This document discusses research limitations and delimitations. It defines limitations as weaknesses outside of a researcher's control, such as limited time, funding or access to participants. Limitations constrain what conclusions can be drawn. Delimitations reflect intentional scope boundaries like focusing on a specific age group. The document provides examples of common limitations in quantitative and qualitative research and emphasizes that limitations and delimitations do not undermine research if discussed transparently.

1. Limitations and Delimitations
Dr Amita Gupta

2. 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.

3. Research Limitations
• 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.

4. Research Limitations
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.

5. Common Examples of Limitations
While each study will have its own unique set of limitations, some limitations are more common in
quantitative research, and others are more common in qualitative research.
In quantitative research, common limitations include the following:
•– Participant dropout
•– Small sample size, low power
•– Non-representative sample
•– Violations of statistical assumptions
•– Non-experimental design, lack of manipulation of variables, lack of controls
•– Potential confounding variables
•– Measures with low (or unknown) reliability or validity
•– Limits of an instrument to measure the construct of interest
•– Data collection methods (e.g., self-report)
•– Anything else that might limit the study’s internal or external validity

6. In qualitative research, common limitations
include the following:
– Lack of generalizability of findings (not the goal of qualitative research, but still worth mentioning as a
limitation)
– Inability to draw causal conclusions (again, not the goal of qualitative research, but still worth mentioning)
– Researcher bias/subjectivity (especially if there is only one coder)
– Limitations in participants’ ability/willingness to share or describe their experiences
– Any factors that might limit the rigor of data collection or analysis procedures

7. 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.

8. Research Delimitations
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.

9. Research Delimitations
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.

10. Common
Examples of
Delimitations
• As noted above, the two most common sources of delimitations in both
quantitative and qualitative research include the following:
– Inclusion/exclusion criteria (or how you define your population of
interest)
– Research questions or problems you’ve chosen to examine
Several other common sources of delimitations include the following:
– Theoretical framework or perspective adopted
– Methodological framework or paradigm chosen (e.g., quantitative,
qualitative, or mixed-methods)
– In quantitative research, the variables you’ve chosen to measure or
manipulate (as opposed to others)

11. Conclusion: Limitations
vs Delimitations
• Whether you’re conducting a quantitative or
qualitative study, you will (hopefully!) have chosen
your research design because it is well suited to the
questions you’re hoping to answer.
• Because these questions define the boundaries or
scope of your project and thus point to its
delimitations, your research design itself will also
be related to these delimitations.

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

13. Questions to Ask Yourself
• As you are considering the limitations and delimitations of your project, it can be helpful to ask yourself a
few different questions.
• Questions to help point out your study’s limitations:
1. If I had an unlimited budget, unlimited amounts of time, access to all possible populations, and the ability
to manipulate as many variables as I wanted, how would I design my study differently to be better able to
answer the questions I want to answer? (The ways in which your study falls short of this will point to its
limitations.)
2. Are there design issues that get in the way of my being able to draw causal conclusions?
3. Are there sampling issues that get in the way of my being able to generalize my findings?
4. Are there issues related to the measures I’m using or the methods I’m using to collect data? Do I have
concerns about participants telling the truth or being able to provide accurate responses to my
questions?
5. Are there any other factors that might limit my study’s internal or external validity?

14. Questions that help point out your study’s delimitations:
1. What are my exclusion criteria? Who did I not include in my study,
and why did I make this choice?
2. What questions did I choose not to address in my study? (Of course,
the possibilities are endless here, but consider related questions
that you chose not to address.)
3. In what ways did I narrow the scope of my study in order to hone in
on a particular issue or question?
4. What other methodologies did I not use that might have allowed
me to answer slightly different questions about the same topic?

15. How to Write About Limitations and
Delimitations
Remember, having limitations and delimitations is not a bad thing.
They’re present in even the most rigorous research. The important
thing is to be aware of them and to acknowledge how they may
impact your findings or the conclusions you can draw.
In fact, writing about them and acknowledging them gives you an
opportunity to demonstrate that you can think critically about
these aspects of your study and how they impact your findings,
even if they were out of your control.

16. How to Write About Limitations and Delimitations
Keep in mind that your study’s limitations will likely point to important directions for future
research. Therefore, when you’re getting ready to write about your recommendations for future
research in your discussion, remember to refer back to your limitations section!
As you write about your delimitations in particular, remember that they are not weaknesses, and
you don’t have to apologize for them. Good, strong research projects have clear boundaries. Also,
keep in mind that you are the researcher and you can choose whatever delimitations you want
for your study. You’re in control of the delimitations. You just have to be prepared—both in your
discussion section and in your dissertation defense itself—to justify the choices you make and
acknowledge how these choices impact your findings.

18. Thank you