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Research Limitations & Delimitations
By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | September 2022
Overview: Limitations vs Delimitations
- Are they the same?
- What are research limitations
- What are research delimitations
- Limitations vs delimitations
First things first…
Let’s start with the most important takeaway point of this post – research limitations and research delimitations are not the same – but they are related to each other (we’ll unpack that a little later). So, if you hear someone using these two words interchangeably, be sure to share this post with them!
Research Limitations
Research limitations are, at the simplest level, the weaknesses of the study , based on factors that are often outside of your control as the researcher. These factors could include things like time , access to funding, equipment , data or participants . For example, if you weren’t able to access a random sample of participants for your study and had to adopt a convenience sampling strategy instead, that would impact the generalizability of your findings and therefore reflect a limitation of your study.
Research limitations can also emerge from the research design itself . For example, if you were undertaking a correlational study, you wouldn’t be able to infer causality (since correlation doesn’t mean certain causation). Similarly, if you utilised online surveys to collect data from your participants, you naturally wouldn’t be able to get the same degree of rich data that you would from in-person interviews .
Simply put, research limitations reflect the shortcomings of a study , based on practical (or theoretical) constraints that the researcher faced. These shortcomings limit what you can conclude from a study, but at the same time, present a foundation for future research . Importantly, all research has limitations , so there’s no need to hide anything here – as long as you discuss how the limitations might affect your findings, it’s all good.
Research Delimitations
Alright, now that we’ve unpacked the limitations, let’s move on to the delimitations .
Research delimitations are similar to limitations in that they also “ limit ” the study, but their focus is entirely different. Specifically, the delimitations of a study refer to the scope of the research aims and research questions . In other words, delimitations reflect the choices you, as the researcher, intentionally make in terms of what you will and won’t try to achieve with your study. In other words, what your research aims and research questions will and won’t include.
As we’ve spoken about many times before, it’s important to have a tight, narrow focus for your research, so that you can dive deeply into your topic, apply your energy to one specific area and develop meaningful insights. If you have an overly broad scope or unfocused topic, your research will often pull in multiple, even opposing directions, and you’ll just land up with a muddy mess of findings .
So, the delimitations section is where you’ll clearly state what your research aims and research questions will focus on – and just as importantly, what they will exclude . For example, you might investigate a widespread phenomenon, but choose to focus your study on a specific age group, ethnicity or gender. Similarly, your study may focus exclusively on one country, city or even organization. As long as the scope is well justified (in other words, it represents a novel, valuable research topic), this is perfectly acceptable – in fact, it’s essential. Remember, focus is your friend.
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Conclusion: Limitations vs Delimitations
Ok, so let’s recap.
Research limitations and research delimitations are related in that they both refer to “limits” within a study. But, they are distinctly different. Limitations reflect the shortcomings of your study, based on practical or theoretical constraints that you faced.
Contrasted to that, delimitations reflect the choices that you made in terms of the focus and scope of your research aims and research questions. If you want to learn more about research aims and questions, you can check out this video post , where we unpack those concepts in detail.
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19 Comments
Good clarification of ideas on how a researcher ought to do during Process of choice
Thank you so much for this very simple but explicit explanation on limitation and delimitation. It has so helped me to develop my masters proposal. hope to recieve more from your site as time progresses
Thank you for this explanation – very clear.
Thanks for the explanation, really got it well.
This website is really helpful for my masters proposal
Thank you very much for helping to explain these two terms
I spent almost the whole day trying to figure out the differences
when I came across your notes everything became very clear
thanks for the clearly outlined explanation on the two terms, limitation and delimitation.
Very helpful Many thanks 🙏
Excellent it resolved my conflict .
I would like you to assist me please. If in my Research, I interviewed some participants and I submitted Questionnaires to other participants to answered to the questions, in the same organization, Is this a Qualitative methodology , a Quantitative Methodology or is it a Mixture Methodology I have used in my research? Please help me
How do I cite this article in APA format
Really so great ,finally have understood it’s difference now
Getting more clear regarding Limitations and Delimitation and concepts
I really appreciate your apt and precise explanation of the two concepts namely ; Limitations and Delimitations.
This is a good sources of research information for learners.
thank you for this, very helpful to researchers
Very good explained
Great and clear explanation, after a long confusion period on the two words, i can now explain to someone with ease.
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