theoretical AI models.

Research Title: “The Effects of Social Media on Academic Performance: A Case Study of College Students”

Delimitations:

The study will focus only on college students enrolled in a particular university.
The study will only consider social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The study will only analyze the academic performance of students based on their GPA and course grades.
The study will not consider the impact of other factors such as student demographics, socioeconomic status, or other factors that may affect academic performance.
The study will only use self-reported data from students, rather than objective measures of their social media usage or academic performance.

Purpose of Delimitations

Some Purposes of Delimitations are as follows:

Focusing the research : By defining the scope of the study, delimitations help researchers to narrow down their research questions and focus on specific aspects of the topic. This allows for a more targeted and meaningful study.
Clarifying the research scope : Delimitations help to clarify the boundaries of the research, which helps readers to understand what is and is not included in the study.
Avoiding scope creep : Delimitations help researchers to stay focused on their research objectives and avoid being sidetracked by tangential issues or data.
Enhancing the validity of the study : By setting clear boundaries, delimitations help to ensure that the study is valid and reliable.
Improving the feasibility of the study : Delimitations help researchers to ensure that their study is feasible and can be conducted within the time and resources available.

Applications of Delimitations

Here are some common applications of delimitations:

Geographic delimitations : Researchers may limit their study to a specific geographic area, such as a particular city, state, or country. This helps to narrow the focus of the study and makes it more manageable.
Time delimitations : Researchers may limit their study to a specific time period, such as a decade, a year, or a specific date range. This can be useful for studying trends over time or for comparing data from different time periods.
Population delimitations : Researchers may limit their study to a specific population, such as a particular age group, gender, or ethnic group. This can help to ensure that the study is relevant to the population being studied.
Data delimitations : Researchers may limit their study to specific types of data, such as survey responses, interviews, or archival records. This can help to ensure that the study is based on reliable and relevant data.
Conceptual delimitations : Researchers may limit their study to specific concepts or variables, such as only studying the effects of a particular treatment on a specific outcome. This can help to ensure that the study is focused and clear.

Advantages of Delimitations

Some Advantages of Delimitations are as follows:

Helps to focus the study: Delimitations help to narrow down the scope of the research and identify specific areas that need to be investigated. This helps to focus the study and ensures that the research is not too broad or too narrow.
Defines the study population: Delimitations can help to define the population that will be studied. This can include age range, gender, geographical location, or any other factors that are relevant to the research. This helps to ensure that the study is more specific and targeted.
Provides clarity: Delimitations help to provide clarity about the research study. By identifying the boundaries and limitations of the research, it helps to avoid confusion and ensures that the research is more understandable.
Improves validity: Delimitations can help to improve the validity of the research by ensuring that the study is more focused and specific. This can help to ensure that the research is more accurate and reliable.
Reduces bias: Delimitations can help to reduce bias by limiting the scope of the research. This can help to ensure that the research is more objective and unbiased.

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Your Guide to Writing Limitations of a Study Section

Are you working on your thesis, dissertation, or research paper? One of the sections that you must include, and do it properly is the limitations. So, what is study limitations and how do you go about it?

1. What are the limitations of a research study?
2. Importance of including limitations in research
3. Examples of limitations of a study
3.1. Methodological Related Limitations
3.2. Limitations of the Researcher
4. How to write limitations of a study
5. Tips for writing research limitations

What Are The Limitations of a Research Study?

What are the limitations in a study? Limitations of a study are the hurdles, call them characteristics of your study design, which impact the interpretation of the findings.

They challenge generalizability and use of the findings as you had anticipated when selecting the research design. Understanding these limitations helps you to explain to the reader how they impacted the results and the conclusion, in line with your study design.

Importance of Including Limitations in Research

While some researchers feel that highlighting the limitations in research undermine the value of their studies in the eyes of the reader, the reverse is indeed true. Here are some key reasons why you need to include them:

Helps you to answer the questions that your professor might ask

When professors mark students’ papers, one of the areas they check keenly is the limitations of the study. So, instead of waiting for your teacher to ask about research limitations, risking lower grades because you ignored the section, you should make sure to include them.

Limitations of research studies offer you the chance to point at areas that need further studies

If the limitations you encountered during your study impacted the findings of the research, you could demonstrate how further studies might be crucial in giving answers to unanswered questions.

Clearly presented limitations show that you understand the research problem well

When you finally present your research findings, the assessment committee expects to see professionally done work. Therefore, carefully presenting the limitations of research implies that you thought about the study problem, did ample review of the related literature, and analyzed the selected methods.

When presenting the study limitations, it is important to appreciate that you need to go beyond listing them. Target answering the question: “Do the study limitations impact on the findings and their validity?” and “If they do, to what extent?” So, go ahead and explain them to the readers so that they do not point at gaps in your finished study.

Examples Of Limitations Of A Study

When carrying out your study, there are many challenges, but it is crucial to restrict the focus to the limitations that are closely related to the research problem. When writing about limitations in a study, make sure to use the past tense. Here are common limitations when doing research:

Methodological Related Limitations

Sample Size

The number of units that you will use for study is determined by the type of research problem that you are addressing. If the sample is too small, you are likely to find it challenging to establish the relationships between the different variables. Note that if you are doing a qualitative study, the sample size will be less relevant, especially if it was explained well in the research problem.

Lack of available or reliable data

If you do not have enough data or it is unreliable, there is a danger of your study’s scope being limited or failing to find meaningful relationship in your study. So, make sure to carefully describe these imitations, explaining why you think the data is unreliable or missing. This is also a perfect opportunity to call for further studies in order to fill the gap.

Lack of prior research on the topic

When doing research, you are required to carry a comprehensive review of the available literature to lay a strong foundation for better understanding of the problem being investigated. Depending on the nature and the scope of the topic, it is not uncommon to find areas that are poorly studied. To avoid the problem, you should start by carefully assessing the availability of related studies. For example, you should check with different libraries to establish the availability of prior studies.

Measuring the collected data

After interpreting the findings of the study, you might establish that the manner in which you gathered the data limited the ability to do a thorough analysis. For example, you might regret failing to add specific questions that could have helped address an issue that arose later in your research. So, acknowledge this challenge and point at the need for further studies to review the method of data collection.

Limitations of the Researcher

One of the common limitations in research is poor access to things such as documents, organizations or people. In such a situation, you should clearly state the reasons for getting denied access to the targeted source of information.

Longitudinal Impacts

Unlike your teacher who can commit years to study a selected problem, the timeframe for completing your assignment is likely to be limited. So, be sure to select a topic that does not need a lot of time to complete.

Cultural related bias

Cultural bias is one of the common examples of limitations in research that can have significant implications on a study’s findings. Well, whether people are conscious or not, they always have some biases. In most cases, this is negative, though it is also possible to get positive biases. Be extra careful when proofreading your work to note cases of bias in the selected data, sample or other details. If the resources you are using have instances of bias, ensure to acknowledge and explain your effort to void it.

Language barrier

If your study involves dealing with people using different languages, communication can be a major barrier. For example, if you are studying the effectiveness of a certain study model on students learning English as a second language, you are likely to experience language related challenges. So, make sure to acknowledge them.

How to Write Limitations Of a Study

When working on your research, information about the limitations is placed at the start of the discussion chapter/section of the paper. This implies that your reader will understand the limitations before getting deeper into the analysis. In other cases, limitations are brought out when concluding the discussion of your research, highlighting the need for further study.

Note: You should not hide the discussion in the middle of the report’s discussion. If you must, it is important to restate the limitations when concluding the discussion section.

If you establish that the study limitations have severely flawed your research, such as being unable to acquire essential data, it is advisable to consider your work as an exploratory study to serve as groundwork for later studies. In such a situation, try to be as specific as possible, explaining in what ways the flaws can be addressed.

When preparing a research paper, the limitations should not be an excuse for failing to do your work thoroughly. Remember that if the limitations are severe, it is an indication that your research problem was too narrow or the issue under consideration is too recent.

Here are some important things you need to do when writing your research limitations.

Be concise but ensure every limitation is well explained.
Clearly explain why the limitations in your study exist.
Explain why it was impossible to overcome the study limitations.
Show the impact of the limitations in relation to the study findings and conclusion.
Where appropriate, show how the limitations demonstrate the need for additional studies.

Tips For Writing Research Limitations

Now that we have looked at different research limitations, here are some useful tips to help you write them well and enjoy higher grades.

Do not inflate the findings of your study.

When writing research results, overemphasizing the findings can be misconstrued to mean that you are hiding the limitations. Therefore, make sure to report the results as you find them and show how the limitations affected them. You might need to check some examples of limitations in an experiment or other types of research by experts are done.

If the results are negative, they are not limitations.

If you get negative results, it implies that they are challenging your hypothesis as opposed to supporting it. In such a situation, you should consider reformulating your hypothesis. Another cause of negative results might be stumbling unto something that was not expected.

Go for the right sample size, especially in qualitative study

If you are carrying qualitative research, a smaller sample size might be ample because gathering more data does not necessarily result in more information. To determine the right sample size in qualitative studies is mainly dependent on your judgment, including experience in the evaluation of qualitative data. So, if the sample is considered a limitation for your study, it could be an indication of your judgment on the selected methodology.

Check other study limitations examples and how they were presented.

One of the best ways of learning how to present your limitations is checking what others have done. Particularly, you should compare limitations in research examples to see how they were presented.

When working on your paper’s research limitations, it is prudent to be as clear and precise as possible. If you find this challenging, consider seeking writing help. The assistance is offered by experts who understand what limitations of a study are, and know how to present them well in your paper.

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Scope and Delimitations – Explained & Example

By DiscoverPhDs
October 2, 2020

What Is Scope and Delimitation in Research?

The scope and delimitations of a thesis, dissertation or research paper define the topic and boundaries of the research problem to be investigated.

The scope details how in-depth your study is to explore the research question and the parameters in which it will operate in relation to the population and timeframe.

The delimitations of a study are the factors and variables not to be included in the investigation. In other words, they are the boundaries the researcher sets in terms of study duration, population size and type of participants, etc.

Difference Between Delimitations and Limitations

Delimitations refer to the boundaries of the research study, based on the researcher’s decision of what to include and what to exclude. They narrow your study to make it more manageable and relevant to what you are trying to prove.

Limitations relate to the validity and reliability of the study. They are characteristics of the research design or methodology that are out of your control but influence your research findings. Because of this, they determine the internal and external validity of your study and are considered potential weaknesses.

In other words, limitations are what the researcher cannot do (elements outside of their control) and delimitations are what the researcher will not do (elements outside of the boundaries they have set). Both are important because they help to put the research findings into context, and although they explain how the study is limited, they increase the credibility and validity of a research project.

Guidelines on How to Write a Scope

A good scope statement will answer the following six questions:

Why – the general aims and objectives (purpose) of the research.
What – the subject to be investigated, and the included variables.
Where – the location or setting of the study, i.e. where the data will be gathered and to which entity the data will belong.
When – the timeframe within which the data is to be collected.
Who – the subject matter of the study and the population from which they will be selected. This population needs to be large enough to be able to make generalisations.
How – how the research is to be conducted, including a description of the research design (e.g. whether it is experimental research, qualitative research or a case study), methodology, research tools and analysis techniques.

To make things as clear as possible, you should also state why specific variables were omitted from the research scope, and whether this was because it was a delimitation or a limitation. You should also explain why they could not be overcome with standard research methods backed up by scientific evidence.

How to Start Writing Your Study Scope

Use the below prompts as an effective way to start writing your scope:

This study is to focus on…
This study covers the…
This study aims to…

Guidelines on How to Write Delimitations

Since the delimitation parameters are within the researcher’s control, readers need to know why they were set, what alternative options were available, and why these alternatives were rejected. For example, if you are collecting data that can be derived from three different but similar experiments, the reader needs to understand how and why you decided to select the one you have.

Your reasons should always be linked back to your research question, as all delimitations should result from trying to make your study more relevant to your scope. Therefore, the scope and delimitations are usually considered together when writing a paper.

How to Start Writing Your Study Delimitations

Use the below prompts as an effective way to start writing your study delimitations:

This study does not cover…
This study is limited to…
The following has been excluded from this study…

Examples of Delimitation in Research

Examples of delimitations include:

research objectives,
research questions,
research variables,
target populations,
statistical analysis techniques .

Examples of Limitations in Research

Examples of limitations include:

Issues with sample and selection,
Insufficient sample size, population traits or specific participants for statistical significance,
Lack of previous research studies on the topic which has allowed for further analysis,
Limitations in the technology/instruments used to collect your data,
Limited financial resources and/or funding constraints.

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How to Write a Discussion Section | Tips & Examples

How to Write a Discussion Section | Tips & Examples

Published on August 21, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 18, 2023.

The discussion section is where you delve into the meaning, importance, and relevance of your results .

It should focus on explaining and evaluating what you found, showing how it relates to your literature review and paper or dissertation topic , and making an argument in support of your overall conclusion. It should not be a second results section.

There are different ways to write this section, but you can focus your writing around these key elements:

Summary : A brief recap of your key results
Interpretations: What do your results mean?
Implications: Why do your results matter?
Limitations: What can’t your results tell us?
Recommendations: Avenues for further studies or analyses

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What not to include in your discussion section, step 1: summarize your key findings, step 2: give your interpretations, step 3: discuss the implications, step 4: acknowledge the limitations, step 5: share your recommendations, discussion section example, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about discussion sections.

There are a few common mistakes to avoid when writing the discussion section of your paper.

Don’t introduce new results: You should only discuss the data that you have already reported in your results section .
Don’t make inflated claims: Avoid overinterpretation and speculation that isn’t directly supported by your data.
Don’t undermine your research: The discussion of limitations should aim to strengthen your credibility, not emphasize weaknesses or failures.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Start this section by reiterating your research problem and concisely summarizing your major findings. To speed up the process you can use a summarizer to quickly get an overview of all important findings. Don’t just repeat all the data you have already reported—aim for a clear statement of the overall result that directly answers your main research question . This should be no more than one paragraph.

Many students struggle with the differences between a discussion section and a results section . The crux of the matter is that your results sections should present your results, and your discussion section should subjectively evaluate them. Try not to blend elements of these two sections, in order to keep your paper sharp.

The results indicate that…
The study demonstrates a correlation between…
This analysis supports the theory that…
The data suggest that…

The meaning of your results may seem obvious to you, but it’s important to spell out their significance for your reader, showing exactly how they answer your research question.

The form of your interpretations will depend on the type of research, but some typical approaches to interpreting the data include:

Identifying correlations , patterns, and relationships among the data
Discussing whether the results met your expectations or supported your hypotheses
Contextualizing your findings within previous research and theory
Explaining unexpected results and evaluating their significance
Considering possible alternative explanations and making an argument for your position

You can organize your discussion around key themes, hypotheses, or research questions, following the same structure as your results section. Alternatively, you can also begin by highlighting the most significant or unexpected results.

In line with the hypothesis…
Contrary to the hypothesized association…
The results contradict the claims of Smith (2022) that…
The results might suggest that x . However, based on the findings of similar studies, a more plausible explanation is y .

As well as giving your own interpretations, make sure to relate your results back to the scholarly work that you surveyed in the literature review . The discussion should show how your findings fit with existing knowledge, what new insights they contribute, and what consequences they have for theory or practice.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do your results support or challenge existing theories? If they support existing theories, what new information do they contribute? If they challenge existing theories, why do you think that is?
Are there any practical implications?

Your overall aim is to show the reader exactly what your research has contributed, and why they should care.

These results build on existing evidence of…
The results do not fit with the theory that…
The experiment provides a new insight into the relationship between…
These results should be taken into account when considering how to…
The data contribute a clearer understanding of…
While previous research has focused on x , these results demonstrate that y .

Even the best research has its limitations. Acknowledging these is important to demonstrate your credibility. Limitations aren’t about listing your errors, but about providing an accurate picture of what can and cannot be concluded from your study.

Limitations might be due to your overall research design, specific methodological choices , or unanticipated obstacles that emerged during your research process.

Here are a few common possibilities:

If your sample size was small or limited to a specific group of people, explain how generalizability is limited.
If you encountered problems when gathering or analyzing data, explain how these influenced the results.
If there are potential confounding variables that you were unable to control, acknowledge the effect these may have had.

After noting the limitations, you can reiterate why the results are nonetheless valid for the purpose of answering your research question.

The generalizability of the results is limited by…
The reliability of these data is impacted by…
Due to the lack of data on x , the results cannot confirm…
The methodological choices were constrained by…
It is beyond the scope of this study to…

Based on the discussion of your results, you can make recommendations for practical implementation or further research. Sometimes, the recommendations are saved for the conclusion .

Suggestions for further research can lead directly from the limitations. Don’t just state that more studies should be done—give concrete ideas for how future work can build on areas that your own research was unable to address.

Further research is needed to establish…
Future studies should take into account…
Avenues for future research include…

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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In the discussion , you explore the meaning and relevance of your research results , explaining how they fit with existing research and theory. Discuss:

Your interpretations : what do the results tell us?
The implications : why do the results matter?
The limitation s : what can’t the results tell us?

The results chapter or section simply and objectively reports what you found, without speculating on why you found these results. The discussion interprets the meaning of the results, puts them in context, and explains why they matter.

In qualitative research , results and discussion are sometimes combined. But in quantitative research , it’s considered important to separate the objective results from your interpretation of them.

In a thesis or dissertation, the discussion is an in-depth exploration of the results, going into detail about the meaning of your findings and citing relevant sources to put them in context.

The conclusion is more shorter and more general: it concisely answers your main research question and makes recommendations based on your overall findings.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, July 18). How to Write a Discussion Section | Tips & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/discussion/

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Open access
Published: 24 August 2023

Predictors of long-term care use - informal home care recipients versus private and public facilities residents in Poland

Małgorzata Wrotek ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1450-3509 1 &
Małgorzata Kalbarczyk ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9431-1947 1

BMC Geriatrics volume 23 , Article number: 512 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

741 Accesses

Metrics details

The population aging, together with the shrinking caring potential of families, is a major challenge for social policy in the coming years. The aim of the study is to identify the factors that determine not only the use of long-term care (LTC) but also the selection of individual types of such care in Poland.

Using unique data collected from inpatient LTC facilities in Poland and the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) database, we estimate logistic regressions explaining the choice of LTC solution.

Our results suggest that social inequalities play a role in choosing the type of LTC. Better educated people choose private institutions, while people without support network use more often social residential homes. The impact of multimorbidity on choosing different types of inpatient facilities is limited, thus the number of ADL limitations remains a better indicator of long term care utilization.

Conclusions

The study confirms that social inequalities influence decisions about the choice of LTC. However, multi-morbidity is a predictor of using LTC to a limited extent. The differences in LTC selection determinants between women and men are noticeable.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

In the last 20 years, the percentage of people aged 65 and over increased in the EU-27 by 5.4 pp. reaching 24.6% in 2021 Footnote 1 . In Poland, despite the fact that this indicator was lower than the average for the EU countries – 21.4%, it grew at an even greater rate of 6.5 pp [ 1 ]. The EUROPOP-19 Footnote 2 forecasts also show that in 2060 the increase in the percentage of people aged 65 + in Poland, as compared to 2021, will be more than twice as high as the average increase for the EU-27 (12.5 pp. vs. 5.7 pp.), and in 2070 Poland will see the highest growth of this indicator among all the EU countries [ 2 ]. In turn, the percentage of people aged 80 and over living in Poland in 2021 was 4.4% [ 1 ]. And although this value was lower than the EU-27 average (6%), Poland was among the 12 countries where the fastest growth of this indicator was noted over the last 20 years. By 2030, the increase in the percentage of people aged 80 and over for Poland will be higher than the average for the EU-27 countries. In 2070, the share of this age bracket in the total population will reach 15.6%, which means that Poland will experience the highest growth (11.2 pp.) in comparison with all EU countries [ 2 ].

The aging of the population increases the demand for LTC services. According OECD [ 3 ], LTC is defined as the services provided to persons dependent on activities of daily living (ADL) [ 4 ] and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) [ 5 ] for an extended period of time and it may be provided in nursing homes, in assisted living facilities, in the community or at home [ 6 ]. As the number of older adults dramatically increases, it becomes a challenge for public policy in both the delivery of LTC services and expenditure on LTC. Thus, the progressive aging of the population makes us reflect on the factors leading to the choice of specific forms of LTC. In our study we use Andersen’s Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (1968) [ 7 ] to investigate how particular characteristics of the older adults correlate with using different forms of inpatient and informal care.

The aim of our study is to identify factors influencing the use of LTC and the selection of specific forms of residential care in relation to informal care in Poland. According to our knowledge, this is the first study of this type, presenting a quantitative approach based on data from Poland, as well as the first study involving three different types of inpatient LTC facilities, especially still poorly researched private inpatient sector.

In post-communist countries such as Poland, there is high supply of informal care and low supply of formal care [ 8 , 9 ]. The tendency to use residential care remains low [ 10 ] and the caring functions are mainly performed by the family [ 11 ], which suggests that cultural factors shape caring patterns. However, with declining caring potential of families, there is increasing pressure to develop formal forms of LTC. LTC in Poland includes cash and in-kind benefits and is provided by the health care, social assistance and private sectors. Two levels can be distinguished [ 12 , 13 ]: formal (institutional) care provided at home or in inpatient facilities and informal care (informal caregivers, most often family members). In terms of inpatient care in Poland, as of December 31, 2020, there were 30,638 people in long term care health sector facilities Footnote 3 [ 14 ], 18,176 people in officially registered private rest homes and 75,133 people in social residential homes [ 15 ]. At the same time, the total population of Poland was 38.1 million, of which 7.1 million were aged 65+ [ 16 ].

The criteria for admission to care facilities and the way in which they work are regulated by the relevant legal acts in Poland [ 17 , 18 ]. Both residential social homes and private rest homes are intended for persons who require 24/7 care due to age, illness or disability, who are unable to function independently in daily life and for whom the necessary care cannot be provided at home. Where these people also require enhanced medical care, they are referred to nursing homes. During admission to LTC facilities, documents are required to prove the health status and income situation of the potential resident/patient. In the case of residential social homes and private rest homes, a medical certificate of the health status of the person applying for admission is required, while in the case of nursing homes, Barthel scale scores and health insurance are additional criteria. The amount of fees varies regionally. In the case of private rest homes, the cost of the stay is paid in full by the residents (and/or their family). The stay in residential social homes and nursing homes is also chargeable, but the residents pay no more than 70% of their income. In the case of residential social homes, if the resident is not able to pay the fee himself, the spouse and children are obliged to do so, and if this is not enough, the municipality then contributes to the costs. In nursing homes, the fees paid by the patients (and/or their families if they have previously agreed to contribute to the costs) cover the costs of accommodation and meals, with the remaining amount being covered by the National Health Fund [ 17 , 18 ].

In Poland, LTC remains underfunded compared to the countries of Western and Northern Europe, as the expenditures on LTC (as % of GDP) remain relatively low. In the coming years, with the progressive aging of the population, the pressure on their growth is expected to increase. Additionally, solutions used in Poland, based on universal and wealth-related systems [ 19 ], mean that access to various forms of residential care is not equal and socio-economic factors seem to play an important role in both decisions related to the choice of LTC form, and in health inequalities.

In our study, the following research hypotheses will be verified:

Social inequalities play a role in long-term care decision-making.

Multi-morbidity (number of chronic diseases) is not a good predictor of LTC use.

There are different patterns of long-term care utilization between females and males.

Theoretical and empirical issues

Andersen’s Behavioral Model of Health Services Use, although originally used to predict the use of healthcare services, is now also used extensively in research focusing on actual LTC use. The original version of the model from 1968 focused on the family as the unit of analysis [ 7 ] and listed 3 groups of factors: predisposing, enabling and need as individual and contextual determinants of the use of healthcare services [ 20 ]. However, difficulties in developing measures at the family level led to the evolution of this model towards the patient as a sole decision-making entity [ 21 ]. In the following years, extensions were introduced to the original model, taking into account e.g. variability of individual factors over time, factors related to the health care system, measures of use of health services or consumer satisfaction as well as additional variables related to the external environment, making the model a useful tool for health policy or health reforms [ 21 ].

The explanation of the importance of the main factors (in relation to healthcare for which the original model was developed) was extensively described by Andersen and Davidson [ 22 ], where: (1) the term predisposing factors at the individual level refers to demographic characteristics of age and gender, social, i.e. education, profession, ethnicity or social relations, e.g. related to family status, mental factors, i.e. health values, attitudes towards health or knowledge related to health. In terms of the contextual dimension, predisposing factors are, inter alia , demographic and social composition of the population, cultural norms, organizational and collective values, political factors; (2) the term enabling factors refers to the group of factors enabling the use of services, i.e. financial factors (e.g. income, assets, price of healthcare services) and organizational factors (e.g. having a regular source of care and its nature, waiting time for care). From the contextual perspective, enabling factors of a financial nature will therefore refer to e.g. income per capita, the relative price of goods and services, expenditure on health care, and in terms of organization to e.g. the type, structure, location, number and distribution of health facilities and personnel, education and information programs, or health policies; (3) the term need factors refers to health status, functional status and disease symptoms at the individual level, and to environmental needs or population health indicators at the contextual level.

The determinants of LTC utilization based on the original version of the Andersen’s model or its extension was widely studied [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. These models were used in the context of utilization [ 31 , 33 , 36 ] or transition [ 27 , 34 ] and both in terms of actual data [ 24 , 33 ] or intended data [ 24 , 31 ]. Some of the studies focused on applying the model to informal care [ 27 ] or home and community LTC [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 31 , 32 ], while others focused also on institutional inpatient care [ 29 , 31 ]. Many of these studies built on the original division into predisposing, enabling and need factors. However, there are also numerous other studies focused on the determinants of LTC utilization, even though they were not formally based on the Andersen’s model. In many studies, the need factors were classified in the same way, but there were differences in the classification of the predisposing and enabling factors, as the caring potential of families (e.g. number of children or family contact frequency) was mentioned most often among enabling factors.

Predisposing factors

Many studies confirm the positive relationship between age and LTC demand [ 27 , 30 , 31 , 33 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. However, the relationship between age and the demand for LTC is not obvious, as some studies showing a positive correlation between age and institutional LTC do not include variables relating to the level of dependency. In studies of the American population over 70 years of age, variable time to death (TTD) proves to be a significant factor in increasing the use of institutional LTC. However, the availability of informal caregivers, especially spouses, significantly reduces this effect [ 39 ]. Wren et al. [ 40 ] show that the convergence between female and male life expectancy, caused by faster male life extension, significantly contributes to falling demand for both health care and LTC.

Gender remains an important factor influencing the propensity for and use of LTC, but the results are inconsistent. Some findings show a higher probability of using LTC services among females than males [ 27 , 30 ], mostly explained by their longer average life expectancy compared to males [ 41 , 42 , 43 ], as well as chronic diseases (which cause a decline in functional abilities) occurring more severely in this group [ 44 ], or a higher probability of experiencing loneliness at the end of life [ 45 ]. However, in the literature opposite results can also be found, i.e. a greater risk of institutionalization of males than females, which is most often explained by the greater difficulties with daily chores among males [ 34 ].

The relationship between the level of education and morbidity [ 46 ] and mortality [ 47 , 48 , 49 ] has been addressed in numerous studies. Among better educated people, there is a higher probability of staying in good health [ 50 ] and less interest in inpatient LTC [ 37 ]. Although there is also evidence in support of an alternative concept [ 51 , 52 ]. Better education is associated with greater knowledge about the availability and possible types of formal care [ 51 ], which leads to increased use of formal home care and reduced informal care [ 52 ], or the choice of private care and reduced public care at the same time [ 53 ] by better educated people.

Enabling factors

Taking into account the structure of households, it is indicated that the risk of using formal LTC increases when living alone [ 54 , 55 ]. Living with a spouse or daughter reduces the demand for institutional LTC to a greater extent than living with other relatives [ 56 , 57 ]. However, when medical needs increase, the fact of having a spouse does not translate so clearly into a reduced need for inpatient care [ 58 ]. A Canadian study comparing the patient profile of LTC nursing homes with retirement homes shows that people with a spouse predominate in the first type of facilities, while single people in the second type [ 58 ]. Not only having children but also close relationships (frequency of visits etc.) with children play an important role in the LTC utilization patterns. According to some findings, when community care is compared with, respectively, home and institutional care, it turns out that older people who have a closer relationship with children are more likely to stay at home, and people who had less frequent of contacts are more likely to opt for institutional care [ 26 ].

Older people with higher incomes less frequently use institutional LTC [ 54 , 55 , 59 , 60 , 61 ] because they are able to pay more for additional home care [ 62 ]. Inpatient care remains a relatively inferior option when home care is affordable [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. However, when comparing the informal to the formal, higher income increases the odds for utilization of formal LTC care [ 27 ], but also the first time LTC services utilization risk has been found to be lower among households with higher gross income [ 30 ]. There is also evidence of fairly limited impact of the income level on LTC utilization patterns [ 26 ]. Among the wealthy older adults, especially those with real estate, the lower risk of using institutional LTC may be explained by the increased efforts of relatives to inherit their property [ 66 ].

The place of residence is also relevant. People living in rural areas have a lower risk of being beneficiaries of institutional LTC than those living in urban areas [ 31 , 67 ]. It might be explained by different patterns of care between urban-rural areas, especially when seniors living in the village receive more help from family members than inhabitants of large cities [ 68 ].

Need factors

The morbidity and dependence that accompany the progressive aging processes are mentioned as the main determinants of the demand for formal LTC. The patterns of dependence and morbidity may, however, be different in particular countries, which is explained in the hypotheses existing in the literature: expansion of morbidity [ 69 , 70 , 71 ], compression of morbidity or disability [ 72 ], dynamic equilibrium, which combines the elements of both the expansion and compression hypotheses [ 73 ], or the concept of healthy aging [ 74 ]. Environmental changes and medical progress may make living with a disease less burdensome [ 75 , 76 , 77 ], while greater care for one’s own health may contribute to a decline in disability among the older adults [ 78 ].

The presence of an additional chronic disease increases the probability of utilizing any kind of LTC services [ 30 ] or institutional LTC [ 26 ] but there is also evidence of the insignificance of this variable for the risk of either home or institutional care [ 29 ]. The coexistence of several chronic diseases (multi-morbidity), especially dementia, Parkinson’s disease, urinary incontinence, and fractures as a result of falls, shows a positive correlation with ADL limitations and the demand for institutional LTC [ 38 , 45 , 59 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 ]. However, some studies [ 37 ] distinguish between dependency which is measured with ADL limitations (related to the demand for residential care) and IADL limitations (which determines the use of formal home care mainly), where the first indicator (named ADL limitations or disability or dependency levels) is recognized as one of the most important predictors of LTC use [ 31 ], especially nursing facilities [ 35 ].

Data and methods

In the presented study, we combined two databases: data from LTC facilities collected by us and available data from SHARE. We decided to combine the data from both databases in order to be able to differentiate the choice of specific forms of care: residential (formal) and informal. The SHARE data for Poland did not contain information on people using residential care, therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of the study, it was necessary to provide comparable information obtained directly from long-term care facilities. As no similar study was performed in Poland and there is no data available at the individual level on long-term care residents, we decided to collect unique data. At the stage of designing the research, we took care of the comparability of variables between the two databases. First, we used data collected by us in the years 2021–2022 on residents of inpatient LTC facilities (private rest homes, residential social homes and nursing homes). We sent out a questionnaire to the managers of institutions selected randomly from official registers kept by voivodeship offices and the Ministry of Health. Each type of facility is represented in all of the 16 voivodeships in Poland, and they vary in terms of the size of the place of their location. In the self-completion questionnaire, we asked for the data concerning selected socio-demographic information regarding health and independence, as well as family networks of all the residents. As a result, a unique database was created including 745 observations from the private rest homes, 2,258 observations from the residential social homes and 872 observations from the nursing homes. Another group of data was related to the people receiving informal care at home and those who do not receive any kind of care (no LTC). The data came from the SHARE, which is a biennial panel study conducted by using probability-based sampling on people aged 50 or older and their partners across European countries, including Poland [ 84 , 85 ]. The data contains socio-demographic information about respondents as well as information on physical and mental health and functional capacity and received informal care. The presented analysis used data from wave eight, which was conducted in 2019/2020 [ 86 , 87 ] and was limited to Poland (307 observations regarding informal care at home and 1,754 observations regarding no LTC). We used the information provided in the main questionnaire. As a result, the sample size of combined data from both databases was 5,936 observations in total.

Due to the necessity to make comparisons to SHARE, we decided to limit the sample to the age of 50+. From the SHARE database, regarding informal home care, we selected those who receive personal or domestic help (or both) at home, provided by members of the household or people outside the household. Regarding no LTC, we selected people who do not receive any kind of care Footnote 4 (informal or formal). In our cross-sectional analysis we based on Andersen’s Behavioral Model [ 7 ] which allow us distinguish three group of factors classified into predisposing, enabling, and need factors. Logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression was used as an appropriate statistical model for categorical dependent variables.

We divided our econometric analysis into 3 stages. In the first stage we used logistic regression to compare the factors differentiating the people receiving some kind of LTC (informal care at home; or in private rest homes; or in social residential homes; or in nursing homes) from those who do not receive any kind of care. In the second stage, we used the multinomial logit to compare the recipients of informal care with those using in-patient care. This time, a dependent variable on four levels was used: inpatient care in private rest homes, social residential homes and in nursing homes. Informal care at home was used as the reference category for the comparison. In the third stage, the previously used multinomial logit was applied again, but this time separately among females and males.

Due to collinearity problem between the number of ADL limitations and particular ADL limitations, and also between the number of chronic diseases and particular chronic diseases, two versions of the model have been developed. In model 1, the number of ADL limitations and the number of chronic diseases were used, while in model 2 the type of ADL limitations and the type of chronic diseases were used.

In our models, we use the following three groups of factors considered at an individual level (see Table 1 ): predisposing factors (age, sex, education level), enabling factors (having a living partner, having living children, frequency of family’s members visits as a proxy for close relationships with family members or the involvement of family members in care, type of residence), need factors (functional health status – number of ADL limitations, type of ADL limitations, number of chronic diseases, type of diseases).

We are aware that among the variables it would be worth taking into account the income of the residents, or preferably the income of the family members (not only resident’s household) involved in the organization of care. As this data was not available for residents of long-term care facilities, the level of education in our study remains a proxy for the economic situation.

Differences between the two databases we used were noticeable in the case of 3 variables: frequency of visits by family members, ADL limitations, and chronic diseases. For the frequency of visits variable, we wanted to assess the degree of family involvement in care, so in the case of LTC facilities residents the proxy for this variable was the frequency of visits by family members, and in the case of informal care (SHARE database) the frequency of domestic and personal care received by family members.

In our questionnaire, we asked about the 6 ADLs using the Katz Index [ 4 ] (bathing, dressing, transferring, feeding, toileting, continence), while the SHARE questionnaire additionally listed getting into and out of bed but omitted continence. Hence, we decided to omit getting into and out of bed from the analysis and to combine toileting and continence, which took the value of 1 if any of these limitations occurred. The final number of ADL is therefore 5.

In addition, for chronic diseases, we did not use any available tool, which was dictated by the need to simplify our questionnaire as much as possible so that it could be easily completed by LTC staff. As a result of combining the databases, we did not use the original longer list of diseases, but only those that were the same or similar or that could be combined into specific, larger categories. As a result, we combined Alzheimer’s and dementia, as they occurred separately in our questionnaire and together in SHARE. In particular, it is worth mentioning how we combine the precise names of the diseases found in SHARE to the general categories we used in our questionnaire: lung disease such as chronic bronchitis or emphysema were categorized as respiratory system diseases; heart attack or myocardial infarction, coronary artery thrombosis or any other heart disease including congestive heart failure as heart diseases; other emotional disorders including fear, anxiety, nervous or psychiatric problems as other mental health problems; cataracts as vision impairment; having a hearing aid as hearing impairment. The cases of cancer might be underestimated regarding LTC facilities as we excluded hospice and palliative care facilities (in Poland hospice and palliative care is often reported separately from long-term care, however there are nursing homes dedicated to people suffering from cancer).

We did not follow any specific reporting tool as the questionnaire we designed had to be simplified as much as possible to encourage LTC staff to respond. However, regarding SHARE dataset, information about questionnaires, variable definitions and codes can be found in the SHARE Wave 8 methodology book [ 87 ]. All analyses were conducted using STATA 12.0.

Descriptive statistics

Regarding the predisposing factors, the statistics Footnote 5 of variables used in the explanatory analysis (see Table 2 ) show that females dominate in our sample for any type of LTC we studied, with the largest share of 74.42% observed in private rest homes, and the smallest in social residential homes – 54%). The informal care recipients are the youngest group of the older adults (mean of age is 74.65 years), while the oldest groups are observed in inpatient facilities (mean of age is respectively: 76.43 years in social residential homes, 79.92 years in nursing homes and 83.03 years in private rest homes). Among people staying in residential LTC facilities, those in private rest homes declare the highest level of education (53.33% – secondary education; 23% – tertiary education). In case of other types of care, the level of education is lower (the lowest number of people with secondary education is found in nursing homes – 34.32%, and with tertiary education in social residential homes – 5.12%). In terms of enabling factors, the highest proportion of people with a living partner (52.12%) and a child (92.25%) is observed among those who receive informal care at home, while for the residents of social residential homes these figures are the lowest (6.09% and 48.98% respectively). The residents of private rest homes and social residential homes are dominated by inhabitants of large cities (44.67% and 37.18% respectively), while people coming from rural areas prevail among the older adults in nursing homes and those who receive informal care (44.02% and 55.77% respectively). In terms of need factors, the highest level of dependency is observed among the residents of nursing homes (mean of number of ADL limitations is 3.66), while among informal care recipients it is at its lowest (mean of number of ADL limitations is 1.35). Regarding number of chronic diseases, the distribution is not obvious. Residents of social residential homes and informal care recipients suffer, on average, from 3.12 to 2.99 chronic diseases, while patients in nursing homes and private rest homes, respectively, from 2.28 to 1.71. Meanwhile, people who do not use any care have, on average, 1.72 chronic diseases (similar value as for private rest homes). This shows that the number of chronic diseases does not translate into the intensity of care, and that the type of disease is more important.

Given that, as mentioned earlier, the literature suggests that there is a close relationship between the level of education and health, and health inequalities caused by social factors are observed among older people in Poland [ 88 ], we decided to check our sample regarding the statistics of education level and place of living both for the presence of two or more chronic diseases (according to the full list) and limited to selected diseases Footnote 6 and the number of ADL limitations (Additional file 1 ).

The results of our analysis show that differences in the percentage of the older adults who suffer from chronic diseases between care recipients and no LTC group are smaller than in case of ADL limitations between the same two groups. The statistics presented in Additional file 1 confirm the existence of health inequalities related to social status among people using LTC, but only regarding the number of chronic diseases. Among the older adults with higher education levels, the percentage suffering from two or more chronic diseases (in both variants) is, on average, lower than among those with primary and secondary education. The number of chronic diseases decreases as the level of education increases, both among the recipients of any form of care and among the people who do not use any care. As far as the place of residence is concerned, in the group of care recipients with primary and secondary education, the percentage of the older adults who suffer from two or more chronic diseases increases along with the increase in the size of the city. On the other hand, among people with higher education, this tendency is not observed. Regarding ADL limitations, in our sample we do not observe any correlation between level of education (share of care recipients with primary education is smaller than of those with tertiary education – 65.8% vs. 66.3%) and the size of place of living.

Any kind of LTC vs. no LTC

Results of logistic regression regarding the first stage of our econometric analysis – the comparison between the older adults receiving any LTC with those who do not receive any kind of care – are presented in Table 3 .

In terms of the factors belonging to the predisposing group, we see that age is a factor that positively correlates with using any form of LTC (all age groups remain statistically significant, with the values of the coefficients increasing as we move from younger to older age groups), which is consistent with other studies [ 27 , 30 , 31 ]. Being a woman negatively correlates with receiving LTC (which is surprising as LTC recipients are dominated by females due to their longer life on average). This result is in line with some studies [ 34 ], but opposite to other studies [ 27 , 30 ]. The level of education is insignificant, although it would be expected that people with higher education experience better health for longer [ 50 ] and therefore are less likely to receive LTC.

As for the enabling factors, both having a living partner and a child negatively correlates with receiving LTC and this result is in line with a previous study [ 56 , 57 ]. Most likely, this result can be explained by the fact that some people stay in LTC facilities due to loneliness [ 54 , 55 ]. Place of residence also turned out to be statistically significant, although the results remain somewhat non-obvious. Compared to rural inhabitants, the older adults living in small towns and large cities are both much more likely to use any form of LTC, while living in a medium-sized city is insignificant. These results can be explained by the uneven distribution of LTC facilities in Poland, as well as the diversity of care patterns, depending on the size of the place of living. Seniors living in villages receive more help from family members than inhabitants of large cities [ 68 ]. Perhaps, therefore, the residents of smaller locations can more often count on support from informal care, and residents of larger cities from inpatient care.

In terms of need factors, it is observed that both the increase in number of ADL limitations and the number of chronic diseases goes hand in hand with using any care, consistent with appropriately previous studies [ 30 , 31 ]. However, not all of the diseases we studied cause dependency. We can see that most of the chronic diseases remained insignificant (Parkinson’s disease, heart diseases, respiratory system diseases, vision impairment, hearing impairment), or even their impact was statistically significant but negative (hypertension, diabetes). On average, those who do not receive any care are more likely to suffer from hypertension and diabetes. The results show that diseases that make it impossible to function at home and are the main indication for care (apart from ADL limitations) are: chronic renal failure, Alzheimer or dementia diseases [ 31 , 35 ], mental health problems, cancer, group of other diseases including stroke.

Informal care vs. inpatient LTC

Table 4 presents the results of multinomial regression in case of informal care vs. inpatient LTC. In the group of predisposing factors, age turned out to be a strong predictor of using all three forms of inpatient care in relation to informal care. The influence remains statistically significant for the age group 70 + and grows for each subsequent age group. Thus, the results remained consistent with the previous research, where age was a strong predictor of institutionalization [ 30 , 31 ]. Although the inpatient LTC sector is dominated by female residents, in relation to informal care, being a female negatively correlates with using inpatient forms of care [consistent with 34; but opposite to 30], which might be explained by the fact that informal care is dominated by females even more than institutional care. Having secondary and higher education, as opposed to primary education, positively correlates with the probability of using private rest homes only. This means that people with a better social (and presumably economic) status, whenever they have a choice, prefer to use private care rather than public care [ 53 ], as expected within the first hypothesis. However, it is worth noting here that educated people have higher incomes and they usually don’t qualify to stay in public facilities. Of course, it should be taken into consideration that the preferences of older people are mainly focused on home care, although it was not possible to include formal (paid) home care in this study.

As for the enabling factors, support networks are a significant factor, which correlates negatively with using all three forms of inpatient care as compared to informal care. Having a living partner shows the strongest negative impact in the case of social residential homes, which suggests that people staying there most often experience loneliness comparing to the residents of other inpatient care. In the presented model, having children also negatively correlates with using residential care, but when it comes to choosing private nursing homes, this effect was the weakest or statistically insignificant. These results suggest that having more children correlates with using social residential homes and nursing homes, but does not affect the choice in the case of private institutions. The more frequent (at least once a week) are the visits by family members (more frequent help with personal and domestic activities at home), the lower is the choice of using inpatient care rather than informal care [ 26 ]. The involvement of family members in care is therefore one of the most important factors limiting the use of formal residential care. On the one hand, this result could suggest that people with better-developed support networks (caring patterns focused on family care) less often become residents of inpatient LTC. This effect could also be caused by a positive relationship between networks and health. It is again noted that loneliness is conductive to institutionalization [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ] .

In the case of the size of the place of residence, the results are inconclusive. Inhabitants of small towns up to 20,000 people are more likely to benefit from all forms of inpatient care compared to rural residents using informal care. Most likely, this is due to the differences in the possibilities of providing care between urban and rural residents, and perhaps the greater availability of residential care facilities in larger centers. In the case of medium-sized cities between 20 and 100 thousand, positive and statistically significant influence is observed only in the social welfare sector. The fact of living in a big city with over 100,000 inhabitants compared to people living in rural areas and receiving informal care, positively correlates with using both private and social residential homes, while it is statistically insignificant for nursing homes. Perhaps these results indicate the uneven distribution of residential LTC facilities depending on the size of the city, i.e. not all have equal access to the full offer of institutional care. Nevertheless, rural residents are less likely to become residents of inpatient LTC and use informal care most often [ 31 , 67 , 68 ].

In the case of the group of factors classified as need factors, undoubtedly the level of dependence (measured by the number of ADL limitations) is the strongest positive predictor of using inpatient care (for all three types) as compared to informal care [ 31 , 35 ]. This means that people using informal care often remain more independent (and therefore do not require the involvement of informal caregivers so often). In model 2, where the impact of individual constraints was verified, the results also turn out to be inconclusive. Additional analyzes of placing particular ADL limitations individually in the model suggest that each limitation positively correlates with the use of inpatient care compared to informal care. However, when these variables are put together in the model, the correlation becomes negative in case of dressing and feeding, which may indicate that when the whole range of ADL limitations is considered, these specific activities do not require the use of inpatient care (informal caregivers are better at providing assistance in this type of activities and they are not an indication for placement in a inpatient facility). The positive impact of ADL-bathing or ADL-toileting or continence may be related to the fact that people staying in inpatient care facilities, regardless of the degree of independence in performing these activities, receive help on a routine basis.

Among the chronic diseases, only Alzheimer’s and dementia appear to positively correlate with using all three forms of inpatient care in a statistically significant way, as compared to informal care [ 35 ]. Other mental disorders positively correlate with going to social residential homes, while a chronic renal failure to nursing homes. The other diseases used in the study turned out to be either statistically insignificant or their influence on the use of inpatient LTC was negative. This means that mental disorders and diseases that seriously limit independent existence and have a direct impact on mental abilities, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, are the most difficult types of diseases for informal caregivers (other diseases are not an indication for using institutional LTC).

The variable numbers of chronic diseases turn out to negatively correlate with the choice of each of the three analyzed types of inpatient care in relation to informal care. This means that Polish residents with a greater number of chronic diseases more often use care provided by family members or friends, as expected in the second hypothesis. In a way, this is a surprising result, as some literature [ 26 ] indicates a positive relationship between multimorbidity and the use of institutional LTC. But we can also find opposite results which show insignificance of multimorbidity on institutionalization [ 29 ]. The fact of a negative impact of multimorbidity on using inpatient care as compared to informal care may suggest the failure of the LTC system (for example problem with availability of inpatient LTC). On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, people with a lower socio-economic status (especially poorly educated) suffer from more number of chronic diseases and in a situation of limited access to public institutional care often opt for family care [ 52 ]. However, it is worth emphasizing that in our sample we have not found any relationship between the number of chronic diseases and the number of ADL limitations, which is consistent with another study [ 89 ] where showed that chronic diseases do not necessarily cause significant limitations in daily life.

Informal care vs. inpatient LTC – differences between males and females

As gender may be a factor not only differentiating patterns of care but also the occurrence of chronic diseases and ADL limitations, additional models were conducted separately for females (Table 5 ) and males (Table 6 ). The results show differences between males and females in all three factor groups: predisposing, enabling and need. This gives support to the third hypothesis.

In the group of models where informal care at home is the reference category, in terms of predisposing factors, the first significant difference between the sexes can be seen in terms of age – the threshold among females is 70 + as opposed to 90 + among males. When it comes to education, there are also differences observed. The fact of having secondary education significantly positively correlates with using private rest homes only among females. Males with the same level of education are more likely to stay in social residential homes. As for females, higher education positively correlates with using private care only. In the case of males, higher education increases using both private forms of care and nursing homes.

For the enabling factors, having a living partner negatively correlates with utilization of all three forms of inpatient care only among females, while it is insignificant in case of nursing homes among males. Significant differences are also observed with regard to having a living child. This variable negatively correlates with receiving any type of residential care among females, while among males it is significant only in the case of social residential homes. The frequency of visits/help remains a variable that negatively correlates with receiving any kind of care. Hence, having a family, matters only if the family members are in close contact with the person who needs care. Living children are more likely to provide informal care for mothers than for fathers but it might be explained by the fact that females (especially spouses) most often play the role of informal caregivers [ 90 , 91 ], hence males are more likely to receive informal care from their wives, but widowed females need to receive more support from their children. When it comes to the size of the place of residence, the greatest differences between the sexes occur in case of small towns, up to 20,000 inhabitants. Among females, living in small towns positively correlates with using inpatient care as compared to females in rural areas who are provided with informal care. Among males, this variable also positively correlates but only with private care and social residential homes and is insignificant for nursing homes. Inpatient care use patterns were similar for females and males living in large cities. This variable positively correlates with being residents of private rest homes and social residential homes but was insignificant for nursing homes.

In terms of the need factors, the direction of the impact of the variables, i.e.: number of ADL limitations (positive effect) and number of chronic diseases (negative effect) remains consistent among females and males. There are gender differences in the case of chronic diseases affecting the risk of using inpatient care compared to informal care. Heart diseases negatively correlate with using all three forms of inpatient care in the case of females compared to females receiving informal care (therefore, on average, females using informal care suffer from cardiovascular problems more often than females in inpatient care). When it comes to males, heart diseases negatively correlate with utilization of private rest homes and nursing homes. Among females, problems with the respiratory system also negatively correlates with using private care, while among males this variable remains insignificant. As for diabetes, on average, females receiving informal care at home suffer from this condition more often than females in all three types of inpatient care (the sign for this variable remains negative and statistically significant). Among males, this variable is insignificant. In the case of depression among females, this variable remains insignificant (depression is as common among females receiving informal care as among females in LTC facilities). Among males, depression negatively correlates with using inpatient care in all three analyzed types of inpatient care. This means that, on average, depression occurs more often among males staying at home than in LTC facilities (or this might be due to a different method of collecting data – data about no LTC and informal care groups came from direct interviews, and the data on residents were provided by the facilities’ staff). Alzheimer’s disease goes hand in hand with using residential care among both sexes, but the effect is statistically significant among females only for private care and social residential homes, and among males only for social residential homes and nursing homes. Regarding Alzheimer’s disease, there is therefore a gender differentiation according to the type of LTC facility. Other mental illnesses are statistically significant and positively correlate with using social residential homes only among males, while among females this variable is insignificant. There are also differences between males and females when it comes to hearing problems. Among males, it is a factor positively correlated with using private care, and among females, a factor that is insignificant or negatively correlated with using social residential homes. It therefore seems that informal care is more often provided to females despite of hearing problems, and in the case of males, hearing loss is a factor that increases the risk of institutionalization (still private rather than public).

In our study, based on the Andersen’s Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (1968) [ 7 ] we identified characteristics of people over the age of 50 that influence the probability of using different types of LTC in Poland compared to people who do not use any kind of LTC. We point out the factors that differentiate the choice between inpatient facilities as compared to informal care, and show the differences between sexes. All three hypotheses were confirmed.

We are aware that the level of income of all family members involved in providing care correlates with the choice of the form of care, however due to unavailability of this variable, we used an education level as a proxy for economic situation of older adults. The study confirms the first hypothesis that social inequalities influence decisions about the choice of LTC. Better educated people more often choose private care than people with a lower social status. Among the latter, the phenomenon of multi-morbidity (more than two chronic diseases) is more common, so social inequalities translate into inequalities in health. Therefore, it is important to both invest in education and develop the healthcare sector earlier in life. Such actions on the part of the government should mitigate the existing inequalities in health among the older adults.

However multi-morbidity is a predictor of using LTC to a limited extent. The influence of the number of chronic diseases depends on the variable used for comparisons. When we consider informal care vs. inpatient care the sign for multi-morbidity is negative, but when no LTC is used for the comparison with any kind of LTC, the sign is positive. This means that informal care beneficiaries suffer from more chronic diseases that residents of LTC facilities and no multi-morbidity itself, but particular diseases (especially Alzheimer’s, dementia and other mental diseases) should be taken into account when considering institutionalization, which confirms the second hypothesis. The number of ADL limitations is a much more relevant indicator, as it positively correlates with using LTC in each of the analyzed models.

We confirm existence of different patterns of LTC utilization between females and males with respect to all three groups of factors. Differences are observed regarding correlation between having a living partner and a child and institutionalization. Also we confirm the third hypothesis that there are differences between females and males in diseases that predisposed them to use LTC. Thus gender differences should be taken into account when planning future LTC arrangements.

Our results show that loneliness itself might be a strong predictor of social residential homes utilization. This observation is supported by two other results. Firstly, multi-morbidity is a factor with limited impact on shaping the demand for inpatient LTC. Secondly, for the older adults in social residential homes is noticed that number of ADL limitations is lower than for residents of other type of inpatient facilities. Thus, in the context of the public debate about the deinstitutionalization of the social LTC sector, our results suggest that in case of the older adults who stay in social residential homes because of their loneliness but without health reasons, there is a space to offer other type of LTC arrangements for example: housing estates for seniors. On the other hand, we also identified that Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or other mental health problems remain strong predictors of using social residential homes. For this group of the older adults it may be difficult or impossible to offer another form of care outside of institutional care. Therefore, it seems that the development of long-term psychiatric care and the promotion of behaviors that may delay the occurrence of Alzheimer’s and dementia from an early age are also the right direction to follow.

Our study has some limitations. Combining databases from two sources was a challenge for several reasons. The period of data collection, which coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions, may have influenced the underestimation of the ‘frequency of visits’ variable, even though in our survey we asked LTC staff to specify the visit frequency ‘usually’. In addition, the statistics presented should not be generalized to the whole population due to the impossibility of weighting the data dictated by different target populations and different way of drawing of the samples. The importance of ensuring maximum possible comparability regarding diseases and ADLs, meant that we were forced to drop some diseases or aggregate them into more general categories. Thus, the list of chronic diseases used in our analysis does not exhaust all possible types of diseases that the older adults suffer from. Therefore, there is a risk that we were not able to identify diseases other than those described, which would significantly increase the probability of institutionalization.

Also, it was not possible to include formal (paid) home care in this study, due to the lack of relevant data. Including this kind of care would allow us to extend the analysis, especially in the context of differences in care preferences depending on social status, as dependent people more often prefer to stay at their homes.

We are aware that, apart from demand factors, the decision-making selection should also take the supply factors (e.g. availability of facilities, price of stay, number of places, etc.) into account, but due to the comparability with SHARE data and objective difficulties in estimating the costs of informal care –at this stage we decided not to include the supply factors in the analysis. Probably the biggest deficit of the presented analysis is the lack of information on the economic situation of households of LTC residents, which was not available.

In addition, further analyzes should also use data from the households of dependent people, especially information on people directly involved in care (informal caregivers), as the decision-making processes related to the choice of the form of care are often collective decisions of households. The data collection methodology forced a specific selection of variables used in the model, hence the use of other methods of data collection – interviews with residents (often difficult due to the availability of people staying in inpatient facilities and / or poor health and difficulties in establishing contact) or asking questions about a hypothetical situation (the preferred form of care, if required) would certainly offer a broader perspective on the factors determining the selection of specific forms of care.

In this study, based on the Andersen’s Behavioral Model of Health Services Use, we examined the relationship between predisposing, enabling and need factors on the use of long-term care in Poland. Combining data from SHARE Wave 8 and data collected in the 2021/2022 LTC resident database, we made a comparison between older adults (aged 50+) receiving any LTC with those who do not use any kind of care. We also made a comparison between users of informal care and users of three different types (nursing homes, social residential homes and private rest homes) of inpatient LTC. The results of our study indicated that social inequalities influence LTC choice decisions. However, multimorbidity is a predictor of LTC use to a limited extent. There are also differences among men and women correlating with the use of specific forms of LTC, indicating gender-dictated variation in patterns of care. Limitations of ADLs, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and other mental illnesses as factors that increase the risk of institutionalization in particular should be considered in projections of future LTC sector development as well as providing implications for health policy.

Availability of data and materials

The data under analysis has been obtained from the publicly available database SHARE: Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, http://www.share-project.org/data-access/user-registration.html . This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 8. The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211,909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227,822, SHARE M4: GA N°261,982, DASISH: GA N°283,646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676,536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870,628, SERISS: GA N°654,221, SSHOC: GA N°823,782, SHARE-COVID19: GA N°101,015,924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04–064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org ). The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available because there is no permission to share data from in-patient LTC facilities but data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request with permission of in-patient LTC facilities. Statistical model syntax is available from one of the authors, Małgorzata Wrotek ([email protected]) on reasonable request.

Authors’ calculations based on data from Eurostat - Population on 1 January by age group and sex [demo_pjangroup] access: July 30, 2022.

Authors’ calculations based on data from Eurostat – EUROPOP-19 - Demographic balances and indicators by type of projection [proj_19ndbi]; Baseline projections; access: July 30, 2022.

Including nursing homes, psychiatric nursing homes and psychiatric chronic medical care homes, hospices as well as palliative care wards.

This group included the people who received help with paper work (but did not receive any personal or domestic help), as we decided that it is not a good predictor of being independent and it concerned only 25 observations (1,4% of no LTC group).

Data was unweighted due to the combination of two databases, so statistics are specified for our sample and should not to be generalized onto whole population of LTC recipients.

Group of selected diseases includes: Parkinson disease, heart diseases (inc. myocardial infarction), respiratory system diseases, chronic renal failure, Alzheimer or dementia diseases, mental health problems – other, other diseases (incl. stroke, somatic problems).

Eurostat. Population on 1 January by age group and sex [DEMO_PJANGROUP]. Retrieved July 30., 2022, from: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/product/view/DEMO_PJANGROUP?lang=en .

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted as a part of research grant funded by University of Warsaw, grant number 01/IDUB/2019/94. We would like to thank Grzegorz Kula and Paweł Kaczmarczyk for their comments. We are also grateful for the insightful comments obtained from the anonymous Reviewers. Special acknowledgments to managers and other staff of LTC facilities for their involvement in the preparation and sharing of the data.

This work was supported by University of Warsaw, grant number 01/IDUB/2019/94. The founding source has no involvement in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication.

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Małgorzata Wrotek and Małgorzata Kalbarczyk. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Małgorzata Wrotek and Małgorzata Kalbarczyk commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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The study uses data from publicly available SHARE survey database and unique data collected from in-patient LTC facilities in Poland. The SHARE study is subject to continuous ethics review. During Waves 1 to 4, SHARE was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Mannheim. Wave 4 and the continuation of the project were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Council of the Max Planck Society. In addition, the country implementations of SHARE were reviewed and approved by the respective ethics committees or institutional review boards whenever this was required. The numerous reviews covered all aspects of the SHARE study, including sub-projects and confirmed the project to be compliant with the relevant legal norms and that the project and its procedures agree with international ethical standards. Opinion of the Ethics Council of the Max Planck Society on the “SHARE” Project: http://www.share-project.org/fileadmin/pdf.documentation/SHARE_ethics_approvals.pdf

Data collection from in-patient LTC facilities in Poland was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of University of Warsaw Faculty of Economic Sciences (reference no. 4/2021). The need for Informed consent was waived by the Ethics Committee of University of Warsaw. All methods were carried out in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

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Additional file 1: table a1..

Statistics for education level and place of living vs. chronic diseases and ADL limitations

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Wrotek, M., Kalbarczyk, M. Predictors of long-term care use - informal home care recipients versus private and public facilities residents in Poland. BMC Geriatr 23 , 512 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04216-2

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How to Present the Limitations of the Study Examples
Step 1. Identify the limitation (s) of the study. This part should comprise around 10%-20% of your discussion of study limitations. The first step is to identify the particular limitation (s) that affected your study. There are many possible limitations of research that can affect your study, but you don't need to write a long review of all ...
How to Write Limitations of the Study (with examples)
Common types of limitations and their ramifications include: Theoretical: limits the scope, depth, or applicability of a study. Methodological: limits the quality, quantity, or diversity of the data. Empirical: limits the representativeness, validity, or reliability of the data. Analytical: limits the accuracy, completeness, or significance of ...
Limitations in Research
Generally, limitations should be discussed in the conclusion section of a research paper or thesis, although they may also be mentioned in other sections, such as the introduction or methods. The specific limitations that are discussed will depend on the nature of the study, the research question being investigated, and the data that was collected.
Limitations of the Study
Possible Limitations of the Researcher. Access-- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, data, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or limited in some way, the reasons for this needs to be described.Also, include an explanation why being denied or limited access did not prevent you from following through on your study.
Diving Deeper into Limitations and Delimitations
If you are working on a dissertation or thesis, you need to know the difference between limitations and delimitations in research. Limitations are the factors that may affect the validity or generalizability of your study, while delimitations are the choices you make to narrow your scope and define your research problem. In this article, you will learn how to write about each of these aspects ...
How to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation
STRUCTURE How to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation. There is no "one best way" to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation. However, we recommend a structure based on three moves: the announcing, reflecting and forward looking move. The announcing move immediately allows you to identify the limitations of your dissertation and explain how ...
Stating the Obvious: Writing Assumptions, Limitations, and
Limitations. Limitations of a dissertation are potential weaknesses in your study that are mostly out of your control, given limited funding, choice of research design, statistical model constraints, or other factors. In addition, a limitation is a restriction on your study that cannot be reasonably dismissed and can affect your design and results.
PDF How to discuss your study's limitations effectively
limitation can also help reassure reviewers of the study's merit; even better is to say how you, specifically, are already taking steps to address the limitations: ... dissertation as a basis for an article manuscript. Reusing one's own text is frequently referred to as "text recycling" or "self-plagiarism." However, there are ...
Organizing Academic Research Papers: Limitations of the Study
Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study.
Research Limitations
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 ...
Limitations of a Research Study
3. Identify your limitations of research and explain their importance. 4. Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices. 5. Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future. Limitations can help structure the research study better.
Research Limitations vs Research Delimitations
Research limitations and research delimitations are related in that they both refer to "limits" within a study. But, they are distinctly different. Limitations reflect the shortcomings of your study, based on practical or theoretical constraints that you faced. Contrasted to that, delimitations reflect the choices that you made in terms of ...
21 Research Limitations Examples (2024)
6. Limited Scope. "Limited scope" is perhaps one of the most common limitations listed by researchers - and while this is often a catch-all way of saying, "well, I'm not studying that in this study", it's also a valid point. No study can explore everything related to a topic.
How to write the 'limitations or shortcomings of the study' in a
'Limitations or shortcomings of the study' is the last stage of a thesis. After the study is completed, as a researcher, you may have identified shortcomings. Enlisting those areas in the thesis serves many purposes. Identifying limitations or shortcomings in a study means that you have carefully considered their potential impact on your ...
Limitations of the Study
Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study.
Research Limitations Examples: 5 Common Limitations In ...
Learn about the 5 most common research limitations, how to avoid them and how to mitigate the impacts of each limitation. Seasoned Grad Coachs, David Phair a...
Delimitations in Research
Delimitations refer to the specific boundaries or limitations that are set in a research study in order to narrow its scope and focus. Delimitations may be related to a variety of factors, including the population being studied, the geographical location, the time period, the research design, and the methods or tools being used to collect data.
Limitations of a Study Made Easy With This Guide
Limitations of the Researcher. Access. One of the common limitations in research is poor access to things such as documents, organizations or people. In such a situation, you should clearly state the reasons for getting denied access to the targeted source of information. Longitudinal Impacts.
Scope and Delimitations
The scope and delimitations of a thesis, dissertation or research paper define the topic and boundaries of the research problem to be investigated. The scope details how in-depth your study is to explore the research question and the parameters in which it will operate in relation to the population and timeframe.
How to Write a Discussion Section
Table of contents. What not to include in your discussion section. Step 1: Summarize your key findings. Step 2: Give your interpretations. Step 3: Discuss the implications. Step 4: Acknowledge the limitations. Step 5: Share your recommendations. Discussion section example. Other interesting articles.
Decoding the Scope and Delimitations of the Study in Research
What is scope and delimitation in research. The scope of a research paper explains the context and framework for the study, outlines the extent, variables, or dimensions that will be investigated, and provides details of the parameters within which the study is conducted.Delimitations in research, on the other hand, refer to the limitations imposed on the study.
"This study is not without its limitations": Acknowledging limitations
Acknowledging limitations and making recommendations for future research are often presented in thesis handbooks and rubrics as obligatory moves that demonstrate an author's critical self-evaluation and authority. Published research articles (RAs), however, reflect nuanced variation that challenges this interpretation. Based on two specialized corpora of 100 quantitative and 100 qualitative ...
Predictors of long-term care use
The impact of multimorbidity on choosing different types of inpatient facilities is limited, thus the number of ADL limitations remains a better indicator of long term care utilization. The study confirms that social inequalities influence decisions about the choice of LTC. ... PhD thesis. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN; 1968.