Things we are aware of and understand.
It is possible that authors did not identify, want to identify, or acknowledge potential limitations or were unaware of what limitations existed. Cumulative complexity is the result of the presence of multiple limitations because of the accumulation and interaction of limitations and their components. Just mentioning a limitation category and not the specific parts that are the limitation(s) is not enough. Authors telling readers of their known research limitations is a caution to discount the findings and conclusions. At what point does the caution for each limitation, its ramifications, and consequences become a warning? When does the piling up of mistakes, bad and missing data, biases, small sample size, lack of generalizability, confounding factors, etc., reach a point when the findings become s uninterpretable and meaningless? “Caution” indicates a level of potential hazard; a warning is more dire and consequential. Authors use the word “caution” not “warning” to describe their conclusions. There is a point when the number of limitations and their cumulative effects surpasses the point where a caution statement is no longer applicable, and a warning statement is required. This is the reason for establishing a limitations risk score.
Limitations put medical research articles at risk. The accumulation of limitations (variables having additional limitation components) are gaps and flaws diluting the probability of validity. There is currently no assessment method for evaluating the effect(s) of limitations on research outcomes other than awareness that there is an effect. Authors make statements warning that their results may not be reliable or generalizable, and need more research and larger numbers. Just because the weight effect of any given limitation is not known, explained, or how it discounts findings does not negate a causation effect on data, its analysis, and conclusions. Limitation variables and the ramifications of their effects have consequences. The relationship is not zero effect and accumulates with each added limitation.
As a result of this research, a limitation index score (LIS) system and assessment tool were developed. This limitation risk assessment tool gives a scores assessment of the relative validity of conclusions in a medical article having limitations. The adoption of the LIS scoring assessment tool for authors, researchers, editors, reviewers, and readers is a step toward understanding the effects of limitations and their causal relationships to findings and conclusions. The objective is cleaner, tighter methodologies, and better data assessment, to achieve more reliable findings. Adjustments to research conclusions in the presence of limitations are necessary. The degree of modification depends on context. The cumulative effect of this burden must be acknowledged by a tangible reduction and questioning of the legitimacy of statements made under these circumstances. The description calculating the LIS score is detailed in Appendix 1 .
A limitation word or phrase is not one limitation; it is a group of limitations under the heading of that word or phrase having many additional possible components just as an individual named influence. For instance, when an admission of selection bias is noted, the authors do not explain if it was an exclusion criterion, self-selection, nonresponsiveness, lost to follow-up, recruitment error, how it affects external validity, lack of randomization, etc., or any of the least 263 types of known biases causing systematic distortions of the truth whether unintentional or wanton. 40 , 76 Which forms of selection bias are they identifying? 63 Limitations have branches that introduce additional limitations influencing the study’s ability to reach a useful conclusion. Authors rarely tell you the effect consequences and extent limitations have on their study, findings, and conclusions.
This is a sample of limitations and a few of their component variables under the rubric of a single word or phrase. See Table 3 .
A Limitation Word or Phrase is a Limitation Having Additional Components That Are Additional Limitations. When an Author Uses the Limitation Composite Word or Phrase, They Leave out Which One of Its Components is Contributory to the Research Limitations. Each Limitation Interacts with Other Limitations, Creating a Cluster of Cross Complexities of Data, Findings, and Conclusions That Are Tainted and Negatively Affect Findings and Conclusions
Small Sample Size | Retrospective Study | Selection Bias |
---|---|---|
Low statistical power | Missing information | Affects internal validity |
Estimates not reliable | Recall bias | Nonrandom selection |
Prone to biased samples | Observer bias | Leads to confounding |
Not generalizable | Misclassification bias | Not generalizable |
Prone to false negative error | Observer bias | Inaccurate relation to variables |
Prone to false positive error | Evidence less robust than prospective study | Observer bias |
Sampling error | Missing data | Sampling bias |
Confounding factors | Volunteer bias | |
Selection bias | Survivorship bias |
Limitations rarely occur alone. If you see one there are many you do not see or appreciate. Limitation s components interact with their own and other limitations, leading to complex connections interacting and discounting the reliability of findings. By how much is context dependent: but it is not zero. Limitations are variables influencing outcomes. As the number of limitations increases, the reliability of the conclusions decreases. How many variables (limitations) does it take to nullify the claims of the findings? The weight and influence of each limitation, its aggregate components, and interconnectedness have an unknown magnitude and effect. The result is a disorderly concoction of hearsay explanations. Table 4 is an example of just two single explanation limitations and some of their components illustrating the complex compounding of their effects on each other.
An Example of Interactions between Only Two Limitations and Some of Their Components Causes 16 Interactions
Retrospective Study | Small Sample Size |
---|---|
The novelty of this paper on limitations in medical science is not the identification of research article limitations or their number or frequency; it is the recognition of the multiplier effect(s) limitations and the influence they have on diminishing any conclusion(s) the paper makes. It is possible that limitations contribute to the inability of studies to replicate and why so many are one-time occurrences. Therefore, the generalizability statement that should be given to all readers is BEWARE THERE IS A REDUCTION EFFECT ON THE CONCLUSIONS IN THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE OF ITS LIMITATIONS.
Journals accept studies done with too many limitations, creating forking path situations resulting in an enormous number of possible associations of individual data points as multiple comparisons. 79 The result is confusion, a muddled mess caused by interactions of limitations undermining the ability to make valid inferences. Authors know and acknowledge but rarely explain them or their influence. They also use incomplete and biased databases, biased methods, small sample sizes, and not eliminating confounders, etc., but persist in doing research with these circumstances. Why is that? Is it because when limitations are acknowledged, authors feel justified in their conclusions? It wasn’t my poor research design; it was the limitation(s). How do peer reviewers score and analyze these papers without a method to discount the findings and conclusions in the presence of limitations? What are the calculus editors use to justify papers with multiple limitations, reaching compromised or spurious conclusions? How much caution or warning should a journal say must be taken in interpreting article results? How much? Which results? When? Under what circumstance(s)?
Since a critical component of research is its limitations, the quality and rigor of research are largely defined by, 75 these constraints making it imperative that limitations be exposed and explained. All studies have limitations admitted to or not, and these limitations influence outcomes and conclusions. Unfortunately, they are given insufficient attention, accompanied by feeble excuses, but they all matter. The degrees of freedom of each limitation influence every other limitation, magnifying their ramifications and confusion. Limitations of a scientific article must put the findings in context so the reader can judge the validity and strength of the conclusions. While authors acknowledge the limitations of their study, they influence its legitimacy.
Not only are limitations not properly acknowledged in the scientific literature, 8 but their implications, magnitude, and how they affect a conclusion are not explained or appreciated. Authors work at claiming their work and methods “overcome,” “avoid,” or “circumvent” limitations. Limitations are explained away as “Failure to prove a difference does not prove lack of a difference.” 60 Sample size, bias, confounders, bad data, etc. are not what they seem and do not sully the results. The implication is “trust me.” But that’s not science. Limitations create cognitive distortions and framing (misperception of reality) for the authors and readers. Data in studies with limitations is data having limitations. It was real but tainted.
Limitations are not a trivial aspect of research. It is a tangible something, positive or negative, put into a data set to be analyzed and used to reach a conclusion. How did these extra somethings, known unknowns, not knowns, and unknown knowns, affect the validity of the data set and conclusions? Research presented with the vagaries of explicit limitations is intensified by additional limitations and their component effects on top of the first limitation s , quickly diluting any conclusion making its dependability questionable.
This study’s analysis of limitations in medical articles averaged 3.9% per article for JSLS and 7.4% for Surg Endosc . Authors admit to some and are aware of limitations, but not all of them and discount or leave out others. Limitations were often presented with misleading and hedging language. Authors do not give weight or suggest the percent discount limitations have on the reliance of conclusion(s). Since limitations influence findings, reliability, generalizability, and validity without knowing the magnitude of each and their context, the best that can be said about the conclusions is that they are specific to the study described, context-driven, and suspect.
Limitations mean something is missing, added, incorrect, unseen, unaware of, fabricated, or unknown; circumstances that confuse, confound, and compromise findings and information to the extent that a notice is necessary. All medical articles should have this statement, “Any conclusion drawn from this medical study should be interpreted considering its limitations. Readers should exercise caution, use critical judgement, and consult other sources before accepting these findings. Findings may not be generalizable regardless of sample size, composition, representative data points, and subject groups. Methodologic, analytic, and data collection may have introduced biases or limitations that can affect the accuracy of the results. Controlling for confounding variables, known and unknown, may have influenced the data and/or observations. The accuracy and completeness of the data used to draw a conclusion may not be reliable. The study was specific to time, place, persons, and prevailing circumstances. The weight of each of these factors is unknown to us. Their effect may be limited or compounded and diminish the validity of the proposed conclusions.”
This study and findings are limited and constrained by the limitations of the articles reviewed. They have known and unknown limitations not accounted for, missing data, small sample size, incongruous populations, internal and external validity concerns, confounders, and more. See Tables 2 and and 3 . 3 . Some of these are correctible by the author’s awareness of the consequences of limitations, making plans to address them in the methodology phase of hypothesis assessment and performance of the research to diminish their effects.
Limitations in research articles are expected, but they can be reduced in their effect so that conclusions are closer to being valid. Limitations introduce elements of ignorance and suspicion. They need to be explained so their influence on the believability of the study and its conclusions is closer to meeting construct, content, face, and criterion validity. As the number of limitations increases, common sense, skepticism, study component acceptability, and understanding the ramifications of each limitation are necessary to accept, discount, or reject the author’s findings. As the number of hedging and weasel words used to explain conclusion(s) increases, believability decreases, and raises suspicion regarding claims. Establishing a systematic limitation scoring index limitations for authors, editors, reviewers, and readers and recognizing their cumulative effects will result in a clearer understanding of research content and legitimacy.
How to calculate the Limitation Index Score (LIS). See Tables 5 – 5 . Each limitation admitted to by authors in the article equals (=) one (1) point. Limitations may be generally stated by the author as a broad category, but can have multiple components, such as a retrospective study with these limitation components: 1. data or recall not accurate, 2. data missing, 3. selection bias not controlled, 4. confounders not controlled, 5. no randomization, 6. no blinding, 7. difficult to establish cause and effect, and 8. cannot draw a conclusion of causation. For each component, no matter how many are not explained and corrected, add an additional one (1) point to the score. See Table 2 .
The Limitation Scoring Index is a Numeric Limitation Risk Assessment Score to Rank Risk Categories and Discounting Probability of Validity and Conclusions. The More Limitations in a Study, the Greater the Risk of Unreliable Findings and Conclusions
Number of limitations | Word description of discounting | Proposed percent discounting of conclusions | Outcome probability | Increasing level of less reliable conclusions |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | Unknown unknowns | 1–10% | May have valid conclusion(s) | Warning |
1–2 | Some | 15–25% | ↓ | ↓ |
3–4 | Probable | 35–45% | ↓ | Caution |
5–6 | Likely | 70–80% | ↓ | ↓ |
7–8 | Highly likely | 85–95% | ↓ | ↓ |
>8 | Certain | 97–100% | Very questionable conclusion(s) | Danger |
Limitations May Be Generally Stated by the Author but Have Multiple Components, Such as a Retrospective Study Having Disadvantage Components of 1. Data or Recall Not Accurate, 2. Data Missing, 3. Selection Bias Not Controlled, 4. Confounders Not Controlled, 5. No Randomization, 6. No Blinding, 7 Difficult to Establish Cause and Effect, 8. Results Are Hypothesis Generating, and 9. Cannot Draw a Conclusion of Causation. For Each Component, Not Explained and Corrected, Add an Additional One (1) Point Is Added to the Score. Extra Blanks Are for Additional Limitations
One point for each limitation | |
---|---|
One additional point for each component of each limitation | |
Retrospective study | |
Small sample size | |
Not generalizable | |
Selection bias | |
Not controlling for confounders | |
Not controlling for comorbidities | |
Incomplete or missing data | |
No long-term follow-up | |
Reporting errors | |
Measurement problems | |
Study design problems | |
Lack of standardized treatment | |
Subtotal for Table 2 |
An Automatic 2 Points is Added for Meta-Analysis Studies Since They Have All the Retrospective Detrimental Components. 44 Data from Insurance, State, National, Medicare, and Medicaid, Because of Incorrect Coding, Over Reporting, and Under-Reporting, Etc. Each Component of the Limitation Adds One Additional Point. For Surveys and Questionnaires Add One Additional Point for Each Bias. Extra Blanks Are for Additional Limitations
Two points for these limitations | |
---|---|
One additional point for each limitation and one additional point for each limitation component. | |
Meta-analysis | |
Data from Medicare, Medicaid, insurance companies, disease, state, and national databases | |
Surveys and questionnaires | |
Each limitation not admitted to | |
Subtotal for Table 3 |
Automatic Five (5) Points for Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) Database Articles. The FDA Access Data Site Says Submissions Can Be “Incomplete, Inaccurate, Untimely, Unverified, or Biased” and “the Incidence or Prevalence of an Event Cannot Be Determined from This Reporting System Alone Due to Under-Reporting of Events, Inaccuracies in Reports, Lack of Verification That the Device Caused the Reported Event, and Lack of Information” and “DR Data Alone Cannot Be Used to Establish Rates of Events, Evaluate a Change in Event Rates over Time or Compare Event Rates between Devices. The Number of Reports Cannot Be Interpreted or Used in Isolation to Reach Conclusions” 80
Five points for MAUDE based articles | |
---|---|
One additional point for each additional limitation and one point for each of its components. | |
Subtotal for Table 4 |
Total Limitation Index Score
Limitations | Calculation |
---|---|
Subtotal for Table 2 | |
Subtotal for Table 3 | |
Subtotal for Table 4 | |
Total Limitation Index Score |
Each limitation not admitted to = two (2) points. A meta-analysis study gets an automatic 2 points since they are retrospective and have detrimental components that should be added to the 2 points. Data from insurance, state, national, Medicare, and Medicaid, because of incorrect coding, over-reporting, and underreporting, etc., score 2 points, and each component adds one additional point. Surveys and questionnaires get 2 points, and add one additional point for each bias. See Table 3 .
Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database articles receive an automatic five (5) points. The FDA access data site says, submissions can be “incomplete, inaccurate, untimely, unverified, or biased” and “the incidence or prevalence of an event cannot be determined from this reporting system alone due to underreporting of events, inaccuracies in reports, lack of verification that the device caused the reported event, and lack of information” and “MDR data alone cannot be used to establish rates of events, evaluate a change in event rates over time or compare event rates between devices. The number of reports cannot be interpreted or used in isolation to reach conclusions.” 80 See Table 4 . Add one additional point for each additional limitation noted in the article.
Add one additional point for each additional limitation and one point for each of its components. Extra blanks are for additional
limitations and their component scores.
Funding sources: none.
Disclosure: none.
Conflict of interests: none.
Acknowledgments: Author would like to thank Lynda Davis for her help with data collection.
All references have been archived at https://archive.org/web/
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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
Possible Limitations of the Researcher
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.
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; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology; ter Riet, Gerben et al. “All That Glitters Isn't Gold: A Survey on Acknowledgment of Limitations in Biomedical Studies.” PLOS One 8 (November 2013): 1-6.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...
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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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.
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 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 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.
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 your paper.
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 must 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 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 types 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 way 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.
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology.
Information about the limitations of your study is 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 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.
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 reframe 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 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. An 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.
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 in an attempt to hide its flaws is a big turn off to your readers. A measure of humility goes a long way!
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.
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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Study limitations represent weaknesses within a research design that may influence outcomes and conclusions of the research. Researchers have an obligation to the academic community to present complete and honest limitations of a presented study. Too often, authors use generic descriptions to describe study limitations. Including redundant or irrelevant limitations is an ineffective use of the already limited word count. A meaningful presentation of study limitations should describe the potential limitation, explain the implication of the limitation, provide possible alternative approaches, and describe steps taken to mitigate the limitation. This includes placing research findings within their proper context to ensure readers do not overemphasize or minimize findings. A more complete presentation will enrich the readers' understanding of the study's limitations and support future investigation.
Keywords: Limitations; Research.
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When completing a study or any other important work, there are different details that you should include to present its comprehensive and clear description. Sometimes you might even need to hire a thesis writer to help you with the whole writing process. Don’t underrate the section with limitations in research. It plays a big role in the entire process. Some students find it difficult to write this part, while others are reluctant to include it in their academic papers. Don’t underestimate the significance of limitations in research to provide readers with an accurate context of your work and enough data to evaluate the impact and relevance of your results. What is the best way to go about them? Keep reading to find out more.
Every research has its limitations. These limitations can appear due to constraints on methodology or research design. Needless to say, this may impact your whole study or research paper. Most researchers prefer to not discuss their study limitations because they think it may decrease the value of their paper in the eyes of the audience.
Remember that it’s quite important to show your study limitations to your audience (other researchers, editors of journals, and public readers). You need to notice that you know about these limitations and about the impact they may have. It’s important to give an explanation of how your research limitations can affect the conclusions and thoughts drawn from your research.
In this guide, you can read useful tips on how to write limitations on your future research. Read great techniques on making a proper limitations section and see examples to make sure you have got an idea of writing your qualitative research limitations. You need to understand that even if limitations show the weaknesses of your future research, including them in your study can make your paper strengthen because you show all the problems before your readers will discover them by themselves.
Apart from this, when the author points out the study limitations, it means that you have researched all the weak sides of your study and you understand the topic deeply. Needless to say, all the studies have their limitations even if you know how to make research design properly. When you’re honest with your readers, it can impress people much better than ignoring limitations at all.
Every research has certain limitations, and it’s completely normal, but you need to minimize their range of scope in the process. Provide your acknowledgment of them in the conclusion. Identify and understand potential shortcomings in your work.
When discussing limitations in research, explain how they impact your findings because creating their short list or description isn’t enough. Your research may have many limitations. Your basic goal is to discuss the ones that relate to the research questions that you choose for a specific academic assignment.
Limitations of your qualitative research can become clear to your readers even before they start to read your study. Sometimes, people can see the limitations only when they have viewed the whole document. You have to present your study limitations clearly in the discussion section of a researh paper . This is the final part of your work where it’s logical to place the limitations section. You should write the limitations at the very beginning of this paragraph, just after you have highlighted the strong sides of the research methodology. When you discuss the limitations before the findings are analyzed, it will help to see how to qualify and apply these findings in future research.
Limitations related to the researcher must also be written and shown to readers. You have to provide suggestions on decreasing these limitations in both your and future studies.
Your study may involve some organizations and people in the research, and sometimes you may get problems with access to these organizations. Due to this, you need to redesign and rewrite your study. You need to explain the cause of limited access to your readers.
Needless to say, all the researchers have their deadlines when they need to complete their studies. Sometimes, time constraints can affect your research negatively. If this happened, you need to acknowledge it and mention a need for future research to solve the main problem.
Some researchers can have biased views because of their cultural background or personal views. Needless to say, it can affect the research. Apart from this, researchers with biased views can choose only those results and data that support their main arguments. If you want to avoid this problem, pay your attention to the problem statement and proper data gathering.
Before you start your study or work, keep in mind that there are specific limitations to what you test or possible research results. What are their types? There are different types that students may encounter and they all have unique features, including:
Specific constraints on your population research or available procedures may affect the final outcomes or results that you obtain.
Even if your research has excellent stats and a strong design, it may suffer from the impact of such factors as:
In some cases, it’s impossible to collect enough data or enrollment is very difficult, and all that under-powers your research results. They may stem from your study design. They produce more issues in interpreting your findings.
There are strict rules to structure this section of your academic paper where you need to justify and explain its potential weaknesses. Take these basic steps to end up with a well-structured section:
They walk your readers through this section. You need them to make it clear to your target audience that you recognize potential weaknesses in your work, understand them, and can point effective solutions.
No one is perfect. It means that your work isn’t beyond possible flaws, but you need to use them as a great opportunity to overcome new challenges and improve your knowledge. In a typical academic paper, research limitations can relate to these points:
Learn to determine them in each one.
Your work has certain shortcomings if you formulate objectives and aims in a very broad manner. What to do in this case? Specify effective methods or ways to narrow your formulation of objectives and aims to increase the level of your study focus.
If you don’t have a lot of experience in collecting primary data, there’s a certain risk that the implementation of your methods has flaws. It’s necessary to acknowledge that.
They depend on the nature of your chosen problem and their significance is bigger in quantitative studies, unlike the qualitative ones. If your sample size is very small, statistical tests will fail to identify important relationships or connections within a particular data set. How to solve this problem? State that other researchers need to base the same study on a larger sample size to end up with more accurate results.
A literature review is a key step in any scientific work because it helps students determine the scope of existing studies in the chosen area. Why should you use the literature review findings? They are a basic foundation for any researcher who must use them to achieve a set of specific objectives or aims. What if there are no previous works? You may face this challenge if you choose an evolving or current problem for your study or if it’s very narrow.
Feel free to include this point as a shortcoming of your work, no matter what your chosen area is. Why? The main reason is that you don’t have long years of experience in writing scientific papers or completing complex studies. That’s why the depth and scope of your discussions can be compromised in different levels compared to scholars with a lot of expertise. Include certain points from limitations in research. Use them as suggestions for the future.
Any research suffers from specific limitations that range from common flaws to serious problems in design or methodology. The ability to set these shortcomings plays a huge role in writing a successful academic paper and earning good grades. What if you lack it? Turn to our professional thesis writers and get their expert consultation on thesis or research paper.
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Research limitations make most studies imperfect. At its core, the research aims to investigate a specific question or questions about a topic. However, some things can hinder your ability to investigate the question or questions extensively. While this can make achieving your goals challenging, it enables you to point areas that require further studies.
That’s why you should demonstrate how future studies can provide answers to your unanswered questions if you encounter study limitations that affect your findings. Presenting the limitations of a study properly shows the readers that you understand your research problem.
After presenting your research findings, your assessment committee wants to see that you did your work professionally. And presenting limitations in a study shows that you carefully thought about your study problem and performed a review of the available literature while analyzing your preferred methods.
Well, limitations mean anything that might affect the generalizability or reliability of the outcomes of an experiment or a study. And this can relate to research design, like your approach or methods. It can also be something to do with how you carried out your research, like running out of resources or time before completing the study.
Either way, students should include their limitations when writing up their studies. In most cases, researchers include limitations in their analysis and discussions. But different schools can provide varying guidelines on how to include limitations in a research paper. Therefore, seek advice from your educator or check your writing style guide to know where to include the limitations of a study when writing a dissertation.
Each study can have unique limitations. However, most students encounter common study limitations when writing academic papers. Here are some of the most common limitations you’re likely to encounter when writing your academic papers.
Sample profile or size: Most researchers encounter sampling as a limitation for their studies. That’s because they have difficulties finding the right sample with the necessary characteristics and size parameters. And this hinders the generalizability of their study results. Also, different sampling techniques are prone to bias and errors. And this can influence the study outcomes. In some cases, researchers have difficulties selecting their samples and opt to pick their participants selectively. Some researchers can even include irrelevant subjects in their general pool to hit their preferred sample size. Availability of previous research or information: Theoretical concepts or previous knowledge form the basis of studies on specific topics. And this provides a sound foundation on which a researcher can develop a research problem for their investigation and a design. However, a topic can be relatively specific or very progressive. In that case, the lack of or inadequate knowledge and previous studies can limit the analysis scope. And this can cause inaccuracies in the arguments or present a significant error margin in several methodologies and research aspects. Methodology errors: Modern research complexity can cause potential methodology limitations. In most cases, these research limitations relate to how the researchers collect and analyze data. That’s because these aspects can influence the outcomes of a study. Researchers use different techniques to gather data. While these techniques may suit a study design, they can present limitations in terms of inappropriate detail levels, distractions, and privacy. Bias: Bias is a potential limitation whose effects can influence the outcome of every study. However, a researcher can avoid this limitation by eliminating prejudiced or emotional attitudes towards their topic and conflict of interest. Researchers should also establish an oversight level by referring to peer-review procedures or an ethics committee. Bias is an inherent trait for human beings. Even the most objective people exhibit a bias to some extent. Nevertheless, a researcher should remain objective while trying to control potential inaccuracies or bias during the research process.
A researcher may not have control over the limitation of study. However, the limitation can be the condition, influence, or shortcoming that places restrictions on their conclusions or methodology. Therefore, researchers should mention all limitations that can influence their results.
The purpose of most studies is to confirm or establish facts, reaffirm a previous study’s outcomes, solve current or new issues, develop a new theory, or support theorems. Research should also enable experts to develop knowledge on specific subjects. And people research different subjects, depending on their interests. However, researchers experience limitations of quantitative research and qualitative research. Here are the most common limitations in research.
Lack or inadequate interactions: Researchers might lack adequate interactions with government institutions and businesses. Consequently, they do not tap a substantial data amount. Researchers should arrange interaction programs with other establishments. That way, they can identify issues that warrant investigation and the necessary data for conducting research, as well as, the benefits of their studies. Overlapping studies can lead fritter resources away or duplicate the findings. Appropriate revision and compilation at regular intervals can solve this problem. Costly publishing: After researching a topic, a researcher should find ways to publish their findings. However, international journals cost a lot of money to publish a study. And this can discourage a researcher from publishing their work. For instance, a study involving females only or carried out in a specific town can have limitations like sample size, gender, and location. What’s more, the entire study could be limited to the researcher’s perception. Lack of or inadequate training: The research process doesn’t have a systematic methodology. Many researchers do not understand the research method when carrying out their work. Consequently, most researchers experience methodological limitations. Essentially, most researchers replicate the methodologies of similar studies. Even some research guides don’t explain the methodologies accurately. And this can limit the outcome of some studies. Lack of code of conduct: Researchers don’t have a code of conduct. And this causes inter-university and inter-departmental rivalries. Library functioning and management are not adequate in most places. Consequently, some researchers spend a lot of energy and time tracing the necessary books, reports, and journals for their studies. Such energy and time can be spent tracing relevant materials. Lack of confidence: The lack of confidence is among the most common limitations of research studies because company managers think that a researcher can misuse the data they disclose to them. Consequently, they don’t want to reveal their business information. And this can affect studies, yet data from researchers can help the same institutions. Therefore, organizations and researchers should implement confidence-building strategies to encourage companies to share data, knowing that researchers will use it productively.
When writing a research paper or a thesis, some people think including study limitations is counterintuitive. That’s particularly the case for researchers that experienced something wrong. However, mentioning the limitations of your study is imperative for the following reasons.
Most professors spot problems with the students’ work even if they don’t mention them. Consequently, embracing the limitations of your study and including them in your analysis is the best approach. Leaving out the limitations of research or vital aspects of a study can be detrimental to the entire study field. That’s because it can establish a potentially fallacious and incomplete depiction of the study.
In the academic world, players expect researchers to include the limitations of their works. And this includes a section that demonstrates a holistic and comprehensive understanding of a topic and research process by the author. Discussing limitations is a learning process for assessing the magnitude while critically evaluating the extenuating effect of the stated limitations.
Stating the limitations of a study also improves the validity and quality of future studies. And this includes limitations whose basis is the transparency principle in scientific research, whose purpose is to promote further progress while maintaining mutual integrity in similar studies.
When writing your research limitations, do it in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the core concepts of confounding, analytical self-criticism, and bias. Highlighting every limitation might not be necessary. However, include every limitation with a direct impact on your research problem or study results.
Present your thought process as a researcher and explain the pros and cons of your decisions. Also, explain circumstances that may have led to a research limitation. Here’s how you should structure your limitations.
Don’t forget that acknowledging your study limitations provides a chance to suggest the direction for further studies. Therefore, connect the limitations of your study to the suggestions you make for further research. Also, explain how your study can make the unanswered questions more focused.
Also, acknowledging the limitation of the study enables you to demonstrate to the professor that you have critically thought about your research problem and understood the importance of the already-published literature. What’s more, it shows that you’ve carefully assessed the methods for studying your study problem. In research, a key objective is to discover new knowledge while confronting assumptions as you explore what others might not know.
Writing limitations should be a subjective process. That’s because you must analyze the impacts of the limitations and include them in your paper. In this section, don’t include the key weaknesses only. Instead, highlight the magnitude of the limitations of your research. And doing this requires you to demonstrate your study’s validity. Show the readers how the limitations have impacted your study outcomes and conclusions. Thus, writing the limitations section of your paper requires an overall, critical interpretation and appraisal of the impact. Essentially, this section should tell the readers why the problems with methods, errors, validity, and other limitations matter and to what extent.
When writing a research paper, include information about your study’s limitations at the beginning of the discussion section. That way, your readers can understand your study limitations before delving into the deeper analysis. In some cases, authors bring out limitations when concluding their research discussion and highlighting the essence of further study on the subject. Here are practical tips to help you write the limitations of your study more effectively.
When working on the limitations section of a research paper, be precise and clear. If writing this section becomes challenging, follow the tips shared in this article or seek assistance. That way, you can impress your educator by highlighting the limitations of your study properly.
Richard Ginger is a dissertation writer and freelance columnist with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the writing industry. He handles every project he works on with precision while keeping attention to details and ensuring that every work he does is unique.
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A systematic literature review of modalities, trends, and limitations in emotion recognition, affective computing, and sentiment analysis.
2. methodology, 2.1. research questions, 2.2. search process, 2.2.1. search terms, 2.2.2. inclusion and exclusion criteria, 2.2.3. quality assessment, 2.2.4. data extraction, 3.1. overview, 3.2. unimodal data approaches, 3.2.1. unimodal physical approaches, 3.2.2. unimodal speech data approaches.
3.2.4. unimodal physiological data approaches.
Author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.
Click here to enlarge figure
Database | Resulted Studies with Key Terms | After Years Filter | After Article Type | Relevant Order |
---|---|---|---|---|
IEEE | 2112 | 1152 | 536 | 200 |
Springer | 4121 | 1808 | 1694 | 200 |
Science Direct | 1041 | 582 | 480 | 200 |
MDPI | 686 | 643 | 635 | 200 |
Database | Quantity |
---|---|
IEEE | 148 |
Springer | 112 |
Science Direct | 166 |
MDPI | 183 |
Modality | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Multi-physical | 8 | 6 | 8 | 22 | 27 | 71 | |
Multi-physical–physiological | 2 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 18 | ||
Multi-physiological | 2 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 21 | |
Unimodal | 37 | 26 | 29 | 37 | 176 | 194 | 499 |
Total | 49 | 32 | 35 | 51 | 210 | 232 | 609 |
Article Title | Databases Used | Ref. |
---|---|---|
AffectNet: A Database for Facial Expression, Valence, and Arousal Computing in the Wild. | AffectNet | [ ] |
Video-Based Depression Level Analysis by Encoding Deep Spatiotemporal Features. | AVEC2013, AVEC2014 | [ ] |
Exploiting Multi-CNN Features in CNN-RNN Based Dimensional Emotion Recognition on the OMG in-the-Wild Dataset. | Aff-Wild, Aff-Wild2, OMG | [ ] |
A Deeper Look at Facial Expression Dataset Bias. | CK+, JAFFE, MMI, Oulu-CASIA, AffectNet, FER2013, RAF-DB 2.0, SFEW 2.0 | [ ] |
Automatic Recognition of Facial Displays of Unfelt Emotions. | CK+, OULU-CASIA, BP4D | [ ] |
Spatio-Temporal Encoder-Decoder Fully Convolutional Network for Video-Based Dimensional Emotion Recognition. | OMG, RECOLA, SEWA | [ ] |
Efficient Net-XGBoost: An Implementation for Facial Emotion Recognition Using Transfer Learning. | CK+, FER2013, JAFFE, KDEF | [ ] |
Masked Face Emotion Recognition Based on Facial Landmarks and Deep Learning Approaches for Visually Impaired People. | AffectNet | [ ] |
Facial Feature Extraction Using a Symmetric Inline Matrix-LBP Variant for Emotion Recognition. | JAFFE | [ ] |
Manta Ray Foraging Optimization with Transfer Learning Driven Facial Emotion Recognition. | CK+, FER-2013 | [ ] |
Emotion recognition at a distance: The robustness of machine learning based on hand-crafted facial features vs deep learning models. | CK+ | [ ] |
Deep learning-based dimensional emotion recognition combining the attention mechanism and global second-order feature representations. | AffectNet | [ ] |
On-road driver facial expression emotion recognition with parallel multi-verse optimizer (PMVO) and optical flow reconstruction for partial occlusion in internet of things (IoT). | CK+, KMU-FED | [ ] |
Emotion recognition by web-shaped model. | CK+, KDEF | [ ] |
Edge-enhanced bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition-based emotion recognition using fusion of feature set | eNTERFACE, CK, JAFFE | [ ] |
A novel driver emotion recognition system based on deep ensemble classification | AffectNet, CK+, DFER, FER-2013, JAFFE, and custom- dataset) | [ ] |
1.Facial emotion recognition for mental health assessment (depression, schizophrenia) | 14. Emotion recognition performance assessment from faces acquired at a distance. |
2. Emotion analysis in human-computer interaction | 15. Facial emotion recognition for IoT and edge devices |
3. Emotion recognition in the context of autism | 16. Idiosyncratic bias in emotion recognition |
4. Driver emotion recognition for intelligent vehicles | 17. Emotion recognition in socially assistive robots |
5. Assessment of emotional engagement in learning environments | 18. In the wild facial emotion recognition |
6. Facial emotion recognition for apparent personality trait analysis | 19. Video-based emotion recognition |
7. Facial emotion recognition for gender, age, and ethnicity estimation | 20. Spatio-temporal emotion recognition in videos |
8. Emotion recognition in virtual reality and smart homes | 21. Spontaneous emotion recognition |
9. Emotion recognition in healthcare and clinical settings | 22. Emotion recognition using facial components |
10. Emotion recognition in real-world and COVID-19 masked scenarios | 23. Comparing emotion recognition from genuine and unfelt |
11. Personalized and group-based emotion recognition | facial expressions. |
12. Music-enhanced emotion recognition | |
13. Cross-dataset emotion recognition |
Database Name | Description | Advantages | Limitation |
---|---|---|---|
MELD (Multimodal Emotion Lines Dataset) [ ] | Focuses on emotion recognition in movie dialogues. It contains transcriptions of dialogues and their corresponding audio and video tracks. Emotions are labeled at the sentence and speaker levels. | Large amount of data, multimodal (text, audio, video). | Emotions induced by movies. Manually labeled. |
IEMOCAP (Interactive Emotional Dyadic Motion Capture), 2005 [ ] | Focuses on emotional interactions between two individuals during acting sessions. It contains video and audio recordings of actors performing emotional scenes. | Realistic data, emotional interactions, a wide range of emotions. | Not real induced emotions (acting). |
CMU-MOSI (Multimodal Corpus of Sentiment Intensity. 2014, 2017 [ ] | Focuses on sentiment intensity in speeches and interviews. It includes transcriptions of audio and video, along with sentiment annotations. Updated in the 2017 CMU-MOSEI. | Emotions are derived from real speeches and interviews. | Relatively small size. |
AVEC (Affective Behavior in the Context of E-Learning with Social Signals 2007–2016 [ ] | AVEC is a series of competitions focused on the detection of emotions and behaviors in the context of online learning. It includes video and audio data of students participating in e-learning activities. | Emotions are naturally induced during online learning activities. | Context-specific data, enables emotion assessment in e-learning settings. |
RAVDESS (The Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song) 2016 [ ] | Audio and video database that focuses on emotion recognition in speech and song. It includes performances by actors expressing various emotions. | Diverse data in terms of emotions, modalities, and contexts. | Does not contain natural dialogues. |
SAVEE (Surrey Audio–Visual Expressed Emotion) 2010 [ ] | Focuses on emotion recognition in speech. It contains recordings of speakers expressing emotions through phrases and words. | Clean audio data. | |
SAMM (Spontaneous Micro-expression Dataset) [ ] | Focuses on spontaneous micro-expressions that last only a fraction of a second. It contains videos of people expressing emotions in real emotional situations. | Real spontaneous micro-expressions. | |
CASME (Chinese Academy of Sciences Micro-Expression) [ ] | Focus on the detection of micro-expressions in response to emotional stimuli. They contain videos of micro-expressions. | Induced by emotional stimuli. | Not multicultural. |
Database Name | Description | Advantages | Limitation |
---|---|---|---|
WESAD (Wearable Stress and Affect Detection) [ ] | It focuses on stress and affect recognition from physiological signals like ECG, EMG, and EDA, as well as motion signals from accelerometers. Data were collected while participants performed tasks and experienced emotions in a controlled laboratory setting, wearing wearable sensors. | Facilitates the development of wearable emotion recognition systems. | The dataset is relatively small, and participant diversity may be limited. |
AMIGOS [ ] | It is a multimodal dataset for personality traits and mood. Emotions are induced by emotional videos in two social contexts: one with individual viewers and one with groups of viewers. Participants’ EEG, ECG, and GSR signals were recorded using wearable sensors. Frontal HD videos and full-body videos in RGB and depth were also recorded. | Participants’ emotions were scored by self-assessment of valence, arousal, control, familiarity, liking, and basic emotions felt during the videos, as well as external assessments of valence and arousal. | Reduced number of participants. |
DREAMER [ ] | Records physiological ECG, EMG, and EDA signals and self-reported emotional responses. Collected during the presentation of emotional video clips. | Enables the study of emotional responses in a controlled environment and their comparison with self-reported emotions. | Emotions may be biased towards those induced by video clips, and the dataset size is limited. |
ASCERTAIN [ ] | Focus on linking personality traits and emotional states through physiological responses like EEG, ECG, GSR, and facial activity data while participants watched emotionally charged movie clips. | Suitable for studying emotions in stressful situations and their impact on human activity. | The variety of emotions induced is limited. |
DEAP (Database for Emotion Analysis using Physiological Signals), [ , ] | Includes physiological signals like EEG, ECG, EMG, and EDA, as well as audiovisual data. Data were collected by exposing participants to audiovisual stimuli designed to elicit various emotions. | Provides a diverse range of emotions and physiological data for emotion analysis. | The size of the database is small. |
MAHNOB-HCI (Multimodal Human Computer Interaction Database for Affect Analysis and Recognition) [ , ]. | Includes multimodal data, such as audio, video, physiological, ECG, EDA, and kinematic data. Data were collected while participants engaged in various human–computer interaction scenarios. | Offers a rich dataset for studying emotional responses during interactions with technology. |
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. |
García-Hernández, R.A.; Luna-García, H.; Celaya-Padilla, J.M.; García-Hernández, A.; Reveles-Gómez, L.C.; Flores-Chaires, L.A.; Delgado-Contreras, J.R.; Rondon, D.; Villalba-Condori, K.O. A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis. Appl. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
García-Hernández RA, Luna-García H, Celaya-Padilla JM, García-Hernández A, Reveles-Gómez LC, Flores-Chaires LA, Delgado-Contreras JR, Rondon D, Villalba-Condori KO. A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis. Applied Sciences . 2024; 14(16):7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
García-Hernández, Rosa A., Huizilopoztli Luna-García, José M. Celaya-Padilla, Alejandra García-Hernández, Luis C. Reveles-Gómez, Luis Alberto Flores-Chaires, J. Ruben Delgado-Contreras, David Rondon, and Klinge O. Villalba-Condori. 2024. "A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis" Applied Sciences 14, no. 16: 7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
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Home News As AI Paves the Way for Healthcare Innovation, Can We Avoid the Potholes? back to News
Cu anschutz researcher explores ai in medicine at cctsi conference.
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Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer , PhD, used ChatGPT to create a professional bio. The artificial intelligence platform got many things right, correctly listing her recent publications, areas of research, past employers and current lab.
Then she asked it to add her undergraduate degree.
“It made that up completely.”
Kalpathy-Cramer is chief of the new Division of Artificial Medical Intelligence in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine . She is also director of CCTSI’s Health Informatics at the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. She said the more she tried to convince ChatGTP of its error, the more it “hallucinated,” making up sources that did not exist.
“Maybe it heard my voice and decided I'm from South India, and therefore that's where I went to school,” she said.
Kalpathy-Cramer shared the story with attendees of the 2024 CCTSI CU-CSU Summit . The annual conference took place Aug. 13 at CU Anschutz to explore innovations in health AI with CCTSI researchers from its affiliated campuses. Her presentation focused on the significant potential, and a few of the limitations, of AI in healthcare.
Kalpathy-Cramer began with a survey of attendees to gauge faculty perceptions of AI. Some attendees had never used AI tools, while a larger percentage used them regularly, or even daily. Attendees said they use AI for tasks such as coding, generating research questions, and drafting letters of recommendation and that they were also aware of its limitations. Like Kalpathy-Cramer, many conference-goers said they had experienced frustration with the AI's overconfidence in plausible-sounding, yet incorrect, answers.
Kalpathy-Cramer provided a high-level snapshot of AI-focused projects within her department, using a slide deck made in collaboration with ChatGPT.
Her division, which includes about a dozen members, primarily data scientists, first created a research warehouse of data, including images, electronic health records and other data needed to train AI. These data are used to train a variety of AI algorithms. The researchers work on developing novel AI methods as well as the application novel AI algorithms to many clinical questions. The team is especially focused on issues such as bias and fairness and ensuring that the algorithms are suitable for patient care.
The department has developed AI models for imaging related to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a disease that primarily affects low-birthweight or premature babies. ROP is a leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income countries such as India.
Oxygen-management issues affecting premature infants increase their risk for ROP. While treatment is available if diagnosed in time, many regions lack sufficient pediatric ophthalmologists for proper diagnosis and treatment. ROP is diagnosed through imaging of retinal blood vessels, classified on a three-level severity scale. The challenge is to make AI effective in this context to improve access to care.
Kalpathy-Cramer also explored studies such as the HPV-automated visual evaluation (PAVE) for advancing cervical cancer prevention and the National Cancer Institute Cancer Moonshot research initiative to demonstrate how AI is already being used to improve access, quality, safety and efficiency of care.
Kalpathy-Cramer emphasized the need for researchers to collaborate as a community to address the many questions surrounding the effective and safe use of AI in healthcare.
One challenge is overcoming bias. She used the example of how AI models can predict self-reported race with great accuracy by looking at chest X-ray s .
“Humans can’t do that,” she said. “AI is already encoding this information. What is it looking at? We have to be aware of the many ways bias can creep in from data generation and model building.”
She also talked about generalization.
“The models tend to be brittle. They work on the device they were trained on but if there’s a software update or you put it on a different device, the model falls apart. And the hard part is you don't know that it's not working.”
It's also impossible to know if a model has stopped working if a human isn’t able to validate the AI, which raises ethical concerns.
“ AI can predict the likelihood of getting breast cancer five years in the future with very high accuracy, yet a human eye can’t see what it sees. Do we deploy that? Because maybe it helps people. But on the other hand, if no human can validate the risk, how do we know it's safe?”
Kalpathy-Cramer also raised practical concerns related to the development and deployment of AI in healthcare. Issues like payment, reimbursement and liability must be considered when deciding to use AI.
She concluded the talk with an AI-generated image symbolizing the intersection of data, AI and people in healthcare. She laughed at a spelling error in the image but emphasized that, from the perspective of those working in AI, there's much to be excited about.
“We really do think it has the ability to improve care, improve access to care, improve quality and safety, and make things more efficient, less expensive and safer,” she said. “But there are also lots of potholes.”
Topics: Research , Patient Care , Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, PhD
Research Patient Care Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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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.
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.
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 your paper.
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
Possible Limitations of the Researcher
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology.
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 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.
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 reframe your study.
When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:
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.
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!
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.
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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Virtually any amount increased the risk for cancer, and there were no heart benefits, the researchers reported.
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Even light drinking was associated with an increase in cancer deaths among older adults in Britain, researchers reported on Monday in a large study. But the risk was accentuated primarily in those who had existing health problems or who lived in low-income areas.
The study, which tracked 135,103 adults aged 60 and older for 12 years, also punctures the long-held belief that light or moderate alcohol consumption is good for the heart.
The researchers found no reduction in heart disease deaths among light or moderate drinkers, regardless of this health or socioeconomic status, when compared with occasional drinkers.
The study defined light drinking as a mean alcohol intake of up to 20 grams a day for men and up to 10 grams daily for women. (In the United States, a standard drink is 14 grams of alcohol .)
“We did not find evidence of a beneficial association between low drinking and mortality,” said Dr. Rosario Ortolá, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the lead author of the paper, which was published in JAMA Network Open.
On the other hand, she added, alcohol probably raises the risk of cancer “from the first drop.”
The findings add to a mounting body of evidence that is shifting the paradigm in alcohol research. Scientists are turning to new methodologies to analyze the risks and benefits of alcohol consumption in an attempt to correct what some believe were serious flaws in earlier research, which appeared to show that there were benefits to drinking.
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Scientific Reports volume 14 , Article number: 18405 ( 2024 ) Cite this article
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Evidence from previous studies have demonstrated that gut microbiota are closely associated with occurrence of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS), yet the causal link between the two is not well known. In this study, we performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to determine the possible causal association between gut microbiota with IC/BPS. Gut microbiota summary level data were derived from the genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted by MiBioGen and the IC/BPS GWAS summary level data were obtained from the GWAS Catalog. Next, we performed an MR study to investigate the causal link between gut microbiota and IC/BPS. The primary method for causal analysis was the inverse variance weighted (IVW), and the MR results were validated through multiple sensitivity analyses. A positive association was found between IC/BPS and eight gut microbial taxa, including genus Bacteroides , genus Haemophilus , genus Veillonella , genus Coprococcus1 , genus Butyricimonas , family Bacteroidaceae , family Christensenellaceae , and order Lactobacillales. Sensitivity analysis revealed lack of significant pleiotropy or heterogeneity in the obtained results. This MR analysis reveals that a causal association exists between some gut microbiota with IC/BPS. This finding may is expected to guide future research and development of IC/BPS preventions and treatments based on the bladder-gut axis. However, given the clinical complexity and diagnostic challenges of IC/BPS, along with the limitations of using large-scale GWAS summary data for analysis, our MR results require further validation through additional research.
Introduction.
Interstitial cystitis (IC), also known as bladder pain syndrome (BPS), manifests as chronic pelvic pain that is primarily associated with bladder (pain, pressure, discomfort) and is accompanied by persistent lower urinary tract symptoms lasting over six weeks, in the absence of an infection or specific etiological factors 1 . Currently, the etiology of IC/BPS is unknown, but the disease causes severe debilitation and affects the quality of life in affected individuals 2 . The incidence of IC/BPS has been arising, with an estimated rate ranging from approximately 0.01–2.3%. Moreover, females have a five times higher prevalence compared with that of males 3 . The precise etiology and pathogenesis of IC/BPS are not fully understood. Depending on the presence or absence of Hunner lesions, IC/BPS can be divided into Hunner-type interstitial cystitis (HIC) and BPS, which can be differentiated through cystoscopy 3 . However, diagnosing BPS remains highly challenging due to the significant variability in clinical presentations among individuals. Although several therapeutic approaches have been performed, the effectiveness of current treatments for IC/BPS is poor, with the recurrence rate reported to be high during long-term follow-up 4 . Some patients even require destructive surgery such as cystectomy 5 . Therefore, to alleviate the burden of IC/BPS, it is imperative to investigated the etiology and identify more effective therapeutic targets.
The pathophysiological mechanisms of IC/BPS are multifactorial, yet our understanding of them remains limited 6 . Implying intercommunication between the bladder and the gut, the conceptualization of the bladder-gut-brain axis suggests that gut functionality may influence functional urological disorders, including IC/BPS 7 . Gut microbiota have been reported to modulate gut functionality 8 , and dysbiosis leads to the occurrence of inflammatory, metabolic, mental, and immune-related diseases in humans 9 . Current studies have indicated that the composition of the human gut microbiota is influenced by various factors such as diet 10 , aging 11 , and antibiotic use 12 . Although the phenotype of the gut microbiota is shaped by postnatal environments, it has been reported that the host’s genetic state also affects the composition of gut microbiota 13 . Given the overlapping microbes in the diverse symptoms of gut and bladder diseases implies that the microbial community may modulate the communication between the bladder and the brain-gut axis 14 , 15 . Both the urine microbiota and the gut microbiota are essential components of the human microbiome, and some studies have suggested that the gut may be a potential origin of the urinary microbiota 15 . Numerous studies have demonstrated that dysbiosis of the urine microbiota is associated with various urinary diseases, including IC/BPS 16 . However, research on the relationship between the gut microbiota and IC/BPS remains relatively limited. In recent years, high-throughput sequencing has helped to uncover the relationship between gut microbiota and IC/BPS. Studies employing 16S rRNA sequencing methods have demonstrated dysbiosis in the gut microbiota of individuals with IC/BPS compared to controls 17 . This observation was further supported by an animal study, where administration of anaerobes cultured from the stool of IC/BPS patients exacerbated pelvic allodynia when orally gavaged to experimental mice 18 .
Although above studies have linked gut microbiota to IC/BPS, they are primarily observational in nature, often based on small sample sizes and are susceptible to confounding factors. Consequently, research has not been unable to uncover the specific causal connection between the two. Therefore, conducting a thorough genetic-level assessment of the causal association between gut microbiota and IC/BPS is imperative.
The Mendelian randomization (MR) method can elucidate the causal association between exposure and outcome by utilizing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instrumental variables (IVs) 19 . Because genetic variations are randomly allocated at conception, MR studies are less prone to the influence of reverse causation or confounding factors which is often observed in traditional observational methods 20 . In recent years, the hypothesis of a causal association between gut microbiota and various diseases has been assessed and confirmed by multiple MR studies 21 , 22 , 23 .
In this investigation, we obtained summarized GWAS data on gut microbiota and IC/BPS from publicly available extensive genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We utilized a two-sample MR approach to analyze these data, unveiling the causal effect of specific gut microbiota on the risk of IC/BPS. The aim of our study was to reveal a new biological marker for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with challenging IC/BPS, as well as to offer partial evidence for bladder-gut communication within the bladder-gut-brain axis.
The complete design of this study is shown in Fig. 1 . Given the chronic nature of IC/BPS, GWAS data were derived using the diagnostic term “Interstitial cystitis (chronic)” in line with the ICD-10 classification. The GWAS data for (chronic) interstitial cystitis (ID: GCST90044234), involving 240 cases and 456,108 controls of European ancestry, were obtained from the GWAS Catalog ( https://www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/) 24 . In the GWAS data we obtained, chronic interstitial cystitis is defined as “a condition with recurring discomfort or pain in the urinary bladder and the surrounding pelvic region without an identifiable disease. Severity of pain in interstitial cystitis varies greatly and often is accompanied by increased urination frequency and urgency”. This definition corresponds to the ICD-10 diagnosis code N30.1 [Interstitial cystitis (chronic)], and the GWAS data we used included patients meeting this diagnosis code. While there are some variations in the definitions of IC/BPS across different guidelines 2 , our comparison revealed that the ICD-10 classification’s definition of IC/BPS is largely consistent with those in these guidelines. Therefore, we believe that using the ICD-10 classification’s definition for diagnosing and selecting patients with IC/BPS is appropriate and reliable.
The overview of the study design and flowchart. GWAS genome-wide association study, MR Mendelian randomization, SNP single-nucleotide polymorphism, MR-PRESSO Mendelian Randomization Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier, IC/BPS interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.
The summary-level data related to gut microbiota ( https://mibiogen.gcc.rug.nl/ ) were derived from the extensive GWAS MiBioGen consortium. In this GWAS meta-analysis, 211 bacterial taxa units were analyzed, which included 9 phyla, 16 classes, 20 orders, 35 families, and 131 genera, with 18,340 participants from 24 cohorts across 11 countries 25 . To ensure accuracy, 196 taxa were retained after exclusion of 15 bacterial taxa with unknown family and genus in this study.
The following criteria were used to select significant instrumental variables: (1) We set a threshold of p < 1 × 10 −5 (locus-wide significance) to identify SNPs that were significantly associated with the exposure data instead of p < 1 × 10 −8 (genome-wide significance) because the number of SNPs obtained using the latter threshold was limited 26 . (2) The “TwoSampleMR” package was used to obtain instrumental variables from independent genetic loci in the 1000 Genomes EUR data. The clumping distance was set at 10,000 kb, along with a linkage disequilibrium (LD) threshold of R 2 < 0.001. The SNPs with the most significant p -values linked to the 196 bacterial taxa were subjected to clumping. (3) To ensure the causal relationship outcome between gut microbiota and IC/BPS was not affected by alleles, palindromic SNPs were excluded during GWAS data harmonization. (4) The F -statistic was utilized to test the strength of instrumental variables to evaluate the impact of weak instrument bias on causal effect estimates. If the associated F -statistic exceeded 10, weak instrumental bias was deemed non-existent 27 .
To estimate the potential causality between gut microbiota and IC/BPS, several methods including random-effects inverse variance weighted (IVW), weighted median, and MR-Egger were employed. In the MR analysis, the IVW method was applied as the primary approach 28 . The IVW method, which includes the Wald estimator and Delta method, was used to initially calculate the ratio estimates for individual SNPs. Subsequently, these individual estimates were aggregated to obtain the primary causal estimate 29 . To obtain more robust estimates across various scenarios, MR-Egger and weighted median methods were utilized to enhance IVW esimates, although they yielded lower efficiency (resulting in wider confidence intervals) 30 .
To explore the existence of potential heterogeneity and pleiotropy in the MR results, we performed sensitivity analysis. Heterogeneity was assessed using Cochrane’s Q test, and it was considered present when the instrumental variable had a p -value < 0.05. Potential horizontal pleiotropy was explored by the MR-Egger regression method and was considered present if intercept’s p -value < 0.05 31 . Pleiotropy outliers were identified by the MR-PRESSO method, and causal effect estimates were obtained using the IVW method on the plausible SNPs 32 . In addition, to determine whether a single SNP was driving the MR estimates, we performed leave-one-out analysis 33 . All statistics were performed using The “TwoSampleMR” package (version 0.5.8) in R (version 4.3.2), which can be accessed at https://www.r-project.org/ .
Additional review or approval by an ethics committee was not needed for this study because the GWAS summary statistics data were already publicly available. All participating studies had obtained informed consent in accordance with protocols approved by their institute’s ethics committee.
Table 1 shows that identified 106 SNPs associated with IC/BPS from eight bacterial taxa using the IVW method after quality control. In addition, the IVW method revealed a positive relationship between these eight bacterial taxa and the risk of IC/BPS (Table 1 and Fig. 2 ): genus Bacteroides (OR = 4.273, 95% CI:1.361–13.413, p = 0.013), genus Haemophilus (OR = 2.175, 95% CI:1.172–4.036, p = 0.014), genus Veillonella (OR = 2.379, 95% CI:1.037–5.458, p = 0.041), genus Coprococcus1 (OR = 2.704, 95% CI:1.118–6.542, p = 0.027), genus Butyricimonas (OR = 2.265, 95% CI:1.151–4.455, p = 0.018), family Bacteroidaceae (OR = 4.273, 95% CI:1.361–13.413, p = 0.013), family Christensenellaceae (OR = 2.623, 95% CI:1.045–6.605, p = 0.040), and order Lactobacillales (OR = 2.142, 95% CI:1.024–4.480, p = 0.043). These findings suggest that these microbiota might increase the incidence of IC/BPS. Among the eight causal associations, the F-statistic was larger than 10 for all IVs, suggesting low risk of weak instrument bias in the estimates, as detailed in Table 1 .
Scatter plots illustrating the causal effect of gut microbiota on IC/BPS. ( A ) Genus Bacteroides ( B ) Genus Haemophilus ( C ) Genus Veillonella ( D ) Genus Coprococcus1 ( E ) Genus Butyricimonas ( F ) Family Bacteroidaceae ( G ) Family Christensenellaceae ( H ) Order Lactobacillales. Each black dot indicates a SNP, with the x-axis denoting the SNP effects on gut microbiota and the y-axis representing SNP effects on IC/BPS. The slope of the line corresponds to causality estimates calculated using three MR methods. SNP single-nucleotide polymorphism, MR Mendelian randomization, IC/BPS interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.
The sensitivity analysis did not reveal any significant heterogeneity or pleiotropy (Table 1 ). No significant heterogeneity was detected among these IVs based on the results of the Cochran’s Q test. Furthermore, the MR-Egger regression analysis results confirmed that there was no significant horizontal pleiotropy. In the MR-PRESSO analysis, no outliers were detected, further supporting the MR-Egger regression findings. Lastly, we confirmed that the MR estimates were not driven or biased by any single SNP because no outlier SNPs were identified by the Leave-one-out test (Fig. 3 ).
Leave-one-out plots for the causal effect of gut microbiota on IC/BPS. ( A ) Genus Bacteroides ( B ) Genus Haemophilus ( C ) Genus Veillonella ( D ) Genus Coprococcus1 ( E ) Genus Butyricimonas ( F ) Family Bacteroidaceae ( G ) Family Christensenellaceae ( H ) Order Lactobacillales. The line depicts the 95% confidence interval derived from the inverse variance weighted method.
To our knowledge, this study is the first extensive MR investigation into the causal effect of gut microbiota on IC/BPS. While the gut microbiota have been identified to be correlated with IC/BPS in previous research 17 , establishing a causal link has been challenging due to the potential impact of confounding factors. Our results, however, indicate that specific gut microbiota (1 order taxon, 2 family taxa, and 5 genus taxa) are causally associated with the risk of IC/BPS. This insight offers a new angle regarding the diagnosis and treatment of IC/BPS.
In the human body, the gut-brain axis has been documented 34 , with evidence suggesting that microbes are involved in this axis, known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis 35 . Previous research has indicated that the gut-brain axis and the microbiota-gut-brain axis contribute to various diseases 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , and there is inflammatory signal transmission between the gut and the brain 41 . Given the frequent coexistence of functional urological disorders, including IC/BPS, with specific gastrointestinal dysfunctions (such as irritable bowel syndrome) and mental disorders (such as depression), we speculate that there are interactions among the bladder, intestines, and brain. Based on this, a hypothesis is proposed regarding the bladder-gut-brain axis in the human body 7 , 14 . The role of microbiota in mediating communication between the bladder and the gut-brain axis has been postulated based on their essential functions in the gut-brain axis. Clinical studies have identified correlations between gut microbiota alterations and the occurrence of functional urological disorders, such as IC/BPS, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS), and overactive bladder (OAB) 17 , 42 , 43 . However, causation remains unproven. In this study, we demonstrate that gut microbiota have a causal effect on IC/BPS, providing new perspectives regarding the potential interactions between the bladder and gut. Moreover, we provide a partial preliminary evidence for further investigation into the bladder-gut-brain axis.
Our study identified causal associations between eight gut microbiota and IC/BPS. These microbiota taxa were all positively correlated with the risk of IC/BPS. However, due to the limited research on this relationship, no studies have reported changes in these microbiota taxa in patients with IC/BPS. While the clinical observational study mentioned earlier reported statistically significant decreases in the abundance of specific microbiota in fecal specimens from IC/BPS patients, trends of increased abundance were also observed in some gut microbiota, although not statistically significant 17 . However, observational studies are often affected by numerous confounding factors, especially given that IC/BPS treatments involve dietary management and antimicrobial drug use 3 . This complexity makes it difficult to interpret the findings obtained in studies on gut microbiota in IC/BPS patients. Therefore, we believe our MR study, less susceptible to confounding factors, provides a valuable foundation for further research.
In this research, we found that genus Bacteroides and family Bacteroidaceae were both causally related to IC/BPS, with positive results observed in both the IVW and weighted median analyses for genus Bacteroides . Moreover, the genus Bacteroides , belonging to the family Bacteroidaceae , is one of the most prevalent species in the human gut microbiota, involved in many biological processes. This species can be transmitted from mother to child during vaginal delivery, becoming part of the human microbiota in the earliest stages of life 44 . Bacteroides are typically probiotics in the gut, with the potential to become opportunistic pathogens when they translocate from the gut to other parts of the body, contributing to or exacerbating infections. This translocation may be triggered by factors such as compromised immune systems, intestinal barrier disruption, surgical injury, excessive antibiotic use, and aging 45 . Current research suggests that one potential origin of the urinary microbiota may be the gut 15 . Additionally, other studies have indicated a correlation between dysbiosis of the urinary microbiota and IC/BPS 16 . Therefore, it is worth investigating whether the translocation of Bacteroides from the gut could be one of the reasons for the positive correlation between Bacteroides and the risk of IC/BPS.
Genus Haemophilus is a common pathogen that can colonize the oral, respiratory, and digestive tracts of humans, causing various infectious diseases. While urinary and genital infections caused by Haemophilus are relatively less common in humans compared to other sites, there are some reports of potential occurrence 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 . Genus Veillonella is an opportunistic pathogen found in the human respiratory, digestive, and urogenital tracts, with the potential to cause urinary and genital infections 50 . Our MR results indicated a positive correlation between the increased abundance of genera Haemophilus and Veillonella in the gut and the risk of IC/BPS. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, and additional studies are necessary to validate this finding.
Genus Coprococcus1 and genus Butyricimonas are major producers of butyrate, which is considered beneficial for the gut, with anti-inflammatory properties and capacity to improve intestinal barrier function and mucosal immunity 51 . Family Christensenellaceae is considered to be one of the most heritable taxonomic groups 13 . Although research has demonstrated that the abundance of family Christensenellaceae is increased in patients with childhood asthma 52 , it is generally considered a probiotic, and its abundance is negatively correlated with inflammation 53 . However, contrary to previous research findings, this MR study suggests that the higher abundance of family Christensenellaceae, genera Coprococcus1 and Butyricimonas in the gut may elevate the risk of IC/BPS. Further research is advocated to validate our findings.
In this study, we found that Lactobacillales was the only microbial group on the order level that was causally associated with IC/BPS. Typically, the order Lactobacillales have several benefits to the human body. However, our results indicated that a higher abundance of the order Lactobacillales in the gut may contribute to the risk of IC/BPS. Although there is no research on the connection between gut Lactobacillales and IC/BPS, in a study on CP/CPPS, another functional urological disorder, researchers found that the gut Lactobacillales abundance was significant increased in mice with experimental autoimmune prostatitis (EAP) 54 . The potential biological mechanisms linking the two need to be further investigated.
This MR study offers several important findings. Firstly, it is the first two-sample MR analysis to investigate the potential causal relationship between gut microbiota and IC/BPS. Traditional observational studies are susceptible to bias due to factors such as reverse causality and confounding variables. Our approach introduces a novel method for screening candidate gut microbiota, thereby offering a valuable tool for identifying new biomarkers. Secondly, compared to small-scale randomized controlled trials, the summary-level genetic data from large-scale GWAS are derived from larger population samples, enhancing the study’s credibility. Lastly, our study conducted sensitivity analysis, which confirmed the absence of heterogeneity or pleiotropy, underscoring the statistical robustness of our findings.
However, this study has some limitations. Firstly, during the selection of instrumental variables based on the threshold of p < 1 × 10 −8 (genome-wide significance), few SNPs were obtained, which restricted further analysis. Therefore, we selected a more lenient threshold of p < 1 × 10 −5 (locus-wide significance) to obtain for SNPs, which may potentially influence the results. Secondly, we analyzed gut microbiota only at the taxonomic level of the genus and above, which may not have included more specific levels such as species or strains. Employing advanced metagenomic sequencing would enhance specificity and accuracy in gut microbiota GWAS outcomes. Thirdly, the large-scale GWAS summary data used in MR studies may be influenced by selection bias, sociodemographic factors, cultural differences, and other factors during the statistical process. This impact may be particularly pronounced given the inherent clinical complexity and diagnostic challenges of IC/BPS. Fourthly, the use of GWAS summary statistics of IC/BPS patients rather than raw data in the study resulted in the inability to perform subgroup analysis. In addition, obtaining more detailed IC/BPS patient inclusion/exclusion criteria or other individual patient information from GWAS summary statistics was difficult. Fifthly, since the study cohort primarily consisted of individuals of European ancestry, any extrapolation of our findings to other ethnic groups should be conducted with caution. Sixthly, although the instrumental variables chosen for the analysis were closely linked to gut microbiota taxa and met the core MR assumptions, we cannot rule out the potential of weak instrument bias. Finally, during the collection of gut microbiota samples, the microbial abundance may vary depending on the participants diet, medication, and other factors.
In summary, we employed a two-sample MR analysis with publicly available summary-level data from GWAS to explore the causal relationship between gut microbiota and IC/BPS. Through this approach, we identified potential pathogenic flora associated with the development of IC/BPS. While extrapolating the MR result to guide clinical intervention might be inappropriate at this stage, these microbial communities may serve as innovative biomarkers in IC/BPS-related research, offering new opportunities for the treatment and prevention of IC/BPS. This study also offers partial preliminary evidence for future investigations into the bladder-gut communication and its potential implications in clinical practice.
However, our study has several limitations. Similar to other MR studies, the large-scale GWAS summary data we used may be influenced by selection bias, sociodemographic factors, cultural differences, and other factors during the statistical process. Additionally, GWAS summary data, unlike raw data, do not provide more detailed information such as individual patient subtypes or specific inclusion/exclusion criteria. Given the clinical complexity and diagnostic challenges of IC/BPS, these limitations suggest that our MR results require further validation through additional research. In the future, we will conduct animal experiments or large and prospective cohort studies to validate our findings and explore the associated mechanisms.
All the statistics can be found in GWAS Catalog ( https://www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/ ) and GWAS MiBioGen consortium ( https://mibiogen.gcc.rug.nl/ ). Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
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We would like to express our gratitude to the participants and investigators involved in the GWAS utilized in the present study.
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no: 81860142) .
These authors contributed equally: Peng Jiang and Cheng Li.
Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530001, Guangxi, China
Peng Jiang, Cheng Li, Zhiyong Su, Di Chen, Hua Li, Jinji Chen & Hua Mi
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P.J. contributed to the writing of the manuscript and the visualization. C.L., Z.S., and H.L. contributed to data collection and analysis. D.C. and J.C. supervised the study. H.M. and C.L. contributed to the study design and manuscript revision. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Correspondence to Hua Mi .
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Jiang, P., Li, C., Su, Z. et al. Mendelian randomization study reveals causal effects of specific gut microbiota on the risk of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS). Sci Rep 14 , 18405 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-69543-9
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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. Limitations in research refer to the factors that may affect the results, conclusions, and generalizability of a study.These limitations can arise from various sources, such as the design of the study, the sampling methods used, the measurement tools employed, and the limitations of the data analysis techniques.
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your 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 ...
Research limitations are one of those things that students tend to avoid digging into, and understandably so. No one likes to critique their own study and point out weaknesses. Nevertheless, being able to understand the limitations of your study - and, just as importantly, the implications thereof - a is a critically important skill. In this post, we'll unpack some of the most common ...
Research process limitations. The study's design can impose constraints on the process. For example, as you're conducting the research, issues may arise that don't conform to the data collection methodology you developed. You may not realize until well into the process that you should have incorporated more specific questions or ...
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.
sentence tha. signals what you're about to discu. s. For example:"Our study had some limitations."Then, provide a concise sentence or two identifying each limitation and explaining how the limitation may have affected the quality. of the study. s findings and/or their applicability. For example:"First, owing to the rarity of the ...
iStock, Jacob Wackerhausen. Scientists work with many different limitations. First and foremost, they navigate informational limitations, work around knowledge gaps when designing studies, formulating hypotheses, and analyzing data. They also handle technical limitations, making the most of what their hands, equipment, and instruments can achieve.
The limitations in research are the constraints in design, methods or even researchers' limitations that affect and influence the interpretation of your research's ultimate findings. These are limitations on the generalization and usability of findings that emerge from the design of the research and/or the method employed to ensure validity ...
Writing the limitations of the research papers is often assumed to require lots of effort. However, identifying the limitations of the study can help structure the research better. Therefore, do not underestimate the importance of research study limitations. 3. Opportunity to make suggestions for further research.
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.
Abstract. Study limitations represent weaknesses within a research design that may influence outcomes and conclusions of the research. Researchers have an obligation to the academic community to present complete and honest limitations of a presented study. Too often, authors use generic descriptions to describe study limitations.
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 ...
A large body of work recognizes the effect(s) and consequence(s) of limitations. 1-77 Other than the ones known to the author(s), unknown and unrecognized limitations influence research credibility. This study and analysis aim to determine how frequently and what limitations are found in peer-reviewed open-access medical articles for ...
Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further 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 ...
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 ...
Answer: The limitations of a study are its flaws or shortcomings which could be the result of unavailability of resources, small sample size, flawed methodology, etc. No study is completely flawless or inclusive of all possible aspects. Therefore, listing the limitations of your study reflects honesty and transparency and also shows that you ...
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. ... 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 ...
Abstract. Study limitations represent weaknesses within a research design that may influence outcomes and conclusions of the research. Researchers have an obligation to the academic community to present complete and honest limitations of a presented study. Too often, authors use generic descriptions to describe study limitations.
Limitations of your qualitative research can become clear to your readers even before they start to read your study. Sometimes, people can see the limitations only when they have viewed the whole document. You have to present your study limitations clearly in the discussion section of a researh paper.
Research limitations make most studies imperfect. At its core, the research aims to investigate a specific question or questions about a topic. However, some things can hinder your ability to investigate the question or questions extensively. While this can make achieving your goals challenging, it enables you to point areas that require ...
conference, or a published research paper in an academic journal. "Limitations of Research". is a section in the standard research report (the research report is usually divided into the ...
This systematic literature review delves into the extensive landscape of emotion recognition, sentiment analysis, and affective computing, analyzing 609 articles. Exploring the intricate relationships among these research domains, and leveraging data from four well-established sources—IEEE, Science Direct, Springer, and MDPI—this systematic review classifies studies in four modalities ...
Seventy percent of the articles included limitations of the study, while only 25% indicated strengths. The small sample size was the most commonly mentioned limitation. 90% of the articles included recommendations for future studies and a summary or conclusion of the findings, 50% included a risk of bias, and selection bias was the most ...
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Attendees said they use AI for tasks such as coding, generating research questions, and drafting letters of recommendation and that they were also aware of its limitations. Like Kalpathy-Cramer, many conference-goers said they had experienced frustration with the AI's overconfidence in plausible-sounding, yet incorrect, answers.
Researchers unveiled an approach to drug discovery that could revolutionize how we understand and treat diseases. Their commentary explains the limitations of studies using traditional mouse ...
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. ... 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 ...
The study defined light drinking as a mean alcohol intake of up to 20 grams a day for men and up to 10 grams daily for women. (In the United States, a standard drink is 14 grams of alcohol .)
Evidence from previous studies have demonstrated that gut microbiota are closely associated with occurrence of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS), yet the causal link between the ...