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Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to Identify

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Research Gap

Definition:

Research gap refers to an area or topic within a field of study that has not yet been extensively researched or is yet to be explored. It is a question, problem or issue that has not been addressed or resolved by previous research.

How to Identify Research Gap

Identifying a research gap is an essential step in conducting research that adds value and contributes to the existing body of knowledge. Research gap requires critical thinking, creativity, and a thorough understanding of the existing literature . It is an iterative process that may require revisiting and refining your research questions and ideas multiple times.

Here are some steps that can help you identify a research gap:

• Review existing literature: Conduct a thorough review of the existing literature in your research area. This will help you identify what has already been studied and what gaps still exist.
• Identify a research problem: Identify a specific research problem or question that you want to address.
• Analyze existing research: Analyze the existing research related to your research problem. This will help you identify areas that have not been studied, inconsistencies in the findings, or limitations of the previous research.
• Brainstorm potential research ideas : Based on your analysis, brainstorm potential research ideas that address the identified gaps.
• Consult with experts: Consult with experts in your research area to get their opinions on potential research ideas and to identify any additional gaps that you may have missed.
• Refine research questions: Refine your research questions and hypotheses based on the identified gaps and potential research ideas.
• Develop a research proposal: Develop a research proposal that outlines your research questions, objectives, and methods to address the identified research gap.

Types of Research Gap

There are different types of research gaps that can be identified, and each type is associated with a specific situation or problem. Here are the main types of research gaps and their explanations:

Theoretical Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of theoretical understanding or knowledge in a particular area. It can occur when there is a discrepancy between existing theories and empirical evidence or when there is no theory that can explain a particular phenomenon. Identifying theoretical gaps can lead to the development of new theories or the refinement of existing ones.

Empirical Gap

An empirical gap occurs when there is a lack of empirical evidence or data in a particular area. It can happen when there is a lack of research on a specific topic or when existing research is inadequate or inconclusive. Identifying empirical gaps can lead to the development of new research studies to collect data or the refinement of existing research methods to improve the quality of data collected.

Methodological Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of appropriate research methods or techniques to answer a research question. It can occur when existing methods are inadequate, outdated, or inappropriate for the research question. Identifying methodological gaps can lead to the development of new research methods or the modification of existing ones to better address the research question.

Practical Gap

A practical gap occurs when there is a lack of practical applications or implementation of research findings. It can occur when research findings are not implemented due to financial, political, or social constraints. Identifying practical gaps can lead to the development of strategies for the effective implementation of research findings in practice.

Knowledge Gap

This type of research gap occurs when there is a lack of knowledge or information on a particular topic. It can happen when a new area of research is emerging, or when research is conducted in a different context or population. Identifying knowledge gaps can lead to the development of new research studies or the extension of existing research to fill the gap.

Examples of Research Gap

Here are some examples of research gaps that researchers might identify:

• Theoretical Gap Example : In the field of psychology, there might be a theoretical gap related to the lack of understanding of the relationship between social media use and mental health. Although there is existing research on the topic, there might be a lack of consensus on the mechanisms that link social media use to mental health outcomes.
• Empirical Gap Example : In the field of environmental science, there might be an empirical gap related to the lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on biodiversity in specific regions. Although there might be some studies on the topic, there might be a lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on specific species or ecosystems.
• Methodological Gap Example : In the field of education, there might be a methodological gap related to the lack of appropriate research methods to assess the impact of online learning on student outcomes. Although there might be some studies on the topic, existing research methods might not be appropriate to assess the complex relationships between online learning and student outcomes.
• Practical Gap Example: In the field of healthcare, there might be a practical gap related to the lack of effective strategies to implement evidence-based practices in clinical settings. Although there might be existing research on the effectiveness of certain practices, they might not be implemented in practice due to various barriers, such as financial constraints or lack of resources.
• Knowledge Gap Example: In the field of anthropology, there might be a knowledge gap related to the lack of understanding of the cultural practices of indigenous communities in certain regions. Although there might be some research on the topic, there might be a lack of knowledge about specific cultural practices or beliefs that are unique to those communities.

Examples of Research Gap In Literature Review, Thesis, and Research Paper might be:

• Literature review : A literature review on the topic of machine learning and healthcare might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of machine learning for early detection of rare diseases.
• Thesis : A thesis on the topic of cybersecurity might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in detecting and preventing cyber attacks.
• Research paper : A research paper on the topic of natural language processing might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of natural language processing techniques for sentiment analysis in non-English languages.

How to Write Research Gap

By following these steps, you can effectively write about research gaps in your paper and clearly articulate the contribution that your study will make to the existing body of knowledge.

Here are some steps to follow when writing about research gaps in your paper:

• Identify the research question : Before writing about research gaps, you need to identify your research question or problem. This will help you to understand the scope of your research and identify areas where additional research is needed.
• Review the literature: Conduct a thorough review of the literature related to your research question. This will help you to identify the current state of knowledge in the field and the gaps that exist.
• Identify the research gap: Based on your review of the literature, identify the specific research gap that your study will address. This could be a theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, or knowledge gap.
• Provide evidence: Provide evidence to support your claim that the research gap exists. This could include a summary of the existing literature, a discussion of the limitations of previous studies, or an analysis of the current state of knowledge in the field.
• Explain the importance: Explain why it is important to fill the research gap. This could include a discussion of the potential implications of filling the gap, the significance of the research for the field, or the potential benefits to society.
• State your research objectives: State your research objectives, which should be aligned with the research gap you have identified. This will help you to clearly articulate the purpose of your study and how it will address the research gap.

Importance of Research Gap

The importance of research gaps can be summarized as follows:

• Advancing knowledge: Identifying research gaps is crucial for advancing knowledge in a particular field. By identifying areas where additional research is needed, researchers can fill gaps in the existing body of knowledge and contribute to the development of new theories and practices.
• Guiding research: Research gaps can guide researchers in designing studies that fill those gaps. By identifying research gaps, researchers can develop research questions and objectives that are aligned with the needs of the field and contribute to the development of new knowledge.
• Enhancing research quality: By identifying research gaps, researchers can avoid duplicating previous research and instead focus on developing innovative research that fills gaps in the existing body of knowledge. This can lead to more impactful research and higher-quality research outputs.
• Informing policy and practice: Research gaps can inform policy and practice by highlighting areas where additional research is needed to inform decision-making. By filling research gaps, researchers can provide evidence-based recommendations that have the potential to improve policy and practice in a particular field.

Applications of Research Gap

Here are some potential applications of research gap:

• Informing research priorities: Research gaps can help guide research funding agencies and researchers to prioritize research areas that require more attention and resources.
• Identifying practical implications: Identifying gaps in knowledge can help identify practical applications of research that are still unexplored or underdeveloped.
• Stimulating innovation: Research gaps can encourage innovation and the development of new approaches or methodologies to address unexplored areas.
• Improving policy-making: Research gaps can inform policy-making decisions by highlighting areas where more research is needed to make informed policy decisions.
• Enhancing academic discourse: Research gaps can lead to new and constructive debates and discussions within academic communities, leading to more robust and comprehensive research.

Advantages of Research Gap

Here are some of the advantages of research gap:

• Identifies new research opportunities: Identifying research gaps can help researchers identify areas that require further exploration, which can lead to new research opportunities.
• Improves the quality of research: By identifying gaps in current research, researchers can focus their efforts on addressing unanswered questions, which can improve the overall quality of research.
• Enhances the relevance of research: Research that addresses existing gaps can have significant implications for the development of theories, policies, and practices, and can therefore increase the relevance and impact of research.
• Helps avoid duplication of effort: Identifying existing research can help researchers avoid duplicating efforts, saving time and resources.
• Helps to refine research questions: Research gaps can help researchers refine their research questions, making them more focused and relevant to the needs of the field.
• Promotes collaboration: By identifying areas of research that require further investigation, researchers can collaborate with others to conduct research that addresses these gaps, which can lead to more comprehensive and impactful research outcomes.

Disadvantages of Research Gap

While research gaps can be advantageous, there are also some potential disadvantages that should be considered:

• Difficulty in identifying gaps: Identifying gaps in existing research can be challenging, particularly in fields where there is a large volume of research or where research findings are scattered across different disciplines.
• Lack of funding: Addressing research gaps may require significant resources, and researchers may struggle to secure funding for their work if it is perceived as too risky or uncertain.
• Time-consuming: Conducting research to address gaps can be time-consuming, particularly if the research involves collecting new data or developing new methods.
• Risk of oversimplification: Addressing research gaps may require researchers to simplify complex problems, which can lead to oversimplification and a failure to capture the complexity of the issues.
• Bias : Identifying research gaps can be influenced by researchers’ personal biases or perspectives, which can lead to a skewed understanding of the field.
• Potential for disagreement: Identifying research gaps can be subjective, and different researchers may have different views on what constitutes a gap in the field, leading to disagreements and debate.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Identifying Research Gaps to Pursue Innovative Research

This article is an excerpt from a lecture given by my Ph.D. guide, a researcher in public health. She advised us on how to identify research gaps to pursue innovative research in our fields.

What is a Research Gap?

Today we are talking about the research gap: what is it, how to identify it, and how to make use of it so that you can pursue innovative research. Now, how many of you have ever felt you had discovered a new and exciting research question , only to find that it had already been written about? I have experienced this more times than I can count. Graduate studies come with pressure to add new knowledge to the field. We can contribute to the progress and knowledge of humanity. To do this, we need to first learn to identify research gaps in the existing literature.

A research gap is, simply, a topic or area for which missing or insufficient information limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question. It should not be confused with a research question, however. For example, if we ask the research question of what the healthiest diet for humans is, we would find many studies and possible answers to this question. On the other hand, if we were to ask the research question of what are the effects of antidepressants on pregnant women, we would not find much-existing data. This is a research gap. When we identify a research gap, we identify a direction for potentially new and exciting research.

How to Identify Research Gap?

Considering the volume of existing research, identifying research gaps can seem overwhelming or even impossible. I don’t have time to read every paper published on public health. Similarly, you guys don’t have time to read every paper. So how can you identify a research gap?

There are different techniques in various disciplines, but we can reduce most of them down to a few steps, which are:

• Identify your key motivating issue/question
• Identify key terms associated with this issue
• Review the literature, searching for these key terms and identifying relevant publications
• Review the literature cited by the key publications which you located in the above step
• Identify issues not addressed by  the literature relating to your critical  motivating issue

It is the last step which we all find the most challenging. It can be difficult to figure out what an article is  not  saying. I like to keep a list of notes of biased or inconsistent information. You could also track what authors write as “directions for future research,” which often can point us towards the existing gaps.

Different Types of Research Gaps

Identifying research gaps is an essential step in conducting research, as it helps researchers to refine their research questions and to focus their research efforts on areas where there is a need for more knowledge or understanding.

1. Knowledge gaps

These are gaps in knowledge or understanding of a subject, where more research is needed to fill the gaps. For example, there may be a lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind a particular disease or how a specific technology works.

2. Conceptual gaps

These are gaps in the conceptual framework or theoretical understanding of a subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand the relationship between two concepts or to refine a theoretical framework.

3. Methodological gaps

These are gaps in the methods used to study a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to develop new research methods or to refine existing methods to address specific research questions.

4. Data gaps

These are gaps in the data available on a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to collect data on a specific population or to develop new measures to collect data on a particular construct.

5. Practical gaps

These are gaps in the application of research findings to practical situations. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand how to implement evidence-based practices in real-world settings or to identify barriers to implementing such practices.

Examples of Research Gap

Limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a disease:.

Despite significant research on a particular disease, there may be a lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease. For example, although much research has been done on Alzheimer’s disease, the exact mechanisms that lead to the disease are not yet fully understood.

Inconsistencies in the findings of previous research:

When previous research on a particular topic has inconsistent findings, there may be a need for further research to clarify or resolve these inconsistencies. For example, previous research on the effectiveness of a particular treatment for a medical condition may have produced inconsistent findings, indicating a need for further research to determine the true effectiveness of the treatment.

Limited research on emerging technologies:

As new technologies emerge, there may be limited research on their applications, benefits, and potential drawbacks. For example, with the increasing use of artificial intelligence in various industries, there is a need for further research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of AI.

How to Deal with Literature Gap?

Once you have identified the literature gaps, it is critical to prioritize. You may find many questions which remain to be answered in the literature. Often one question must be answered before the next can be addressed. In prioritizing the gaps, you have identified, you should consider your funding agency or stakeholders, the needs of the field, and the relevance of your questions to what is currently being studied. Also, consider your own resources and ability to conduct the research you’re considering. Once you have done this, you can narrow your search down to an appropriate question.

Tools to Help Your Search

There are thousands of new articles published every day, and staying up to date on the literature can be overwhelming. You should take advantage of the technology that is available. Some services include  PubCrawler ,  Feedly ,  Google Scholar , and PubMed updates. Stay up to date on social media forums where scholars share new discoveries, such as Twitter. Reference managers such as  Mendeley  can help you keep your references well-organized. I personally have had success using Google Scholar and PubMed to stay current on new developments and track which gaps remain in my personal areas of interest.

The most important thing I want to impress upon you today is that you will struggle to  choose a research topic  that is innovative and exciting if you don’t know the existing literature well. This is why identifying research gaps starts with an extensive and thorough  literature review . But give yourself some boundaries.  You don’t need to read every paper that has ever been written on a topic. You may find yourself thinking you’re on the right track and then suddenly coming across a paper that you had intended to write! It happens to everyone- it happens to me quite often. Don’t give up- keep reading and you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Class dismissed!

How do you identify research gaps? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Frequently Asked Questions

A research gap can be identified by looking for a topic or area with missing or insufficient information that limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

Identifying a research gap is important as it provides a direction for potentially new research or helps bridge the gap in existing literature.

Gap in research is a topic or area with missing or insufficient information. A research gap limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

Thank u for your suggestion.

Very useful tips specially for a beginner

Thank you. This is helpful. I find that I’m overwhelmed with literatures. As I read on a particular topic, and in a particular direction I find that other conflicting issues, topic a and ideas keep popping up, making me more confused.

I am very grateful for your advice. It’s just on point.

The clearest, exhaustive, and brief explanation I have ever read.

Thanks for sharing

Thank you very much.The work is brief and understandable

Thank you it is very informative

Thanks for sharing this educative article

Thank you for such informative explanation.

Great job smart guy! Really outdid yourself!

Nice one! I thank you for this as it is just what I was looking for!😃🤟

Thank you so much for this. Much appreciated

Thank you so much.

Thankyou for ur briefing…its so helpful

Thank you so much .I’ved learn a lot from this.❤️

Very exciting and useful piece for researchers.

Your are awesome, it’s a great article.

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• v.37(1); 2022 Jan

Methods for Identifying Health Research Gaps, Needs, and Priorities: a Scoping Review

Eunice c. wong.

1 RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA USA

Alicia R. Maher

Aneesa motala.

2 Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, University of Southern California Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science & Innovation, Los Angeles, USA

Rachel Ross

Olamigoke akinniranye, jody larkin, susanne hempel, associated data.

Well-defined, systematic, and transparent processes to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities are vital to ensuring that available funds target areas with the greatest potential for impact.

The purpose of this review is to characterize methods conducted or supported by research funding organizations to identify health research gaps, needs, or priorities.

We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and the Web of Science up to September 2019. Eligible studies reported on methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities that had been conducted or supported by research funding organizations. Using a published protocol, we extracted data on the method, criteria, involvement of stakeholders, evaluations, and whether the method had been replicated (i.e., used in other studies).

Among 10,832 citations, 167 studies were eligible for full data extraction. More than half of the studies employed methods to identify both needs and priorities, whereas about a quarter of studies focused singularly on identifying gaps (7%), needs (6%), or priorities (14%) only. The most frequently used methods were the convening of workshops or meetings (37%), quantitative methods (32%), and the James Lind Alliance approach, a multi-stakeholder research needs and priority setting process (28%). The most widely applied criteria were importance to stakeholders (72%), potential value (29%), and feasibility (18%). Stakeholder involvement was most prominent among clinicians (69%), researchers (66%), and patients and the public (59%). Stakeholders were identified through stakeholder organizations (51%) and purposive (26%) and convenience sampling (11%). Only 4% of studies evaluated the effectiveness of the methods and 37% employed methods that were reproducible and used in other studies.

To ensure optimal targeting of funds to meet the greatest areas of need and maximize outcomes, a much more robust evidence base is needed to ascertain the effectiveness of methods used to identify research gaps, needs, and priorities.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-021-07064-1.

Well-defined, systematic, and transparent methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities are vital to ensuring that available funds target areas with the greatest potential for impact. 1 , 2 As defined in the literature, 3 , 4 research gaps are defined as areas or topics in which the ability to draw a conclusion for a given question is prevented by insufficient evidence. Research gaps are not necessarily synonymous with research needs , which are those knowledge gaps that significantly inhibit the decision-making ability of key stakeholders, who are end users of research, such as patients, clinicians, and policy makers. The selection of research priorities is often necessary when all identified research gaps or needs cannot be pursued because of resource constraints. Methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities (from herein referred to as gaps, needs, priorities) can be multi-varied and there does not appear to be general consensus on best practices. 3 , 5

Several published reviews highlight the diverse methods that have been used to identify gaps and priorities. In a review of methods used to identify gaps from systematic reviews, Robinson et al. noted the wide range of organizing principles that were employed in published literature between 2001 and 2009 (e.g., care pathway, decision tree, and patient, intervention, comparison, outcome framework,). 6 In a more recent review spanning 2007 to 2017, Nyanchoka et al. found that the vast majority of studies with a primary focus on the identification of gaps (83%) relied solely on knowledge synthesis methods (e.g., systematic review, scoping review, evidence mapping, literature review). A much smaller proportion (9%) relied exclusively on primary research methods (i.e., quantitative survey, qualitative study). 7

With respect to research priorities, in a review limited to a PubMed database search covering the period from 2001 to 2014, Yoshida documented a wide range of methods to identify priorities including the use of not only knowledge synthesis (i.e., literature reviews) and primary research methods (i.e., surveys) but also multi-stage, structured methods such as Delphi, Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI), James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (JLA PSP), and Essential National Health Research (ENHR). 2 The CHNRI method, originally developed for the purpose of setting global child health research priorities, typically employs researchers and experts to specify a long list of research questions, the criteria that will be used to prioritize research questions, and the technical scoring of research questions using the defined criteria. 8 During the latter stages, non-expert stakeholders’ input are incorporated by using their ratings of the importance of selected criteria to weight the technical scores. The ENHR method, initially designed for health research priority setting at the national level, involves researchers, decision-makers, health service providers, and communities throughout the entire process of identifying and prioritizing research topics. 9 The JLA PSP method convenes patients, carers, and clinicians to equally and jointly identify questions about healthcare that cannot be answered by existing evidence that are important to all groups (i.e., research needs). 10 The identified research needs are then prioritized by the groups resulting in a final list (often a top 10) of research priorities. Non-clinical researchers are excluded from voting on research needs or priorities but can be involved in other processes (e.g., knowledge synthesis). CHNRI, ENHR, and JLA PSP usually employ a mix of knowledge synthesis and primary research methods to first identify a set of gaps or needs that are then prioritized. Thus, even though CHNRI, ENHR, and JLA PSP have been referred to as priority setting methods, they actually consist of a gaps or needs identification stage that feeds into a research prioritization stage.

Nyanchoka et al.’s review found that the majority of studies focused on the identification of gaps alone (65%), whereas the remaining studies focused either on research priorities alone (17%) or on both gaps and priorities (19%). 7 In an update to Robinson et al.’s review, 6 Carey et al. reviewed the literature between 2010 and 2011 and observed that the studies conducted during this latter period of time focused more on research priorities than gaps and had increased stakeholder involvement, and that none had evaluated the reproducibility of the methods. 11

The increasing development and diversity of formal processes and methods to identify gaps and priorities are indicative of a developing field. 2 , 12 To facilitate more standardized and systematic processes, other important areas warrant further investigation. Prior reviews did not distinguish between the identification of gaps versus research needs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Evidence-based Practice Center (AHRQ EPC) Program issued a series of method papers related to establishing research needs as part of comparative effectiveness research. 13 – 15 The AHRQ EPC Program defined research needs as “evidence gaps” identified within systematic reviews that are prioritized by stakeholders according to their potential impact on practice or care. 16 Furthermore, Nyanchoka et al. relied on author designations to classify studies as focusing on gaps versus research priorities and noted that definitions of gaps varied across studies, highlighting the need to apply consistent taxonomy when categorizing studies in reviews. 7 Given the rise in the use of stakeholders in both gaps and prioritization exercises, a greater understanding of the range of practices involving stakeholders is also needed. This includes the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders (e.g., consultants versus final decision-makers), the composition of stakeholders (e.g., non-research clinicians, patients, caregivers, policymakers), and the methods used to recruit stakeholders. The lack of consensus of best practices also highlights the importance of learning the extent to which evaluations to determine the effectiveness of gaps, needs, and prioritization exercises have been conducted, and if so, what were the resultant outcomes.

To better inform efforts and organizations that fund health research, we conducted a scoping review of methods used to identify gaps, needs, and priorities that were linked to potential or actual health research funding decision-making. Hence, this scoping review was limited to studies in which the identification of health research gaps, needs, or priorities was supported or conducted by funding organizations to address the following questions 1 : What are the characteristics of methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities? and 2 To what extent have evaluations of the impact of these methods been conducted? Given that scoping reviews may be executed to characterize the ways an area of research has been conducted, 17 , 18 this approach is appropriate for the broad nature of this study’s aims.

Protocol and Registration

We employed methods that conform to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. 19 See Appendix A in the Supplementary Information. The scoping review protocol is registered with the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/5zjqx/ ).

Eligibility Criteria

Studies published in English that described methods to identify health research gaps, needs, or priorities that were supported or conducted by funding organizations were eligible for inclusion. We excluded studies that reported only the results of the exercise (e.g., list of priorities) absent of information on the methods used. We also excluded studies involving evidence synthesis (e.g., literature or systematic reviews) that were solely descriptive and did not employ an explicit method to identify research gaps, needs, or priorities.

Information Sources and Search Strategy

We searched the following electronic databases: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science. Our database search also included an update of the Nyanchoka et al. scoping review, which entailed executing their database searches for the time period following 2017 (the study’s search end date). 7 Nyanchoka et al. did not include database searches for research needs. The electronic database search and scoping review update were completed in August and September 2019, respectively . The search strategy employed for each of the databases is presented in Appendix B in the Supplementary Information.

Selection of Sources of Evidence and Data Charting Process

Two reviewers screened titles and abstracts and full-text publications. Citations that one or both reviewers considered potentially eligible were retrieved for full-text review. Relevant background articles and scoping and systematic reviews were reference mined to screen for eligible studies. Full-text publications were screened against detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data was extracted by one reviewer and checked by a second reviewer. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion by the review team.

Information on study characteristics were extracted from each article including the aims of the exercise (i.e., gaps, needs, priorities, or a combination) and health condition (i.e., physical or psychological). Based on definitions in the literature, 3 – 5 the aims of the exercise were coded according to the activities that were conducted, which may not have always corresponded with the study authors’ labeling of the exercises. For instance, the JLA PSP method is often described as a priority exercise but we categorized it as a needs and priority exercise. Priority exercises can be preceded by exercises to identify gaps or needs, which then feed into the priority exercise such as in JLA PSP; however, standalone priority exercises can also be conducted (e.g., stakeholders prioritize an existing list of emerging diseases).

For each type of exercise, information on the methods were recorded. An initial list of methods was created based on previous reviews. 9 , 12 , 20 During the data extraction process, any methods not included in the initial list were subsequently added. If more than one exercise was reported within an article (e.g., gaps and priorities), information was extracted for each exercise separately. Reviewers extracted the following information: methods employed (e.g., qualitative, quantitative), criteria used (e.g., disease burden, importance to stakeholders), stakeholder involvement (e.g., stakeholder composition, method for identifying stakeholders), and whether an evaluation was conducted on the effectiveness of the exercise (see Appendix C in the Supplementary Information for full data extraction form).

Synthesis of results entailed quantitative descriptives of study characteristics (e.g., proportion of studies by aims of exercise) and characteristics of methods employed across all studies and by each type of study (e.g., gaps, needs, priorities).

The electronic database search yielded a total of 10,548 titles. Another 284 articles were identified after searching the reference lists of full-text publications, including three systematic reviews 21 – 23 and one scoping review 24 that had met eligibility criteria. Moreover, a total of 99 publications designated as relevant background articles were also reference mined to screen for eligible studies. We conducted full-text screening for 2524 articles, which resulted in 2344 exclusions (440 studies were designated as background articles). A total of 167 exercises related to the identification of gaps, needs, or priorities that were supported or conducted by a research funding organization were described across 180 publications and underwent full data extraction. See Figure ​ Figure1 1 for the flow diagram of our search strategy and reasons for exclusion.

Literature flow

Characteristics of Sources of Evidence

Among the published exercises, the majority of studies (152/167) conducted gaps, need, or prioritization exercises related to physical health, whereas only a small fraction of studies focused on psychological health (12/167) (see Appendix D in the Supplementary Information).

Methods for Identifying Gaps, Needs, and Priorities

As seen in Table ​ Table1, 1 , only about a quarter of studies involved a singular type of exercise with 7% focused on the identification of gaps only (i.e., areas with insufficient information to draw a conclusion for a given question), 6% on needs only (i.e., knowledge gaps that inhibit the decision-making of key stakeholders), and 14% priorities only (i.e., ranked gaps or needs often because of resource constraints). Studies more commonly conducted a combination of multiple types of exercises with more than half focused on the identification of both research needs and priorities, 14% on gaps and priorities, 3% gaps, needs, and priorities, and 3% gaps and needs.

Methods for Identifying Health Research Gaps, Needs, and Priorities

JLA PSP , James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships; ENHR , Essential National Health Research; CHNRI , Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative. Numbers in columns may add up to more than the total N or 100% since some studies employed more than one method

Across the 167 studies, the three most frequently used methods were the convening of workshops/meetings/conferences (37%), quantitative methods (32%), and the JLA PSP approach (28%). This was followed by methods involving literature reviews (17%), qualitative methods (17%), consensus methods (13%), and reviews of source materials (15%). Other methods included the CHNRI process (7%), reviews of in-progress data (7%), consultation with (non-researcher) stakeholders (4%), applying a framework tool (4%), ENHR (1%), systematic reviews (1%), and evidence mapping (1%).

The criterion most widely applied across the 167 studies was the importance to stakeholders (72%) (see Table ​ Table2). 2 ). Almost one-third (29%) considered the potential value and 18% feasibility as criteria. Burden of disease (9%), addressing inequities (8%), costs (6%), alignment with organization’s mission (3%), and patient centeredness (2%) were adopted as criteria to a lesser extent.

Criteria for Identifying Health Research Gaps, Needs, and Priorities

Numbers in columns may add up to more than the total N or 100% since some studies employed more than one criterion

About two-thirds of the studies included researchers (66%) and clinicians (69%) as stakeholders (see Appendix E in the Supplementary Information). Patients and the public were involved in 59% of the studies. A smaller proportion included policy makers (20%), funders (13%), product makers (8%), payers (5%), and purchasers (2%) as stakeholders. Nearly half of the studies (51%) relied on stakeholder organizations to identify stakeholders (see Appendix F in the Supplementary Information). A quarter of studies (26%) used purposive sampling and some convenience sampling (11%). Few (9%) used snowball sampling to identify stakeholders. Only a minor fraction of studies, seven of the 167 (4%), reported some type of effectiveness evaluation. 25 – 31

Our scoping review revealed that approaches to identifying gaps, needs, and priorities are less likely to occur as discrete processes and more often involve a combination of exercises. Approaches encompassing multiple exercises (e.g., gaps and needs) were far more prevalent than singular standalone exercises (e.g., gaps only) (73% vs. 27%). Findings underscore the varying importance placed on gaps, needs, and priorities, which reflect key principles of the Value of Information approach (i.e., not all gaps are important, addressing gaps do not necessarily address needs nor does addressing needs necessarily address priorities). 32

Findings differ from Nyanchoka et al.’s review in which studies involving the identification of gaps only outnumbered studies involving both gaps and priorities. 7 However, Nyanchoka et al. relied on author definitions to categorize exercises, whereas our study made designations based on our review of the activities described in the article and applied definitions drawn from the literature. 3 , 4 Lack of consensus on definitions of gaps and priority setting has been noted in the literature. 33 , 34 To the authors’ knowledge, no prior scoping review has focused on methods related to the identification of “research needs.” Findings underscore the need to develop and apply more consistent taxonomy to this growing field of research.

More than 40% of studies employed methods with a structured protocol including JLA PSP, ENHR, CHRNI, World Café, and the Dialogue model. 10 , 35 – 40 The World Café and Dialogue models particularly value the experiential perspectives of stakeholders. The World Café centers on creating a special environment, often modeled after a café, in which rounds of multi-stakeholder, small group, conversations are facilitated and prefaced with questions designed for the specific purpose of the session. Insights and results are reported and shared back to the entire group with no expectation to achieve consensus, but rather diverse perspectives are encouraged. 36 The Dialogue model is a multi-stakeholder, participatory, priority setting method involving the following phases: exploratory (informal discussions), consultation (separate stakeholder consultations), prioritization (stakeholder ratings), and integration (dialog between stakeholders). 39 Findings may indicate a trend away from non-replicable methods to approaches that afford greater transparency and reproducibility. 41 For instance, of the 17 studies published between 2000 and 2009, none had employed CHNRI and 6% used JLA PSP compared to the 141 studies between 2010 and 2019 in which 8% applied CHNRI and 32% JLA PSP. However, notable variations in implementing CHNRI and JLA PSP have been observed. 41 – 43 Though these protocols help to ensure a more standardized process, which is essential when testing the effectiveness of methods, such evaluations are infrequent but necessary to establish the usefulness of replicable methods.

Convening workshops, meetings, or conferences was the method used by the greatest proportion of studies (37%). The operationalization of even this singular method varied widely in duration (e.g., single vs. multi-day conferences), format (e.g., expert panel presentations, breakout discussion groups), processes (e.g., use of formal/informal consensus methods), and composition of stakeholders. The operationalization of other methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative) also exhibited great diversity.

The use of explicit criteria to determine gaps, needs, or priorities is a key component of certain structured protocols 40 , 44 and frameworks. 9 , 45 In our scoping review, the criterion applied most frequently across studies (71%) was “importance to stakeholders” followed by potential value (31%) and feasibility (18%). Stakeholder values are being incorporated into the identification of gaps, needs, and exercises across a significant proportion of studies, but how this is operationalized varies widely across studies. For instance, the CHNRI typically employs multiple criteria that are scored by technical experts and these scores are then weighted based on stakeholder ratings of their relative importance. Other studies totaled scores across multiple criteria, whereas JLA PSP asks multiple stakeholders to rank the top ten priorities. The importance of involving stakeholders, especially patients and the public, in priority setting is increasingly viewed as vital to ensuring the needs of end users are met, 46 , 47 particularly in light of evidence demonstrating mismatches between the research interests of patients and researchers and clinicians. 48 – 50 In our review, clinicians (69%) and researchers (66%) were the most widely represented stakeholder groups across studies. Patients and the public (e.g., caregivers) were included as stakeholders in 59% of the studies. Only a small fraction of studies involved exercises in which stakeholders were limited to researchers only. Patients and the public were involved as stakeholders in 12% of studies published between 2000 and 2009 compared to 60% of studies between 2010 and 2019. Findings may reflect a trend away from researchers traditionally serving as one of the sole drivers of determining which research topics should be pursued.

More than half of the studies reported relying on stakeholder organizations to identify participants. Partnering with stakeholder organizations has been noted as one of the primary methods for identifying stakeholders for priority setting exercises. 34 Purposive sampling was the next most frequently used stakeholder identification method. In contrast, convenience sampling (e.g., recommendations by study team) and snowball sampling (e.g., identified stakeholders refer other stakeholders who then refer additional stakeholders) were not as frequently employed, but were documented as common methods in a prior review conducted almost a decade ago. 14 The greater use of stakeholder organizations than convenience or snowball sampling may be partly due to the more recent proliferation of published studies using structured protocols like JLA PSP, which rely heavily on partnerships with stakeholder organizations. Though methods such as snowball sampling may introduce more bias than random sampling, 14 there are no established best practices for stakeholder identification methods. 51 Nearly a quarter of studies provided either unclear or no information on stakeholder identification methods, which has been documented as a barrier to comparing across studies and assessing the validity of research priorities. 34

Determining the effectiveness of gaps, needs, and priority exercises is challenging given that outcome evaluations are rarely conducted. Only seven studies reported conducting an evaluation. 25 – 31 Evaluations varied with respect to their focus on process- (e.g., balanced stakeholder representation, stakeholder satisfaction) versus outcome-related impact (e.g., prioritized topics funded, knowledge production, benefits to health). There is no consensus on what constitutes optimal outcomes, which has been found to vary by discipline. 52

More than 90% of studies involved exercises related to physical health in contrast to a minor portfolio of work being dedicated to psychological health, which may be an indication of the low priority placed on psychological health policy research. Understanding whether funding decisions for physical versus psychological health research are similarly or differentially governed by more systematic, formal processes may be important to the extent that this affects the effective targeting of funds.

Limitations

By limiting studies to those supported or conducted by funding organizations, we may have excluded global, national, or local priority setting exercises. In addition, our scoping review categorized approaches according to the actual exercises conducted and definitions provided in the scientific literature rather than relying on the terminology employed by studies. This resulted in instances in which the category assigned to an exercise within our scoping review could diverge from the category employed by the study authors. Lastly, this study’s findings are subject to limitations often characteristic of scoping reviews such as publication bias, language bias, lack of quality assessment, and search, inclusion, and extraction biases. 53

Conclusions

The diversity and growing establishment of formal processes and methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities are characteristic of a developing field. Even with the emergence of more structured and systematic approaches, the inconsistent categorization and definition of gaps, needs, and priorities inhibit efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of varied methods and processes, such efforts are rare and sorely needed to build an evidence base to guide best practices. The immense variation occurring within structured protocols, across different combinations of disparate methods, and even within singular methods, further emphasizes the importance of using clearly defined approaches, which are essential to conducting investigations of the effectiveness of these varied approaches. The recent development of reporting guidelines for priority setting for health research may facilitate more consistent and clear documentation of processes and methods, which includes the many facets of involving stakeholders. 34 To ensure optimal targeting of funds to meet the greatest areas of need and maximize outcomes, a much more robust evidence base is needed to ascertain the effectiveness of methods used to identify research gaps, needs, and priorities.

(PDF 1205 kb)

Acknowledgements

This scoping review is part of research that was sponsored by Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (now Psychological Health Center of Excellence).

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The Best Method In Identifying Research Gap: An In-depth Analysis

What is research gap.

A research gap refers to an area or topic that has not been sufficiently explored or studied, leaving unanswered questions or unresolved issues. This article will provide an overview of the research gaps concept and their significance in the research process. It will also discuss the importance of identifying research gaps and how they can be used to formulate research objectives and problem statements. Additionally, this section will explore various techniques and strategies for conducting research gap analysis and bridging the gap between existing knowledge and future research endeavors.

Background of Research Gap

In the world of research, identifying and addressing research gaps is a crucial step towards advancing knowledge and understanding in a particular field. A research gap refers to an area in the existing body of knowledge where there is a lack of research or unanswered questions. In other words, it is a gap in the literature that needs to be addressed through further research.

Research gaps can occur for various reasons, such as a lack of studies on a specific topic, contradictory findings in existing research, or the emergence of new ideas or concepts that have not been explored. Identifying research gaps is crucial for the advancement of knowledge and the development of new research questions. By filling these gaps, researchers can contribute to the existing body of knowledge and address unanswered questions.

Furthermore, research gaps provide opportunities for researchers to make significant contributions to their field by conducting innovative and impactful studies. Understanding the background of research gaps is essential for researchers to identify areas where their research can make a meaningful impact.

Significance of Research Gap

The research gap plays a crucial role in the field of academia and scientific research. It holds significant importance for researchers, scholars, and the overall advancement of knowledge.

Contributing to Knowledge and Developing New Theories

One of the primary reasons why the research gap is significant is that it identifies areas where there is a lack of knowledge or understanding. It highlights the gaps in existing research, indicating the need for further investigation and exploration. By identifying research gaps, researchers can contribute to the existing body of knowledge by filling in the missing pieces. This leads to the development of new theories, concepts, and insights that can enhance our understanding of a particular subject or field.

Fostering Innovation and Progress through Unexplored Areas

Furthermore, the significance of research gaps lies in their potential to drive innovation and progress. When researchers identify areas that have not been extensively studied, they have the opportunity to explore new ideas, methodologies, and approaches. This can lead to groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in various disciplines.

Efficient Utilization of Resources to Avoid Duplication

Moreover, research gaps also help in avoiding duplication of efforts. By identifying what has already been studied and what areas are yet to be explored, researchers can focus their efforts on addressing the gaps rather than repeating existing research. This ensures that resources are utilized effectively and efficiently.

Impacting Practical Applications and Real-World Solutions

Additionally, the significance of research gaps extends to the practical application of research findings. By addressing the gaps in existing knowledge, researchers can provide valuable insights and solutions to real-world problems. This can have a direct impact on industries, policy-making, and decision-making processes. In conclusion, the significance of research gaps cannot be overstated. They serve as catalysts for knowledge advancement, innovation, and practical application. By identifying and addressing these gaps, researchers contribute to the growth and development of their respective fields, ultimately benefiting society as a whole.

Research Gap Examples

Identifying research gaps is crucial for pursuing innovative research. There are various types of research gaps that can be found in existing literature.

Knowledge gaps

Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn’t been studied at all. For example, in the field of psychology, there might be a lack of research on the effects of social media on mental health in adolescents.

Conceptual gaps

Conceptual gaps occur when there is a lack of understanding or clarity about a particular concept or theory. For instance, in the field of economics, there might be a research gap in understanding the relationship between income inequality and economic growth.

Methodological gaps

Methodological gaps refer to the absence of appropriate research methods or techniques to study a specific phenomenon. For example, in the field of biology, there might be a research gap in developing a reliable method to detect a certain type of genetic mutation.

Data gaps occur when there is a lack of available data or insufficient data to address a research question. For instance, in the field of climate science, there might be a research gap in obtaining long-term temperature data for a specific region.

Practical gaps

Practical gaps exist when there is a discrepancy between theoretical knowledge and practical application. For example, in the field of education, there might be a research gap in implementing effective teaching strategies for students with learning disabilities.

Research Gap Analysis Techniques

Carry out a comprehensive literature review.

There are several techniques that can be used to identify research gaps. One common technique is conducting a comprehensive literature review, where researchers examine existing research papers, articles, books, and other relevant sources. By analyzing these materials, researchers can pinpoint what has already been explored and identify areas that require further investigation.

Examining Limitations and Contradictions in Existing Studies

During the literature review, researchers should pay attention to the limitations and gaps in the existing studies. These limitations can include unanswered research questions, contradictory findings, methodological issues, or areas that have not been explored in depth. Researchers can also gain insights by comparing and contrasting the findings, methodologies, and conclusions of different studies within their field, which helps in building a more complete understanding of the topic.

Exploring Interdisciplinary Insights to Identify Gaps

Additionally, researchers can seek inspiration from interdisciplinary fields or related disciplines to identify research gaps. Sometimes, a research gap in one field may have been addressed in another field, and researchers can draw upon these insights to identify areas that have not been explored within their own field. It is important to note that identifying research gaps is not a one-time process. As new studies are published and the field evolves, new gaps may emerge. Therefore, researchers should continuously update their knowledge and review the literature to stay informed about the latest developments and identify new research gaps.

Utilizing Surveys and Interviews for Direct Insights

Another technique is conducting surveys or interviews . This allows researchers to gather information directly from individuals who are knowledgeable in the field. Surveys can be distributed to a large number of participants, while interviews provide more in-depth insights from a smaller group of experts. By collecting data through surveys or interviews, researchers can identify gaps in knowledge or areas where more research is needed. Focus groups are another effective technique for conducting a research gap analysis. In a focus group, a small group of individuals with relevant expertise or experience is brought together to discuss a specific topic. Through group discussions and interactions, researchers can gain valuable insights and identify gaps in knowledge or areas that require further investigation.

Employing Quantitative Analysis to Discover Data Gaps

Quantitative analysis techniques, such as statistical analysis, can also be used to identify research gaps. By analyzing existing data sets, researchers can identify patterns, trends, or gaps in the data that may indicate areas where further research is needed. This type of analysis can provide valuable insights into the gaps in existing knowledge and guide future research directions.

Applying Gap Analysis Frameworks for Structured Assessment

In addition to these techniques, researchers can also use gap analysis frameworks or models to systematically identify and analyze research gaps. These frameworks provide a structured approach to assess the current state of knowledge, determine the desired future state, and identify the gaps that need to be addressed. By using a framework, researchers can ensure a comprehensive analysis of research gaps and develop strategies to bridge those gaps.

Research Gap and Problem Statement

A research problem is a specific issue or question that a researcher wants to investigate. It is the foundation of a research study and provides a clear direction for the research process. The identification of a research gap often leads to the formulation of a research problem.

The problem statement is a constructed sentence that defines the research problem and guides the research question. It helps to clarify the purpose of the study and provides a framework for the research design and research methodology. By addressing the research gap through the problem statement, researchers can contribute to the existing body of knowledge and fill the void in the literature. The research problem becomes the focal point of the study, and the research gap serves as the motivation for conducting the research.

Identifying a research gap and formulating a problem statement are crucial steps in the research process. They ensure that the research study is relevant, meaningful, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field. As a key component of the research framework , the problem statement integrates directly into the overall structure that guides the entire research process, ensuring that all aspects of the investigation are aligned with the identified gaps and research questions.

Bridging the Research Gap

Bridging the research gap is crucial for the advancement of knowledge and the improvement of various fields. It involves closing the divide between research findings and their practical application in real-world settings. By bridging this gap, researchers can ensure that their work has a meaningful impact on society and that it is effectively utilized by practitioners and policymakers.

Effective Collaboration between Researchers and Practitioners

There are several strategies and approaches that can be employed to bridge the research gap. One practical way is to establish collaborations and partnerships between researchers and practitioners. By working together, researchers can gain valuable insights from practitioners’ experiences and expertise, while practitioners can benefit from the latest research findings and evidence-based practices. This collaboration can lead to the development of more relevant and effective solutions to real-world problems.

For facilitating such connections and collaborations, platforms like Researchmate.net are invaluable resources, providing the tools and community needed to bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse fields.

Intermediary Organizations in Facilitating Research Application

Another approach to bridging the research gap is through the use of intermediary organizations. These organizations act as a bridge between researchers and practitioners, facilitating the translation and dissemination of research findings into practical applications. They can provide training, resources, and support to practitioners, helping them to implement evidence-based practices in their work. Intermediary organizations also play a crucial role in promoting knowledge exchange and collaboration between researchers and practitioners.

Enhancing Communication and Knowledge Transfer in Research

Furthermore, bridging the research gap requires effective communication and knowledge transfer. Researchers need to communicate their findings in a clear and accessible manner, using language that is understandable to practitioners and policymakers. This can be achieved through the use of plain language summaries, policy briefs, and other forms of knowledge translation.

Engaging with Practitioners and Policymakers

Additionally, researchers should actively engage with practitioners and policymakers, seeking their input and feedback to ensure that research findings are relevant and applicable to real-world contexts.

In conclusion, exploring the research gap is a critical step in the research process. It helps researchers identify areas where further investigation is needed, contributes to the advancement of knowledge, and drives innovation. By understanding the research gap, researchers can make meaningful contributions to their field and address unanswered questions. Bridging the research gap requires collaboration and commitment from all stakeholders, but the potential benefits are immense.

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How to Identify a Research Gap

5-minute read

• 10th January 2024

If you’ve been tasked with producing a thesis or dissertation, one of your first steps will be identifying a research gap. Although finding a research gap may sound daunting, don’t fret! In this post, we will define a research gap, discuss its importance, and offer a step-by-step guide that will provide you with the essential know-how to complete this critical step and move on to the rest of your research project.

What Is a Research Gap?

Simply put, a research gap is an area that hasn’t been explored in the existing literature. This could be an unexplored population, an untested method, or a condition that hasn’t been investigated yet. 

Why Is Identifying a Research Gap Important?

Identifying a research gap is a foundational step in the research process. It ensures that your research is significant and has the ability to advance knowledge within a specific area. It also helps you align your work with the current needs and challenges of your field. Identifying a research gap has many potential benefits.

1. Avoid Redundancy in Your Research

Understanding the existing literature helps researchers avoid duplication. This means you can steer clear of topics that have already been extensively studied. This ensures your work is novel and contributes something new to the field.

2. Guide the Research Design

Identifying a research gap helps shape your research design and questions. You can tailor your studies to specifically address the identified gap. This ensures that your work directly contributes to filling the void in knowledge.

3. Practical Applications

Research that addresses a gap is more likely to have practical applications and contributions. Whether in academia, industry, or policymaking, research that fills a gap in knowledge is often more applicable and can inform decision-making and practices in real-world contexts.

4. Field Advancements

Addressing a research gap can lead to advancements in the field . It may result in the development of new theories, methodologies, or technologies that push the boundaries of current understanding.

5. Strategic Research Planning

Identifying a research gap is crucial for strategic planning . It helps researchers and institutions prioritize areas that need attention so they can allocate resources effectively. This ensures that efforts are directed toward the most critical gaps in knowledge.

6. Academic and Professional Recognition

Researchers who successfully address significant research gaps often receive peer recognition within their academic and professional communities. This recognition can lead to opportunities for collaboration, funding, and career advancement.

How Do I Identify a Research Gap?

1. clearly define your research topic .

Begin by clearly defining your research topic. A well-scoped topic serves as the foundation for your studies. Make sure it’s not too broad or too narrow; striking the right balance will make it easier to identify gaps in existing literature.

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2. Conduct a Thorough Literature Review

A comprehensive literature review is a vital step in any research. Dive deep into the existing research related to your topic. Look for patterns, recurring themes, and consensus among scholars. Pay attention to areas where conflicting opinions or gaps in understanding emerge.

3. Evaluate Existing Studies

Critically evaluate the studies you encounter during your literature review. Assess the paradigms , methodologies, findings, and limitations of each. Note any discrepancies, unanswered questions, or areas where further investigation is warranted. These are potential indicators of research gaps.

4. Identify Unexplored Perspectives

Consider the perspectives presented in the existing literature. Are there alternative viewpoints or marginalized voices that haven’t been adequately explored? Identifying and incorporating diverse perspectives can often lead to uncharted territory and help you pinpoint a unique research gap.

Additional Tips

Stay up to date with emerging trends.

The field of research is dynamic, with new developments and emerging trends constantly shaping the landscape. Stay up to date with the latest publications, conferences, and discussions in your field and make sure to regularly check relevant academic search engines . Often, identifying a research gap involves being at the forefront of current debates and discussions.

Seek Guidance From Experts

Don’t hesitate to reach out to experts in your field for guidance. Attend conferences, workshops, or seminars where you can interact with seasoned researchers. Their insights and experience can provide valuable perspectives on potential research gaps that you may have overlooked. You can also seek advice from your academic advisor .

Use Research Tools and Analytics

Leverage tech tools to analyze patterns and trends in the existing literature. Tools like citation analysis, keyword mapping, and data visualization can help you identify gaps and areas with limited exploration.

Identifying a research gap is a skill that evolves with experience and dedication. By defining your research topic, meticulously navigating the existing literature, critically evaluating studies, and recognizing unexplored perspectives, you’ll be on your way to identifying a research gap that will serve as the foundation for your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

If you need any help with proofreading your research paper , we can help with our research paper editing services . You can even try a sample of our services for free . Good luck with all your research!

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What is a research gap.

A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research (studies on Internet use in 2001, for example). Or, perhaps a specific population has not been well studied (perhaps there are plenty of studies on teenagers and video games, but not enough studies on toddlers and video games, for example). These are just a few examples, but any research gap you find is an area where more studies and more research need to be conducted. Please view this video clip from our Sage Research Methods database for more helpful information: How Do You Identify Gaps in Literature?

How do I find one?

It will take a lot of research and reading.  You'll need to be very familiar with all the studies that have already been done, and what those studies contributed to the overall body of knowledge about that topic. Make a list of any questions you have about your topic and then do some research to see if those questions have already been answered satisfactorily. If they haven't, perhaps you've discovered a gap!  Here are some strategies you can use to make the most of your time:

• One useful trick is to look at the “suggestions for future research” or conclusion section of existing studies on your topic. Many times, the authors will identify areas where they think a research gap exists, and what studies they think need to be done in the future.
• As you are researching, you will most likely come across citations for seminal works in your research field. These are the research studies that you see mentioned again and again in the literature.  In addition to finding those and reading them, you can use a database like Web of Science to follow the research trail and discover all the other articles that have cited these. See the FAQ: I found the perfect article for my paper. How do I find other articles and books that have cited it? on how to do this. One way to quickly track down these seminal works is to use a database like SAGE Navigator, a social sciences literature review tool. It is one of the products available via our SAGE Knowledge database.
• In the PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES databases, you can select literature review, systematic review, and meta analysis under the Methodology section in the advanced search to quickly locate these. See the FAQ: Where can I find a qualitative or quantitative study? for more information on how to find the Methodology section in these two databases.
• In CINAHL , you can select Systematic review under the Publication Type field in the advanced search. 
• In Web of Science , check the box beside Review under the Document Type heading in the “Refine Results” sidebar to the right of the list of search hits.
• If the database you are searching does not offer a way to filter your results by document type, publication type, or methodology in the advanced search, you can include these phrases (“literature reviews,” meta-analyses, or “systematic reviews”) in your search string.  For example, “video games” AND “literature reviews” could be a possible search that you could try.

Please give these suggestions a try and contact a librarian for additional assistance.

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What is a Research Gap

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Table of Contents

If you are a young researcher, or even still finishing your studies, you’ll probably notice that your academic environment revolves around certain research topics, probably linked to your department or to the interest of your mentor and direct colleagues. For example, if your department is currently doing research in nanotechnology applied to medicine, it is only natural that you feel compelled to follow this line of research. Hopefully, it’s something you feel familiar with and interested in – although you might take your own twists and turns along your career.

Many scientists end up continuing their academic legacy during their professional careers, writing about their own practical experiences in the field and adapting classic methodologies to a present context. However, each and every researcher dreams about being a pioneer in a subject one day, by discovering a topic that hasn’t been approached before by any other scientist. This is a research gap.

Research gaps are particularly useful for the advance of science, in general. Finding a research gap and having the means to develop a complete and sustained study on it can be very rewarding for the scientist (or team of scientists), not to mention how its new findings can positively impact our whole society.

How to Find a Gap in Research

How many times have you felt that you have finally formulated THAT new and exciting question, only to find out later that it had been addressed before? Probably more times than you can count.

There are some steps you can take to help identify research gaps, since it is impossible to go through all the information and research available nowadays:

• Select a topic or question that motivates you: Research can take a long time and surely a large amount of physical, intellectual and emotional effort, therefore choose a topic that can keep you motivated throughout the process.
• Find keywords and related terms to your selected topic: Besides synthesizing the topic to its essential core, this will help you in the next step.
• Use the identified keywords to search literature: From your findings in the above step, identify relevant publications and cited literature in those publications.
• Look for topics or issues that are missing or not addressed within (or related to) your main topic.
• Read systematic reviews: These documents plunge deeply into scholarly literature and identify trends and paradigm shifts in fields of study. Sometimes they reveal areas or topics that need more attention from researchers and scientists.

Keeping track of all the new literature being published every day is an impossible mission. Remember that there is technology to make your daily tasks easier, and reviewing literature can be one of them. Some online databases offer up-to-date publication lists with quite effective search features:

• Elsevier’s Scope
• Google Scholar

Of course, these tools may be more or less effective depending on knowledge fields. There might be even better ones for your specific topic of research; you can learn about them from more experienced colleagues or mentors.

Find out how FINER research framework can help you formulate your research question.

Literature Gap

The expression “literature gap” is used with the same intention as “research gap.” When there is a gap in the research itself, there will also naturally be a gap in the literature. Nevertheless, it is important to stress out the importance of language or text formulations that can help identify a research/literature gap or, on the other hand, making clear that a research gap is being addressed.

When looking for research gaps across publications you may have noticed sentences like:

…has/have not been… (studied/reported/elucidated) …is required/needed… …the key question is/remains… …it is important to address…

These expressions often indicate gaps; issues or topics related to the main question that still hasn’t been subject to a scientific study. Therefore, it is important to take notice of them: who knows if one of these sentences is hiding your way to fame.

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

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What Is A Research Gap? (With Tips + Examples)

A research gap is a specific area within a field of study that remains unexplored or under-explored. Identifying a research gap involves recognizing where existing research is lacking or where there are unanswered questions that could provide opportunities for further investigation. Understanding research gaps is crucial for advancing knowledge, as it helps scholars and researchers focus their efforts on areas that can contribute significantly to their field.

What Is A Research Gap?

It is actually a question or any issue that needs to be solved by any pre-existing work or research in your area of study. A research gap can also exist where some new idea still needs to be studied.

Tips on Identifying Research Gap

Research always plays an essential role in acquiring more knowledge and addressing the gaps in different fields. When you are identifying a research gap, you are taking a very important step in the whole research process. This aids the researchers in contributing meaningful insights and triggers the knowledge boundaries.

Understanding the Literature You Are Studying: In order to identify any research gap, it is essential to have an excellent advertising of the preexisting literature in your study field.

Here, you need to conduct a review of many books, scholarly articles, conferences, and other relevant sources. In this way, you can get a good foundation as well as insights into any present state of in-depth knowledge in your own study area.

Defining Your Own Research Question: After getting a good knowledge of the pre-existing literature, you need to define a concise and clear idea of the research question. This research question needs to be very specific, attainable, measurable, time-bound and relevant. An acronym for this entire thing is known as SMART. This also needs to address any significant issue that still needs to be fully solved or adequately answered.

Identifying Your Study Objectives: Here, you need to identify the major objectives of your research paper. All these objectives need to be aligned with the identified research gap. These objectives always guide the researcher and aid you in determining the direction and scope of your research study.

Analyze the Existing Studies: Here, you need to analyze very carefully all the existing studies that are related to your research question. Here, it would help if you looked at the most common recurring findings, themes, and patterns of the discussed literature. Here, you also need to pay a lot of attention to the conflicted areas with the results, unanswered questions, and contradictory theories. These areas show the research gaps that can be explored later.

Consider The Practical Relevance: You always need to evaluate the very practical relevance of the research question as well as its potential impact on society. Here, it would help if you always considered the importance of addressing your own research gap as you identified it.

Here, you also need to assess whether your findings can contribute to the original theoretical framework and offer all the practical solutions for leading to the policy recommendations. These practical ads are relevant to the research paper and trigger its impact.

Consulting With the Experts and Peers: You always need to engage you’re discussing with your mentors, peers, and experts in your own field of study. Here, you always need to seek their opinions and perspectives on the research question to identify potential research gaps.

These can provide valuable insights into assumption challenges, and this helps you refine your research work. Your peers and experts can give you a new idea and help you identify the errors in your thinking.

Conducting Your Pilot Study: You need to conduct it to test the viability and feasibility of the research question. This pilot study provides you with feedback and data on the research design, approach and methodology.

This also helps you identify the potential limitations or challenges that need to be solved before conducting the full research studies.

Reflecting and Refining: You need to vividly reflect on the research progress to refine your research preferences. You need to add the objectives. As you go deeper into your research process, additional research gaps may be uncovered to refine your own research needs.

If you follow this process, you can adapt your own approach to ensure the research gaps.

As per the example of the research gap, identifying your research gap allows your research to contribute to gaining more knowledge to address the pre-existing limitations.

This way, you will understand the existing literature to define a crystal clear research statement. You can identify the research gaps by analyzing the existing studies to consider their relevance. According to the research gap finder, if you consult with your peers, doing all the pilot studies reflects on your research process progress.

If you follow the guide mentioned above, you can always embark on meaningful research studies to trigger your knowledge in your subject area and make a prominent contribution to your field.

Also Read: Struggling with Research Paper Writing?

Different Types of Research Gaps

Identifying research gaps is essential for advancing knowledge in any field. Research gaps are areas where more information is available or existing research needs to be more consistent or conclusive. Here are different types of research gaps:

• Evidence Gap

This gap occurs when no empirical evidence supports certain theories, practices, or interventions. It can also refer to areas where existing studies need to sufficiently cover the topic or lack rigorous methodological approaches.

Example: A need for randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of a new drug.

• Knowledge Gap

This gap refers to areas where there is a deficiency in understanding or awareness about a particular topic. It can be due to outdated information, incomplete research, or the absence of research on emerging issues.

Example: Limited knowledge about the long-term effects of exposure to new environmental pollutants.

• Theoretical Gap

Theoretical gaps arise when existing theories do not fully explain certain phenomena or when there is a lack of theoretical frameworks to guide research in a particular area.

Example: More theoretical models need to be developed to explain the psychological impacts of social media usage on teenagers.

• Methodological Gap

Methodological gaps exist when current research methods are inadequate for addressing certain research questions or when there is a need for new or improved methodologies.

Example: More robust qualitative methods are needed to study the experiences of marginalized communities.

• Population Gap

This type of gap occurs when certain populations are underrepresented in research. It can involve demographics like age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or geographic location.

Example: Lack of research on the mental health of older adults living in rural areas.

Geographical Gap

Geographical gaps refer to areas or regions that are under-researched. These gaps highlight the need for studies in different geographic contexts to understand local issues better.

Example: Limited studies on the effects of climate change in the Arctic regions.

Strategies to Identify Research Gaps:

• Literature Reviews: Comprehensive reviews can help identify where current research is lacking or inconsistent.
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: These methods provide a structured approach to synthesize existing research and identify gaps.
• Expert Consultations: Discussions with experts in the field can uncover areas that require further investigation.
• Research Databases: Utilizing databases and citation analysis tools to track research trends and identify under-researched areas.
• Interdisciplinary Approaches: Engaging with multiple disciplines can reveal gaps that are not apparent within a single field.

Understanding and addressing these gaps is crucial for advancing research and knowledge across various domains.

Read More: How To Get A+ Grade In Research Paper?

What is a Research Gap Example?

A Research Paper Example gives you a very clear idea of how to find your research gaps and examples in textual forms. A few examples are given below:

• Context Healthcare: Although there have been enough researchers on the management of diabetes, there has been a research gap in understanding the impact of digital health interventions in the rural areas of Europe.
• Content environmental science: In a wealth of research regarding the huge environmental pollution caused by the use of plastics, there are fewer findings of how the plastic material really accumulates in certain areas like lakes, rivers, etc. and why these materials are never biodegradable.
• Context Education: The empirical research surrounding the online mode has become tremendously popular over the past few years. However, there needs to be more solid studies regarding the impact of the online learning process on the students who need special education. In each of these examples, you can see that the writer begins by acknowledging the preexisting reach results and then explains thoroughly the present area where the research gap really exists.

Also Read: Why Research Is Essential For Students? 20 Common Reasons!

How to Find a Research Gap?

After getting a very clear idea of various types of research gaps, the vet’s next question comes to mind is how to find a research gap. There is a basic 2 step strategy to find the research gap.

In the beginning, you need to find a lot of literature reviews, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews covering your research area of interest. Moreover, it would help if you dug into the very recent journals for wrapping your head in your own knowledge area.

Here, you can also study the current theses and dissertations, especially those in the doctoral degree courses. A number of dissertation databases, such as Open Access, EBSCO, Pro-Quest, etc., are very useful in this regard. Here. You also need to ensure that you are always looking for the most recent sources.

After gathering a good collection of these resources, you need to focus on further research opportunities. In this section, you need to state explicitly where more studies are needed. It would help if you also looked at the present research study’s limitation areas and where the research gaps might exist.

Following this procedure will help you become oriented to the present research area. This can serve as a foundation for finding the potential research gaps. Then, you need to shortlist the main ideas and evaluate them as per the given topic. It would help if you also looked only for the recent articles here.

Also Read:  Expert Literature Review Writing Services

How to Deal with Literature Gap?

In any project, a literature review is always very important. It helps you in identifying your excusing knowledge, methods and theories in your own field. However, conducting a literature review has its own challenges.

• Defiling your research question: The very first step is to define your own research question very clearly and briefly. It will help you narrow your scope and focus on the crucial sources. It would help if you used less information here. Your research must always be very specific, answerable, and original. The research project always needs to have real objectives and a purpose.
• Searching and selecting the sources: Your next step is to search and select the sources. That is very much reliable and relevant to your research field. There are a number of databases, like keywords, search engines, etc., related to your study field. However, there are also a lot of limitations to these tools, like currency, coverage, and quality of the sources. Here, certain criteria have to be applied to filter the sources, such as relevance, authority, timeline, and accuracy of the information.
• Analyzing and synthesizing the literature: This is the third step, where you need to analyze and synthesize the literature you selected. Here, you need to summarize the sources and compare, contrast and critique them. In this section, you also need to look for the similarities and differences, the strengths and weaknesses, and the gaps and inconsistencies of the literature review paper. The writers can also identify the major trends, themes, and debates in the discussed field. These should also be related to your research question.
• Fill in the gaps after identifying them: This is the 4th step to filling the literature review research paper. This gap needs to be addressed or is under the researched area and is to be addressed by you with the help of your knowledge. These gaps can be filled by looking for the limitations, contradictions or controversies in the review. You can also do this by asking new questions or proposing new ideas. The gaps can also be filled by providing the newest evidence, arguments or even insights related to your field of study.
• Organizing and structuring the literature review: This is the 5th step of your review, where you need to organize and structure the whole paper in a compact and logical manner. Here, you always need to follow certain guidelines as given by your institute and use the best style and font. Proper headings, subheading citations, and traditions should also be used here. This will help your readers follow your arguments and understand what you want to say. A very clear introduction should also be written, along with a good conclusion and summary to highlight your writing.
• Refining and Revising: The literature review is the final step of writing your literature review. Here, you need to ensure that your review is quite accurate, concise and clear. You must check your literature review thoroughly to make it free from errors, gaps, or inconsistencies in language, content, or presentation. Here, you can also seek feedback from your peers, experts or supervisors in your own field. Their suggestions will help you in performing well. The whore literature review should be thoroughly proofread and edited before the final submission.

Last but not least, never copy from any source; it will be considered plagiarism, and your paper will be cancelled then and there. Thus, write only from your own creativity and not from the writing and articles of other writers.

Read More: Dissertation Literature Review For Masters & PhD

Final Words

Writing a research paper is a challenging task. It would help if you had a lot of Research Skills to accomplish it. You will be given a Research topic on which you have to write. Your ultimate aim in writing the research paper is to get the top grade. This can be done by availing of the best online Case Study Help Service from a reliable provider. The Casestudyhelp is the best choice for you in this respect.

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Six Effective Tips to Identify Research Gap

Conquer Research! How to Identify Gaps & Uncover Groundbreaking Topics

The first step in carrying out any sort of research is identifying the research gap. Choosing an unexplored area in your research field will enable the smooth and successful completion of your research work with a good number of publications . But the big question is, how to identify the research problem from the existing literature. Some researchers have a clear idea about the research problem they want to pursue. However, some researchers, especially those who are at an early stage of their career, find it difficult to choose a research problem that is unique and novel. So, the best way to handle this is to identify the gap in existing research i.e., identifying the research gap!

In this article, iLovePhD explains the research gap and discusses six important tips to identify the gap.

What is a Research Gap?

• A research gap is a problem or a question that has not been answered by any of the existing studies within your area of research.
• For instance, when you read a research or review article on topics of your research interest, you may notice some areas have significant scope for more research but they have not been explored by other researchers.
• So, a research gap or a literature gap refers to such unexplored areas that have scope for further research.

Significance of Unique Research Gap

• Assume that you have completed all your experimental works and you are in the process of publishing your findings in reputed journals.
• But the journal editors keep rejecting your paper stating that the research work is not unique and novel.
• Knowing this information then would be distressing for you.
• Therefore, it is important to find out the unique and novel research problems which have not been answered before.
• Remember you are investing your time, knowledge, funds, and resources in the research .
• So, invest in the right work which enables you to publish your research findings quickly.

How to Identify Research Gap?

Here are the 6 effective tips to identify the research gap.

1. Understand the Existing Literature:

The first step in gap analysis is to do a systematic review of existing literature relevant to your research. A comprehensive literature survey would provide a clear understanding of the existing works. Conduct a systematic review of relevant scholarly articles, books, conference papers, and other reliable sources. This will not only help you to understand the depth of work but also provide an opportunity to ask questions that can lead you to identify research gaps.

Also Read: How to Write a Literature Review ?

When you are reading research articles, focus more on the Introduction section where the authors explain the importance of their research and the gaps they have identified and attempted to fill through their research. Reading review articles on a particular area of research is more important and also it is the easiest way to understand the gap in your research in a short time. Read meta-analyses and review papers to learn more about the developments and trends in research over the years in your field of research.

Pay attention to areas where there are conflicting results, contradictory theories, or unanswered questions. These areas often indicate potential research gaps that you can explore further.

It is always a good practice to note all the questions that cross your mind while reading articles. You can use tables, charts, or tools to record this. You know, it will help you in the long run when you are developing your idea into a research problem or even when writing your manuscript.

2. Skim-read the Existing Literature

Skim-reading the literature in the sense, you don’t need to read the articles from start to end. Instead, you need to focus on these three key sections. They are:

Abstract – Here you will get to know what the work is all about and their key findings.

Introduction – It will give you more detail about the context and background of the study, as well as how the researchers filled the gap with their novel and unique research work.

Conclusion – Another useful way to find a research gap is to focus on the recommendations for future research or the conclusion section in the research or review article. It will give you directions or suggestions for future research that could be highly interesting and inspiring.

By skimming through these three sections of any research and review article, you will gain a reasonable idea of what each study was about, without taking much of your time.

3. Search for “FRIN phrase”

FRIN stands for “Future Research is Needed”. This is an easy method to identify the research gap. You will have to search for a few specific phrases in the articles you read. The phrases are

…investigation on this is still required/needed….

…it is important to understand this…

…have not been reported…

…the key question remains unanswered…

…it is important to address…

These expressions indicate the gaps or issues related to the main question that still need extensive scientific study. Therefore, it is important to take notice of them and use this information to develop novel research that is worth exploring.

4 . Get Feedback from the Supervisor

Discuss the issues and problems with your research Supervisor or advisor to get their suggestions. These conversations can provide valuable insights and help you to refine your research focus. They can help you to identify the blind spots in your thinking.

5. Use digital tools to Identify Research Gap

You can use digital tools as they can save time and make your search easy. Tools like Essential Science Indicator – identify the most cited articles in your field to know which topics are considered important. You can also use Google Trends to learn more about the popular questions related to your research area. This will ease your search for an unexplored area.

6. Conduct a Laboratory-scale Study:

Consider conducting a laboratory-scale study to test the feasibility and viability of your research problem. A lab-scale study will provide you with initial data and you also get an idea on how to design your experiments. It can help you to identify any potential limitations or challenges that need to be addressed before undertaking a full-scale research study.

Also Read: Comparison Between Laboratory-Scale, Pilot-Scale, and Full-Scale Studies in Research

How to Evaluate Potential Research Gaps?

Once you have a list of potential research gaps that could be explored, you need to systematically evaluate them to choose a good research problem. This will help you to avoid duplication of work. The key factors to be considered are listed here.

Originality and Novel – You need to ensure that the research problem should be original, unique, and novel.

Data Collection and Analysis – You need to check whether the data collection and sampling methods are easy and feasible. Also, check the instrumentation facilities are available for the study.

Costs – Check for any additional costs involved in data collection and analysis.

Time frames – Check that you can complete the research works within the timeframe specified by your university.

Supervisor’s guidance – The most important factor is, to ensure that your supervisor is comfortable in guiding you in your chosen topic throughout your research work.

Different types of research gaps in the literature review

According to Robinson, Saldanhea & McKoy (2011), Muller-Bloch, & Kranz (2015), and Miles (2017), the research gap has been classified into seven categories .

Evidence gap : Little or no evidence to address the research problem.

Knowledge gap : Knowledge may not exist in the actual field. It might be the case that the result of a study differs from what was expected.

Practical-Knowledge gap : When professional behavior or practices deviate from research findings or are not covered by research.

Methodology gap : A distinction in research methods is needed to have new insights or to avoid ambiguous findings.

Empirical gap : Research findings need to be evaluated or empirically verified.

Theoretical gap : Theory should be applied to certain research issues to generate new insights; a lack of theoretical knowledge may lead to a gap in research.

Population gap : Type of research gap that deals with a population that is not adequately represented or under-researched in the prior research (Eg., Gender, age, race).

By following the above-said tips, I am sure that you can very well identify the research gaps in your area of research. Unique research topics emerge from research gaps, so it’s important to do a gap analysis before you attempt to define a topic. Once you have identified a potential research gap and resultant topic, frame your objectives, then develop a clear methodology, and carry out your experiments, and this will certainly lead to breakthrough results.

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• Writing Strong Research Questions | Criteria & Examples

Writing Strong Research Questions | Criteria & Examples

Published on October 26, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A research question pinpoints exactly what you want to find out in your work. A good research question is essential to guide your research paper , dissertation , or thesis .

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

Table of contents

How to write a research question, what makes a strong research question, using sub-questions to strengthen your main research question, research questions quiz, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research questions.

You can follow these steps to develop a strong research question:

• Choose your topic
• Do some preliminary reading about the current state of the field
• Narrow your focus to a specific niche
• Identify the research problem that you will address

The way you frame your question depends on what your research aims to achieve. The table below shows some examples of how you might formulate questions for different purposes.

Using your research problem to develop your research question

Note that while most research questions can be answered with various types of research , the way you frame your question should help determine your choices.

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Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

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Research questions anchor your whole project, so it’s important to spend some time refining them. The criteria below can help you evaluate the strength of your research question.

Focused and researchable

Feasible and specific

Complex and arguable

Relevant and original

Chances are that your main research question likely can’t be answered all at once. That’s why sub-questions are important: they allow you to answer your main question in a step-by-step manner.

Good sub-questions should be:

• Less complex than the main question
• Focused only on 1 type of research
• Presented in a logical order

Here are a few examples of descriptive and framing questions:

• Descriptive: According to current government arguments, how should a European bank tax be implemented?
• Descriptive: Which countries have a bank tax/levy on financial transactions?
• Framing: How should a bank tax/levy on financial transactions look at a European level?

Keep in mind that sub-questions are by no means mandatory. They should only be asked if you need the findings to answer your main question. If your main question is simple enough to stand on its own, it’s okay to skip the sub-question part. As a rule of thumb, the more complex your subject, the more sub-questions you’ll need.

Try to limit yourself to 4 or 5 sub-questions, maximum. If you feel you need more than this, it may be indication that your main research question is not sufficiently specific. In this case, it’s is better to revisit your problem statement and try to tighten your main question up.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

The way you present your research problem in your introduction varies depending on the nature of your research paper . A research paper that presents a sustained argument will usually encapsulate this argument in a thesis statement .

A research paper designed to present the results of empirical research tends to present a research question that it seeks to answer. It may also include a hypothesis —a prediction that will be confirmed or disproved by your research.

As you cannot possibly read every source related to your topic, it’s important to evaluate sources to assess their relevance. Use preliminary evaluation to determine whether a source is worth examining in more depth.

This involves:

• Reading abstracts , prefaces, introductions , and conclusions
• Looking at the table of contents to determine the scope of the work
• Consulting the index for key terms or the names of important scholars

A research hypothesis is your proposed answer to your research question. The research hypothesis usually includes an explanation (“ x affects y because …”).

A statistical hypothesis, on the other hand, is a mathematical statement about a population parameter. Statistical hypotheses always come in pairs: the null and alternative hypotheses . In a well-designed study , the statistical hypotheses correspond logically to the research hypothesis.

Formulating a main research question can be a difficult task. Overall, your question should contribute to solving the problem that you have defined in your problem statement .

However, it should also fulfill criteria in three main areas:

• Researchability
• Feasibility and specificity
• Relevance and originality

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How to Craft a Strong Research Question (With Research Question Examples)

A sound and effective research question is a key element that must be identified and pinned down before researchers can even begin their research study or work. A strong research question lays the foundation for your entire study, guiding your investigation and shaping your findings. Hence, it is critical that researchers spend considerable time assessing and refining the research question based on in-depth reading and comprehensive literature review. In this article, we will discuss how to write a strong research question and provide you with some good examples of research questions across various disciplines.

Table of Contents

The importance of a research question

A research question plays a crucial role in driving scientific inquiry, setting the direction and purpose of your study, and guiding your entire research process. By formulating a clear and focused research question, you lay the foundation for your investigation, ensuring that your research remains on track and aligned with your objectives so you can make meaningful contribution to the existing body of knowledge. A well-crafted research question also helps you define the scope of your study and identify the appropriate methodologies and data collection techniques to employ.

Key components of a strong research question

A good research question possesses several key components that contribute to the quality and impact of your study. Apart from providing a clear framework to generate meaningful results, a well-defined research question allows other researchers to understand the purpose and significance of your work. So, when working on your research question, incorporate the following elements:

• Specificity : A strong research question should be specific about the main focus of your study, enabling you to gather precise data and draw accurate conclusions. It clearly defines the variables, participants, and context involved, leaving no room for ambiguity.
• Clarity : A good research question is clear and easily understood, so articulate the purpose and intent of your study concisely without being generic or vague. Ensuring clarity in your research question helps both you and your readers grasp the research objective.
• Feasibility : While crafting a research question, consider the practicality of conducting the research and availability of necessary data or access to participants. Think whether your study is realistic and achievable within the constraints of time, resources, and ethical considerations.

How to craft a well-defined research question

A first step that will help save time and effort is knowing what your aims are and thinking about a few problem statements on the area or aspect one wants to study or do research on. Contemplating these statements as one undertakes more progressive reading can help the researcher in reassessing and fine-tuning the research question. This can be done over time as they read and learn more about the research topic, along with a broad literature review and parallel discussions with peer researchers and supervisors. In some cases, a researcher can have more than one research question if the research being undertaken is a PhD thesis or dissertation, but try not to cover multiple concerns on a topic.

A strong research question must be researchable, original, complex, and relevant. Here are five simple steps that can make the entire process easier.

• Identify a broad topic from your areas of interest, something that is relevant, and you are passionate about since you’ll be spending a lot of time conducting your research.
• Do a thorough literature review to weed out potential gaps in research and stay updated on what’s currently being done in your chosen topic and subject area.
• Shortlist possible research questions based on the research gaps or see how you can build on or refute previously published ideas and concepts.
• Assess your chosen research question using the FINER criteria that helps you evaluate whether the research is Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical, and Relevant. 1
• Formulate the final research question, while ensuring it is clear, well-written, and addresses all the key elements of a strong research question.

Examples of research questions

Remember to adapt your research question to suit your purpose, whether it’s exploratory, descriptive, comparative, experimental, qualitative, or quantitative. Embrace the iterative nature of the research process, continually evaluating and refining your question as you progress. Here are some good examples of research questions across various disciplines.

Exploratory research question examples

• How does social media impact interpersonal relationships among teenagers?
• What are the potential benefits of incorporating mindfulness practices in the workplace?

Descriptive research question examples

• What factors influence customer loyalty in the e-commerce industry?
• Is there a relationship between socioeconomic status and academic performance among elementary school students?

Comparative research question examples

• How does the effectiveness of traditional teaching methods compare to online learning platforms in mathematics education?
• What is the impact of different healthcare policies on patient outcomes in various countries?

Experimental research question examples

• What are the effects of a new drug on reducing symptoms of a specific medical condition?
• Does a dietary intervention have an impact on weight loss among individuals with obesity?

Qualitative research question examples

• What are the lived experiences of immigrants adapting to a new culture?
• What factors influence job satisfaction among healthcare professionals?

Quantitative research question examples

• Is there a relationship between sleep duration and academic performance among college students?
• How effective is a specific intervention in reducing anxiety levels among individuals with phobias?

With these simple guidelines and inspiring examples of research questions, you are equipped to embark on your research journey with confidence and purpose. Here’s wishing you all the best for your future endeavors!

References:

• How to write a research question: Steps and examples. Indeed Career Guide. Available online at https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-research-questions

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What is a Research Gap? How to Identify it?

“ Choosing a topic, research or subject that has not been answered or explored yet by any other scientists is referred to as a research gap.” 

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find one! 

When you start reading literature, initially you may notice that nothing is left to study! That everyone feels, even me too when I was in my initial days of PhD. But when you get enough research experience, you can find gaps in research easily. 

“Every research is incomplete.”

Indeed, a research work completes when it states a gap or unexplored area with the final conclusion, so that future research will get direction. 

The process of research or doctorate starts (immediately after you get admission) by initiating searching a research gap which leads to postulating a research question. 

 A research question is your title or statement of thesis using which you will find your thesis objectives and address a particular question. It can be stated only by finding a research or literature gap. 

And as I said, it’s quite difficult for PhD students.  

So in this blog post, I will explain to you what a research or literature gap is and how you can identify it. 

How to appear in the PhD Interview?

What is a research or literature gap? 

Firstly, a research/ knowledge gap or literature gap is though different terms but has a similar meaning. The reason is that a research problem can be addressed either by experimental research and literature review. 

Definition: 

A research or literature gap is a problem or unexplored/ underexplored area of the existing research. 

Choosing a topic, research or subject that has not been answered or explored yet by any other scientist is referred to as a research gap. 

Let us start with an example;

Take a look at the hypothetical closing sentence.

“3 common mutations IVS1-5, IVS1-1 and CD8/9 have been selected for the present to screen thalassemia patients. A common mutation IVS1-5 has been identified in 2 out of 70 unrelated thalassemia patients using the conventional PCR technique.” 

Let’s say you want to do research on the Genetics of Thalassemia. Suppose this one is the closing paragraph of some research article and is a final conclusion. How can you find a research gap here? 

I find many gaps, Let us find out some of them;

• The sample size is too small. 
• There are 12 common mutations in beta-thalassemia which are present in almost 80% of cases. Only three are selected in the present study. 
• The present study is geologically restricted. 
• The author has used a single conventional PCR technique. More techniques like DNA sequencing can be used to address the same problem, which possibly provides more knowledge and can identify novel mutations as well. 
• The author hasn’t clarified which type of thalassemia patients they have included in the present study. 

These are some of the possible gaps in the present research. Let’s look at other closing statements for the same. 

“3 common mutations IVS1-5, IVS1-1 and CD8/9 have been selected for the present to screen thalassemia patients. A common mutation IVS1-5 has been identified in 2 out of 70 unrelated thalassemia patients using the conventional PCR technique. The present study can be strengthened by increasing sample size, diversifying geological studies, increasing the number of common mutations and using other techniques for thalassemia.”

“Major limitations of the present study are small sample size, number of mutations and technique selected for the study. 

All these closing statements posit the same type of research gaps. You can use these to prepare your thesis statement. Take a look at the one. 

“Identifying common Beta-thalassemia mutations by DNA sequencing from south India.”

Where to find a literature gap? 

Some research clearly indicates gaps in their studies whereas some don’t. And that’s why it’s difficult for students to discover one. Notedly, by looking into variables used in the study, gaps can be recognized.

• Samples- size, types, collection method, transportation conditions. 
• Research technique- single, two or multiple; significance, efficiency and accuracy of the techniques used. 
• Geological location and condition of the study conducted. 
• Objectives selected for the study.
• Data obtained and research discussions. 

You have to read tons of literature to actually determine possible gaps in the research. A research gap has been indicated in the conclusion section, final interpretation, future direction or suggestions part of a research paper. 

Besides, when you came across some phrases used in the literature such as, 

The present study has not been covered…..

………… excluded from the present study. 

………… is important to address in future research. 

…………. Techniques can be fruitful for future research. 

……………. have/has not been studied/ reported/ evaluated in the present study. 

Keep in mind that this indicates a gap, problem or scopes of improvement in the study. 

Read more: Which factors decide a PhD Salary?

How to find a research gap?

As I said, it’s not an easy process to find a problem or gap in the research, though by following some steps that I will mention here, you can find one and can go with it. 

Select a topic that you like and that motivates you: 

Research interest is important because you have to do the same work for at least 4 to 5 years. Research takes a tremendous amount of physical, mental, economical and intellectual effort. Meaning you have to select a topic that likely motivates you. You should not get tired of doing that! 

Find lucrative keywords to go ahead: 

You can’t go through the whole topic or subject, right! you have to select one or a few. Means, make things more narrow. Take a look at the process, I have explained with an example. 

Find a keyword that is relevant to the topic you like or are interested in and go ahead with it. 

Find relevant resources and literature: 

Now next in the process, type your keyword or group of keywords in the Google search box and try identifying literature, reviews and research associated with it. 

Find reviews, read them and try to find gaps in studies. Keep in mind that it will remain in your interest circle. 

Read peer-reviewed articles and find gaps in the research: 

Try to read every fresh research and review article around your topic, go through the technique and sample collection process used in each research and discover discordance or space there. 

You can make a comparative analysis table as well. Take a look at the table below, 

When you make a comparative analysis of a few studies you will get an idea about the research gap, gap in sample collection, scope to use other techniques, improvisation or new research areas to include in the study. 

Choosing one from many: 

When you complete the process, you may find many unanswered questions or research gaps (if you have done things in this manner) and you get stuck with many, which to choose and which to leave. 

For PhD, it’s important to weightage a research work accurately; not more, not less. An imbalance will create an unnecessary burden and create problems in the future. 

Henceforth, prioritizing and narrowing down the research gap is crucial. 

In this case, you can take your supervisor’s help. Postulate an amazing research question that would be suitable for PhD, as per your interest, under your budget and fulfill your supervisor’s need. 

Expected outcomes: 

This is confusing for you surely! 

You may wonder by only identifying a gap and postulating a research question, how can we expect anything as outcomes? 

Expected outcomes of the research have significant value and importance in the PhD, PhD research proposal and your final report. You or your guide has to explain the possible results of the study. 

It’s mandatory and will give you direction for research. Expected outcomes can be considered as a path on which you will have to walk. 

Take an example of the research question we just postulated, “Identifying common Beta-thalassemia mutations by DNA sequencing from south India.”

What will be the expected results? 

• You will get some common mutations. 
• You will probably get some new mutations or variations. 
• Or you will get nothing, which means, no mutations in any samples. 

In either case, you have definite outcomes, and your final results will be around it, perhaps. You will definitely not get any information regarding the globin protein because that’s not included in the study. 

Right! 

You are just doing mutational analysis and want to find some common mutations in the selected population. So what research gap you will identify will surely give some expected outcomes. 

Wrapping up: 

Research gap/ knowledge gap or literature gap all terms leads us to the same direction and help us to propose a research question. Although as we said, expected outcomes are also an important consideration to fill the gap. 

If you are new to PhD or just started this article is the best place for you to start, and will definitely assist you to find a mission piece of link in the research. 

I hope you like this article. Please do visit other articles on this blog. 

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Research Question Generator for Free

If you’re looking for the best research question generator, you’re in the right place. Get a list of ideas for your essay, research paper, or any other project with this online tool.

• 🎓 How to Use the Tool
• 🤔 What Is a Research Question?
• 😺 Research Question Examples
• 👣 Steps to Making a Research Question

📝 Research Question Maker: the Benefits

🔗 references, 🎓 research question generator: how to use it.

Research can’t be done without a clear purpose, an intention behind it.

This intention is usually reflected in a research question, which indicates how you approach your study topic.

If you’re unsure how to write a good research question or are new to this process, you’ll surely benefit from our free online tool. All you need is:

• Indicate your search term or title
• Stipulate the subject or academic area
• Press “Generate questions”
• Choose a suitable research question from the generated list.

As you can see, this is the best research question generator requiring minimal input for smart question formulation. Try it out to see how simple the process is.

🤔 Why Make an Inquiry Question?

A research question is a question that you formulate for your scientific inquiry . It is a question that sets the scope for your study and determines how you will approach the identified problem, gap, or issue.

Questions can be descriptive , meaning they aim to describe or measure a subject of the researcher's interest.

Otherwise, they can be exploratory , focusing on the under-researched areas and aiming to expand the existing research evidence on the topic.

If there's enough knowledge about the subject, and you want to dig deeper into the existing trends and relationships, you can also use an explanatory research question.

What Makes a Strong Research Question?

The strength of your formulated research question determines the quality of your research, whether it’s a short argumentative essay or an extensive research paper . So, you should review the quality of your question before conducting the full-scale study.

Its parameters of quality are as follows:

• Clarity . The question should be specific about the focus of your inquiry.
• Complexity . It should not be self-obvious or primitively answered with a “yes” or “no” variant.
• Focus . The question should match the size and type of your academic assignment.
• Conciseness . It should be brief and understandable.
• Debatability . There should be more than one potential answer to the question.

😺 Research Question Examples: Good & Not So Good

Here are some examples to illustrate what we mean by quality criteria and how you can ensure that your question meets them.

Lack of Clarity

The bad example is too general and does not clearly estimate what effect you want to analyze or what aspect of video gaming you're interested in. A much better variant is in the right column.

Look at some other research question examples that are clear enough:

• Sex trafficking: why do we have to address it?
• Palliative care: what constitutes the best technique for technicians communication with patients and families?
• How do vacuum cleaners work?
• What does it mean to age well?

Lack of Focus

The bad example is not focused, as it doesn’t specify what benefits you want to identify and in what context the uniform is approached. A more effective variant is in the right column.

Look at some other research question examples that are focused enough:

• How are biochemical conditions and brain activity linked to crime?
• World wars and national conflicts: what were the reasons?
• Why does crime exist in society?
• Decolonization in Canada: what does decolonization mean?

The bad example is too simplistic and doesn’t focus on the aspects of help that dogs can give to their owners. A more effective variant is in the right column.

Look at some other research question examples that are complex enough:

• How is resource scarcity impacting the chocolate industry?
• What should the Brazilian government do about reducing Amazon’s deforestation?
• Why is a collaborative approach vital during a pandemic?
• What impact has COVID-19 had on the economy?
• How to teach handwriting effectively?

Lack of Debatability

The problem of diabetes is well-known and doesn’t cause any doubts. So, you should add debatability to the discussed issue.

Look at some other research question examples that are debatable enough:

• Online vs. print journalism: what is more beneficial?
• Why will artificial intelligence not replace human in near future?
• What are the differences between art and design?
• Crime TV: how is criminality represented on television?

The question in the left column is too long and ambiguous, making the readers lose focus. You can shorten it without losing the essence.

Look at some other research question examples that are concise enough:

• What is the best way to address obesity in the US?
• Doctoral degree in nursing: why is it important?
• What are the benefits of X-rays in medicine?
• To what extent do emotions influence moral judgment?
• Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in England?

👣 Steps to Generate Research Questions

Now, it’s time to get down from science to practice. Here is a tried-and-tested algorithm for killer research question generation.

• Pick a topic . Once you get a writing assignment, it’s time to find an appropriate topic first . You can’t formulate a thesis statement or research question if you know nothing about your subject, so it's time to narrow your scope and find out as much as possible about the upcoming task.
• Research the topic . After you’re brainstormed several topic options, you should do some research. This stage takes the guesswork out of the academic process, allowing you to discover what scholars and other respected people think about your subject.
• Clarify who your audience is . Think about who will read your piece. Will it be the professor, your classmates, or the general audience consisting of laypersons? Ensure the research question sounds competent enough for a professor and understandable enough for laypeople.
• Approach the subject critically . With a well-articulated topic at hand, you should start asking the "why's" and "how's" about it. Look at the subject as a kid; don't limit your curiosity. You're sure to arrive at some interesting topics to reveal the hidden sides of the chosen issue.
• Evaluate the questions . Now that you have a couple of questions about your topic, evaluate them in terms of research value. Are all of them clear and focused? Will answering all of them take time and research, or is the answer already on the surface? By assessing each option you’ve formulated, you’re sure to choose one leader and use it as your main research question for the scientific study.

Thank you for reading this article! If you need to quickly formulate a thesis statement, consider using our free thesis maker .

❓ Research Questions Generator FAQ

Updated: Jul 19th, 2024

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Difference between research gap and research question

While writing a research proposal, I am confused about the difference between research gap and research question. What I understand is you can first identify the research gap and then move find research question in that gap. Is it correct?

Also, What are the central research question and sub-questions?

• terminology
• research-proposal

• In which field are you? –  Orion Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 7:34
• I am working on Object detection in remote sensing images so its computer science and Engineering –  Aadnan Farooq A Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 7:35
• 3 I think you're assuming more precision in these terms than they actually have. The phrase "research gap" sounds odd to my ears, but it might be used a gap in the world's knowledge, which might be resolved through (and is sufficiently interesting to deserve) research . The phrase "research question" is more familiar; it means a question whose answer is unknown to the world, but that might be answered through (and is sufficiently interesting to deserve) research . In short, these two phrases sound like synonyms to me. –  JeffE Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 11:49
• And how about central research question and sub- question –  Aadnan Farooq A Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 11:51
• Usually, the thing you want to show in your research has multiple "parts", for example, an algorithm to do A, an algorithm to do B, and a data structure that binds the algorithms together. The sub-questions should be phrased in such way that each part addresses one sub-question. The central research question is then answered by the combination of all parts. –  lighthouse keeper Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 12:19

Research gap, I understand it as a field, subfield, mechanism, that has been under-researched and there is space for improvement.

For example, object detection using telepathy might be under-research, so there is a gap in the research of that specific field.

The research question seem to refer to a more specific hypothesis, which in cases, it can coincide with the gap. For example, can telepathy work to detect an object, or can telepathy work under these or those conditions. In my understanding the first could also be a gap, the latter is more of a question.

Then the main question could be, "can telepathy work", while the subquestions could be, "can telepathy work also while you sleepwalk", "can it work if you are drunk", "can it work if you are tired".

Just to avoid misunderstanding, I'm not from your field and I can only guess what you plan to work on. The maybe humorous answer does not intend to make fun of anything (I hope it's clear, otherwise I'm willing to retract it).

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Genomes Without Borders: Bridging Gaps in Health Equity

Posted on Thursday, August 15, 2024

By Iris Martinez

Topic: Environment and social responsibility

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This May, New England Biolabs hosted Claudia Gonzaga-Jauregui, Ph.D. , to speak on precision health equity in Mexico and Latin America, a focus of hers alongside genomic variation, especially concerning rare diseases. Genomic testing lies at the center of this health equity, which began to evolve significantly after the development of next-generation sequencing technology in 2005. However, this development alone was not enough to kickstart the use of molecular diagnosis.

“Until 2008 or so, most of the personal genomes that had been sequenced to date […] were individuals that were rich or famous or important figures, like Craig Venter or James Watson,” Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui said in her seminar.

Then, in 2010, her Ph.D. advisor James Lupski and his co-authors published the first whole-genome sequencing (WGS) project to identify the molecular cause of a genetic disease . This proved that genetic diseases could be identified through WGS, which would allow for early intervention, access to personalized (precision) treatment and the development of public health policies. Instead of solely clinical diagnosis, which is reactive and treats already presenting symptoms, molecular diagnosis enables preventative, predictive care.

Unfortunately, genetic diagnosis through WGS is limited or absent in many countries, especially low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Many factors act as barriers to genomic diagnostics in LMICs, such as the high cost, low availability, limited healthcare coverage and a deficit in specialized professionals and laboratories. Adding to this is a lack of awareness, both of genomic diagnosis and of rare genetic diseases. On the occasions when sequencing is done, it is often sourced outside of Latin America, with clinicians not receiving the complete results. Paired with the historical underrepresentation of genetic data in regions outside of Europe and the US, this lack of current genomic data makes it difficult for public health professionals to identify the genetic variants in Latin American populations, complicating efforts to bridge the health equity gap experienced by LMICs. This is where Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui’s work comes in.

A cycle of lacking awareness, support, specialization, and availability lead to limited molecular diagnostic access in LMICs.

Molecular Diagnostics in Mexico

Currently, her work focuses on Mexico, such as with the Mexican Network for Rare Diseases (ReMexER) , founded in 2020 to connect clinicians and researchers working on rare diseases, all of whom recognize the difficulties of molecular diagnosis for patients in the country.

“We have a project on genomics of rare and undiagnosed diseases in Mexico, so we provide exome sequencing — trio exome sequencing, most of the time, so mom, dad and affected child — for patients with suspected genetic disorders that cannot pay [for] these tests clinically, or many times they are sent out to other countries to get clinical testing,” she said in NEB podcast Lessons from Lab & Life™ . “We offer free of charge, research-based exome sequencing for patients with genetic diseases to try precisely to enable that access [for] these patients that very clearly have genetic conditions but otherwise couldn’t afford to get genetic testing.”

Analysis and follow-ups are all done at the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH) in Mexico, where Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui works. So far, they have found variants in disease-associated mutations in about 30% of the screened patients. Of these patients, 30% have novel variants, mutations associated with genetic conditions but with unknown specific effects. This is not unexpected, considering the lack of diverse genomics studies, such as genome-wide association studies. As of the time of writing, over 93% of these studies had European ancestry, and only 0.38% represented Hispanic or Latin American ancestry .

Studies like the Mexico City Prospective Study (MCPS) contribute to increasing representation. Released in 2023, the MCPS is currently the largest non-European ancestry population study, collecting 141,046 exomes and 9,950 whole genomes in the Coyoacán and Iztapalapa districts. The study identified 142 million genomic variants, 1.4 million of which were unique to the MCPS cohort. Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui’s analyses of MCPS data have found that around 4.6% of the sequenced individuals carry a medically actionable variant.

“This is a resource for us to identify highly penetrant actionable variants in the Mexican population and also variants associated with other genetic conditions … This data has already been used by others to identify drug targets for diabetes and obesity and other conditions,” Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui said.

Among these other conditions is cancer — 112 variants were identified in the study that affect all but six of the 28 genes associated with medically actionable hereditary cancer. Of these, only 87 variants have been previously reported. Paired with the many unique variants found, this study highlights the importance of diverse, representative genomic research.

“We’re still finding new pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants that are unique to the dataset in Mexico City Prospective,” she said. “This correlates with an increased risk for breast, ovarian and colorectal cancer in the cohort, which is similar to what we see in the epidemiological data for cancer in Mexico.”

ReMexER highlights time until diagnosis and prevalence of rare diseases, most of which are genetic. Ancestry bias and unknown gene variants contribute to treatment difficulties.

Precision Health Outside of Mexico

Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui also works to raise awareness about precision health inequity both globally and in Latin America. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) implemented its Science Council, which held workshops on genomics and equity as their first theme, one of which Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregi participated in. This council released a report on supporting genomics public health access , recommending the promotion of genomics use, collaboration to promote national and regional programs and the promotion of ethical and equitable information sharing and standards.

Without region-specific programs, association markers are less transferable between populations, increasing disparity and reducing specificity for rare and actionable variants. Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui points to the 70 genes deemed medically actionable by the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG), last updated in 2021. Although these serve as a valuable baseline for population studies, gene variants and their frequencies vary across specific populations. This can be seen in populations outside of Latin America as well, such as the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Here, Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui notes a smaller range of variants but higher frequencies, with some variants present in up to 14% of the population — markedly higher than the 2% – 4% frequency estimated for other population studies, such as the UK Biobank.

“We cannot say, like, ‘Every [population] will have two percent, any population will have two percent,” she said. “It is really important to understand the sociodemographic history of the different populations to really assess the impact of this type of variation. So, each population will be unique, and their catalogue and frequencies of these variants will be also unique, which is the reason to do this type of study in other underrepresented populations.”

Additionally, Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui works on increasing awareness specifically for rare diseases. Part of this is the Collaborative for Rare Diseases in the Caribbean and Latin America (CEPCAL) . CEPCAL is a regional initiative operating through eight working groups, ranging from legislation to access to research networks. One of these groups encourages the development of molecular diagnostics reference centers in Latin America to spread out sequencing capacity throughout the region without being too fragmented. This allows for sequencing data to remain in the area so that it can contribute to public health for Latin American populations.

“We understand that it’s unrealistic to expect that each country in Latin America — that there will be 33 genome centers in the 33 different countries to do this type of analysis and large-scale sequencing,” she said.

Another group in CEPCAL centers education and outreach, which ReMexER also emphasizes. ReMexER hosts a symposium on International Rare Disease Day (Feb. 28) and offers training and education to fill the resource gap caused by the lack of information available in Spanish. CEPCAL also has a group focusing on the representation of vulnerable populations in Latin America.

“The Latin America and Caribbean region has a very high proportion of Indigenous populations, so, based on this prevalence, of the 50 million Indigenous people in the region, we estimate that about three to four million people will have a rare disease that are of Indigenous communities,” she said. “This is also relevant because these are generally populations or communities that are underserved. They have little access to healthcare and, many times, high impact of rare genetic conditions because of the sociodemographic history of these communities.”

It is no small task to improve the state of genomic testing availability in Mexico, let alone in Latin America as a whole, but Dr. Gonzaga-Jauregui is committed to contributing to the body of genomic research in Mexico. She believes in the power that genomics can have on health equity, which can be seen through her public engagement work and her encouragement of collaboration and understanding of internationally shared challenges.

“Human genomics has the potential to reduce the equity gap in different countries; however, it also has the potential to broaden it if we don’t, as a community — as a scientific community, as a society — make efforts in making genomics available to everyone.”

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Résumé gaps don't have to kill your job search — here's what to say about them

• Slowdowns in some industries mean it's taking longer for some workers to land new roles.
• The pandemic helped normalize résumé gaps, with many workers experiencing employment disruptions .
• Career experts advise explaining gaps briefly and then pivoting to relevant skills and strengths.

When Vicki Salemi's father got sick, she cut back on her work as a freelance writer to spend time with him.

After he eventually died in late 2012, she was devastated.

"He was my best friend," Salemi told Business Insider.

As she tried to recover, she faced another problem: There was a hole in her résumé that made clear she hadn't been working for a while.

So Salemi, now a career expert for Monster, added a line to her CV to show that the monthslong gap existed for good reason. She didn't want anyone to wonder what she'd been up to — or question it and risk derailing her momentum in an interview she might otherwise be crushing.

"I didn't want to get asked about it because I was knee-deep in grief," she said.

Salemi isn't alone in having a résumé where the end of one job doesn't align neatly with the start of the next. Between layoffs , gig work, and the economic and social quagmire of the pandemic, many workers have blank spots in their formal work history . But that doesn't have to be a dealbreaker when it comes to finding another role .

The pandemic poked holes in work

The trick to dealing with résumé gaps is to have an explanation, career experts told BI. Sometimes, it's best to put the reason on the résumé itself, Salemi said. One bright spot for her after her father died was that she ultimately got the job.

"I remember when I had that phone interview with my future boss, she was like, 'Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that,'" Salemi said. "She just addressed it, acknowledged it, and then moved right on."

Julia Toothacre, chief career strategist at ResumeTemplates.com , told BI that her advice on résumé gaps is far different from what she would have said a decade ago. Breaks in work experience are often just a thing now and don't necessarily have to be papered over.

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That's because the pandemic threw so many people out of work and disrupted so much about the labor force that everything got a bit messy. In her experience, Toothacre said, most people doing the hiring are more sympathetic to the vagaries of the job market now.

"Any recruiter or hiring manager worth anything understands what's been going on in the world of work. It does not matter what sector you're in," she said.

It's OK to say you were laid off

Toothacre said that, unlike in the past, it's generally not as detrimental to be up front about a work drought on a résumé. That doesn't mean some people in charge of hiring won't ding applicants for it. But she said that itself can be a useful red flag for job seekers.

"If that's a situation that you're in, you don't want to work for that person anyway," Toothacre said.

She recommends that if you were laid off, note that on your résumé. Or, she said, you could add a section that talks about being off work for personal reasons like having to care for someone.

Depending on the grounds for the break, it can be wise to be somewhat circumspect, she said. If you were off because of a protracted illness, it might be smart not to go too deep into it. Even though employers shouldn't discriminate against people for, say, having young kids who need attention, it can happen.

Yet Toothacre said the decision by LinkedIn to let users add a career break to their profile has helped normalize the idea that not all formal work unfolds without interruption.

Salemi, from Monster, said in her experience more job seekers have gaps than don't. And many people tend to overthink how to address them, she said. Her advice is to be prepared to talk about the breaks — and use that explanation to move the conversation forward.

Even for workers who were fired, they could say something like, "I was the last one in, first one out," Salemi said. Then comes the pivot. One example she offered: "But the past three months really gave me clarity for this job I'm pursuing because my strengths are in sales," she said.

Don't dwell on the gap

Salemi said the key is to address the hiatus so an interviewer doesn't get stuck on it. For those who might have done something like get additional education, build their skills, or work on a side hustle, it can be OK or even beneficial to talk about it, she said.

There are other ways job seekers can downplay fallow spots in their formal work history. One is to perhaps not list start dates and end dates using months. Instead, Salemi said, consider using only years.

Another technique is to position the skills up top instead of first listing work history in reverse chronological order. That can help a busy recruiter focus on what's most important, Lee Woodrow, owner and principal consultant at Bigger Fish Executive Branding, previously told BI.

Salemi said it's no surprise that having too many gaps can be a problem. But for most breaks, explain it and move on. If possible, do it in a single sentence with two parts. The first portion is why the gap exists, and the second is why you're the best person for the job, she said.

"Especially if you're a top candidate, it's not necessarily a liability for you," Salemi said.

Do you have something to share about what you're seeing in your job search or in the workplace? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

Watch: How tech layoffs could affect the economy

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Research Aims, Objectives & Questions

The “Golden Thread” Explained Simply (+ Examples)

By: David Phair (PhD) and Alexandra Shaeffer (PhD) | June 2022

The research aims , objectives and research questions (collectively called the “golden thread”) are arguably the most important thing you need to get right when you’re crafting a research proposal , dissertation or thesis . We receive questions almost every day about this “holy trinity” of research and there’s certainly a lot of confusion out there, so we’ve crafted this post to help you navigate your way through the fog.

Overview: The Golden Thread

• What is the golden thread
• What are research aims ( examples )
• What are research objectives ( examples )
• What are research questions ( examples )
• The importance of alignment in the golden thread

What is the “golden thread”?  

The golden thread simply refers to the collective research aims , research objectives , and research questions for any given project (i.e., a dissertation, thesis, or research paper ). These three elements are bundled together because it’s extremely important that they align with each other, and that the entire research project aligns with them.

Importantly, the golden thread needs to weave its way through the entirety of any research project , from start to end. In other words, it needs to be very clearly defined right at the beginning of the project (the topic ideation and proposal stage) and it needs to inform almost every decision throughout the rest of the project. For example, your research design and methodology will be heavily influenced by the golden thread (we’ll explain this in more detail later), as well as your literature review.

The research aims, objectives and research questions (the golden thread) define the focus and scope ( the delimitations ) of your research project. In other words, they help ringfence your dissertation or thesis to a relatively narrow domain, so that you can “go deep” and really dig into a specific problem or opportunity. They also help keep you on track , as they act as a litmus test for relevance. In other words, if you’re ever unsure whether to include something in your document, simply ask yourself the question, “does this contribute toward my research aims, objectives or questions?”. If it doesn’t, chances are you can drop it.

Alright, enough of the fluffy, conceptual stuff. Let’s get down to business and look at what exactly the research aims, objectives and questions are and outline a few examples to bring these concepts to life.

Research Aims: What are they?

Simply put, the research aim(s) is a statement that reflects the broad overarching goal (s) of the research project. Research aims are fairly high-level (low resolution) as they outline the general direction of the research and what it’s trying to achieve .

Research Aims: Examples  

True to the name, research aims usually start with the wording “this research aims to…”, “this research seeks to…”, and so on. For example:

“This research aims to explore employee experiences of digital transformation in retail HR.”   “This study sets out to assess the interaction between student support and self-care on well-being in engineering graduate students”  

As you can see, these research aims provide a high-level description of what the study is about and what it seeks to achieve. They’re not hyper-specific or action-oriented, but they’re clear about what the study’s focus is and what is being investigated.

Need a helping hand?

Research Objectives: What are they?

The research objectives take the research aims and make them more practical and actionable . In other words, the research objectives showcase the steps that the researcher will take to achieve the research aims.

The research objectives need to be far more specific (higher resolution) and actionable than the research aims. In fact, it’s always a good idea to craft your research objectives using the “SMART” criteria. In other words, they should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound”.

Research Objectives: Examples  

Let’s look at two examples of research objectives. We’ll stick with the topic and research aims we mentioned previously.  

For the digital transformation topic:

To observe the retail HR employees throughout the digital transformation. To assess employee perceptions of digital transformation in retail HR. To identify the barriers and facilitators of digital transformation in retail HR.

And for the student wellness topic:

To determine whether student self-care predicts the well-being score of engineering graduate students. To determine whether student support predicts the well-being score of engineering students. To assess the interaction between student self-care and student support when predicting well-being in engineering graduate students.

  As you can see, these research objectives clearly align with the previously mentioned research aims and effectively translate the low-resolution aims into (comparatively) higher-resolution objectives and action points . They give the research project a clear focus and present something that resembles a research-based “to-do” list.

Research Questions: What are they?

Finally, we arrive at the all-important research questions. The research questions are, as the name suggests, the key questions that your study will seek to answer . Simply put, they are the core purpose of your dissertation, thesis, or research project. You’ll present them at the beginning of your document (either in the introduction chapter or literature review chapter) and you’ll answer them at the end of your document (typically in the discussion and conclusion chapters).  

The research questions will be the driving force throughout the research process. For example, in the literature review chapter, you’ll assess the relevance of any given resource based on whether it helps you move towards answering your research questions. Similarly, your methodology and research design will be heavily influenced by the nature of your research questions. For instance, research questions that are exploratory in nature will usually make use of a qualitative approach, whereas questions that relate to measurement or relationship testing will make use of a quantitative approach.  

Let’s look at some examples of research questions to make this more tangible.

Research Questions: Examples  

Again, we’ll stick with the research aims and research objectives we mentioned previously.  

For the digital transformation topic (which would be qualitative in nature):

How do employees perceive digital transformation in retail HR? What are the barriers and facilitators of digital transformation in retail HR?  

And for the student wellness topic (which would be quantitative in nature):

Does student self-care predict the well-being scores of engineering graduate students? Does student support predict the well-being scores of engineering students? Do student self-care and student support interact when predicting well-being in engineering graduate students?  

You’ll probably notice that there’s quite a formulaic approach to this. In other words, the research questions are basically the research objectives “converted” into question format. While that is true most of the time, it’s not always the case. For example, the first research objective for the digital transformation topic was more or less a step on the path toward the other objectives, and as such, it didn’t warrant its own research question.  

So, don’t rush your research questions and sloppily reword your objectives as questions. Carefully think about what exactly you’re trying to achieve (i.e. your research aim) and the objectives you’ve set out, then craft a set of well-aligned research questions . Also, keep in mind that this can be a somewhat iterative process , where you go back and tweak research objectives and aims to ensure tight alignment throughout the golden thread.

The importance of strong alignment 

Alignment is the keyword here and we have to stress its importance . Simply put, you need to make sure that there is a very tight alignment between all three pieces of the golden thread. If your research aims and research questions don’t align, for example, your project will be pulling in different directions and will lack focus . This is a common problem students face and can cause many headaches (and tears), so be warned.

Take the time to carefully craft your research aims, objectives and research questions before you run off down the research path. Ideally, get your research supervisor/advisor to review and comment on your golden thread before you invest significant time into your project, and certainly before you start collecting data .  

Recap: The golden thread

In this post, we unpacked the golden thread of research, consisting of the research aims , research objectives and research questions . You can jump back to any section using the links below.

As always, feel free to leave a comment below – we always love to hear from you. Also, if you’re interested in 1-on-1 support, take a look at our private coaching service here.

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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 ...

40 Comments

Thank you very much for your great effort put. As an Undergraduate taking Demographic Research & Methodology, I’ve been trying so hard to understand clearly what is a Research Question, Research Aim and the Objectives in a research and the relationship between them etc. But as for now I’m thankful that you’ve solved my problem.

Well appreciated. This has helped me greatly in doing my dissertation.

An so delighted with this wonderful information thank you a lot.

so impressive i have benefited a lot looking forward to learn more on research.

I am very happy to have carefully gone through this well researched article.

Infact,I used to be phobia about anything research, because of my poor understanding of the concepts.

Now,I get to know that my research question is the same as my research objective(s) rephrased in question format.

I please I would need a follow up on the subject,as I intends to join the team of researchers. Thanks once again.

Thanks so much. This was really helpful.

I know you pepole have tried to break things into more understandable and easy format. And God bless you. Keep it up

i found this document so useful towards my study in research methods. thanks so much.

This is my 2nd read topic in your course and I should commend the simplified explanations of each part. I’m beginning to understand and absorb the use of each part of a dissertation/thesis. I’ll keep on reading your free course and might be able to avail the training course! Kudos!

Thank you! Better put that my lecture and helped to easily understand the basics which I feel often get brushed over when beginning dissertation work.

This is quite helpful. I like how the Golden thread has been explained and the needed alignment.

This is quite helpful. I really appreciate!

The article made it simple for researcher students to differentiate between three concepts.

Very innovative and educational in approach to conducting research.

I am very impressed with all these terminology, as I am a fresh student for post graduate, I am highly guided and I promised to continue making consultation when the need arise. Thanks a lot.

A very helpful piece. thanks, I really appreciate it .

Very well explained, and it might be helpful to many people like me.

Wish i had found this (and other) resource(s) at the beginning of my PhD journey… not in my writing up year… 😩 Anyways… just a quick question as i’m having some issues ordering my “golden thread”…. does it matter in what order you mention them? i.e., is it always first aims, then objectives, and finally the questions? or can you first mention the research questions and then the aims and objectives?

Thank you for a very simple explanation that builds upon the concepts in a very logical manner. Just prior to this, I read the research hypothesis article, which was equally very good. This met my primary objective.

My secondary objective was to understand the difference between research questions and research hypothesis, and in which context to use which one. However, I am still not clear on this. Can you kindly please guide?

In research, a research question is a clear and specific inquiry that the researcher wants to answer, while a research hypothesis is a tentative statement or prediction about the relationship between variables or the expected outcome of the study. Research questions are broader and guide the overall study, while hypotheses are specific and testable statements used in quantitative research. Research questions identify the problem, while hypotheses provide a focus for testing in the study.

Exactly what I need in this research journey, I look forward to more of your coaching videos.

This helped a lot. Thanks so much for the effort put into explaining it.

What data source in writing dissertation/Thesis requires?

What is data source covers when writing dessertation/thesis

This is quite useful thanks

I’m excited and thankful. I got so much value which will help me progress in my thesis.

where are the locations of the reserch statement, research objective and research question in a reserach paper? Can you write an ouline that defines their places in the researh paper?

Very helpful and important tips on Aims, Objectives and Questions.

Thank you so much for making research aim, research objectives and research question so clear. This will be helpful to me as i continue with my thesis.

Thanks much for this content. I learned a lot. And I am inspired to learn more. I am still struggling with my preparation for dissertation outline/proposal. But I consistently follow contents and tutorials and the new FB of GRAD Coach. Hope to really become confident in writing my dissertation and successfully defend it.

As a researcher and lecturer, I find splitting research goals into research aims, objectives, and questions is unnecessarily bureaucratic and confusing for students. For most biomedical research projects, including ‘real research’, 1-3 research questions will suffice (numbers may differ by discipline).

Awesome! Very important resources and presented in an informative way to easily understand the golden thread. Indeed, thank you so much.

Well explained

The blog article on research aims, objectives, and questions by Grad Coach is a clear and insightful guide that aligns with my experiences in academic research. The article effectively breaks down the often complex concepts of research aims and objectives, providing a straightforward and accessible explanation. Drawing from my own research endeavors, I appreciate the practical tips offered, such as the need for specificity and clarity when formulating research questions. The article serves as a valuable resource for students and researchers, offering a concise roadmap for crafting well-defined research goals and objectives. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced researcher, this article provides practical insights that contribute to the foundational aspects of a successful research endeavor.

A great thanks for you. it is really amazing explanation. I grasp a lot and one step up to research knowledge.

I really found these tips helpful. Thank you very much Grad Coach.

I found this article helpful. Thanks for sharing this.

thank you so much, the explanation and examples are really helpful

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The Myth of Female Unelectability

Today’s voters do not systematically discriminate against female candidates.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Updated at 11:37 a.m. ET on August 13, 2024

Perhaps nothing has been more damaging to women running for office than the idea that voters simply won’t pick female candidates. There’s just one problem: It isn’t true.

After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, many people, including some of her top staffers and the unsuccessful Democratic nominee herself , concluded that she had been penalized for her gender . Even two years after the election, Jennifer Palmieri, her former communications director, argued that “I think that a man would have survived” the barriers Clinton faced, such as the scandal over her emails. Clinton continues to push this idea, saying as recently as May that some voters—women voters—had held her to an impossible standard and taken a chance on Donald Trump because he’s a man.

As the 2020 Democratic presidential-primary race took shape, many in the party were apprehensive about nominating a woman. Neera Tanden, then the president of the Center for American Progress and now President Joe Biden’s Domestic Policy Council director, worried that “there’s a fear that if misogyny beat Clinton, it can beat other women.” Several female candidates, including Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, competed for the nomination. When they lost, concerns about the power of sexism became even more entrenched .

But was the anxiety warranted? And is Harris, now the Democratic nominee, doomed to follow in Clinton’s footsteps? Although isolating the impact of gender is difficult—we’ll never know whether a Henry Clinton would have outperformed Hillary Clinton in 2016—existing research indicates that today’s voters do not systematically discriminate against women at the polls.

This isn’t to say that voters treat men and women the same when they run for office. Gender stereotypes abound, and women face attacks that men never would. And, of course, no woman has ever been elected president in the United States. But the research keeps getting clearer: Women can—and do—win. In large part, women win because even if voters hold sexist views, they also hold other views—on economic policy, abortion, immigration, and more. As the distance between the parties has grown on these issues, the cost of allowing sexism to turn you against your party’s nominee has also grown. Finally, a win for political polarization!

Many conversations about sexism and women in politics fail to distinguish between two questions: First, do women experience gender-based attacks when they run for office? And second, does being a woman make a candidate less likely to win an election?

The answer to the first is clearly yes. “It would be ridiculous and foolish to suggest that women don’t receive different attacks,” the Yale University political scientist Alexander Coppock told me. But, he added, “you have to hold that in your mind alongside the idea that every candidate—man, woman, nonbinary—[will be] attacked, and the precise content of that is going to vary depending on the opponent and the candidate themselves.”

People weren’t hallucinating gendered attacks on Clinton. Trump’s supporters really did wear shirts calling her a bitch . And just a brief perusal of X, TikTok, and other social-media platforms in the days following Harris’s entry into the current presidential race revealed abhorrent gender-based attacks on her too.

Historically, women did face an electoral penalty. Several studies found that, half a century ago, men tended to outpoll women in a number of Western democracies.

Adam Serwer: The racist, sexist attacks against Kamala Harris

Yet the penalty has disappeared. When Coppock and the political scientist Susanne Schwarz reviewed more recent research on voter attitudes toward women candidates, they found that the empirical evidence of voter bias was “surprisingly thin.” In 2022, Schwarz and Coppock published the results of their meta-analysis of 67 experiments from all over the world in which researchers asked survey respondents to choose among hypothetical candidates with varied demographic profiles. Schwarz and Coppock concluded that the average effect of being a woman is not a loss; rather, it’s a gain of approximately two percentage points.

Their conclusion wasn’t unusual. When Schwarz and Coppock looked closer at studies that also failed to find voters punishing female candidates, they realized that, time and again, the original researchers had been taken aback by their own findings, even as their field was zeroing in on a consensus.

To be sure, the recent literature doesn’t show that voters treat male and female candidates identically. As the political scientists Sarah Anzia and Rachel Bernhard wrote in a 2022 paper , “Some voters infer that women candidates are more liberal than men, more compassionate and collaborative, and more competent on certain issues like education.” Anzia and Bernhard’s paper reviewed local-election results and concluded that, on average, women have an advantage over men in city-council elections, but that this advantage declines in mayoral races. Male and female mayoral candidates win at essentially the same rates; however, when the authors compared candidates with similar levels of experience, men pulled ahead, a finding replicated in other studies.

Anzia and Bernhard also found that the more Republicans within a constituency, the greater the disadvantage to women. Schwarz and Coppock identified a similar effect. But are Republicans discriminating against women because they are women, or because they correctly intuit that, on average, women are more liberal than men? Interestingly, this dynamic may be strongest in downballot races—which are more likely to be nonpartisan and may receive little rigorous news coverage. The effects of stereotyping, Anzia and Bernhard wrote, “are largest in elections when voters tend to know less about local candidates.”

Harris, by skipping the traditional primary process in 2024, avoided one lingering way voters may punish female candidates at the ballot box. In a paper about “pragmatic bias” in the 2020 Democratic presidential-primary season, the sociologist Christianne Corbett, now at the University of Arkansas, and three colleagues surveyed likely Democratic-primary voters and found that respondents indeed expected that then-candidates Harris and Warren would have more difficulty beating Trump than Biden or Bernie Sanders would. The researchers found evidence that some voters who labeled Harris or Warren as their favorite candidate nevertheless said that they intended to vote for Biden or Sanders, at least in part because they thought a female candidate was unelectable.

But Corbett told me she can’t see how this would affect Harris in the general election. “The two candidates are so different,” she said. Party identification, she predicted, will overcome pragmatic bias. Although primary voters might reasonably conclude that Warren and Sanders would support most of the same policies if elected, few voters who support Harris’s positions would see Trump as an acceptable substitute.

Read: How Harris can tackle the Clinton factor

The political-science literature has some limits. Many of the most applicable studies that best control for the effect of gender in elections ask voters about hypothetical candidates. Until now, the sample size for real-life American major-party female presidential nominees was … one. The boundary between fair and unfair scrutiny of specific female candidates is difficult to define. For instance, one recent Time article saw evidence of sexism in criticism of Amy Klobuchar’s treatment of her aides and of Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry. But doubts about a candidate’s judgment are a legitimate reason not to like her.

And worries about Harris’s electability hinge on not just her gender but also her identity as a Black and South Asian woman. Here, too, research should reassure her supporters. A 2022 meta-analysis of 43 candidate experiments from the preceding decade could “not find any evidence for voter discrimination against racial/ethnic minority candidates.” Rather, underrepresentation of groups in elected office likely comes from “supply-side effects”—disadvantages crop up against racial and ethnic minorities before they ever run for office.

Yes, some voters may be sexist, racist, or both. But that doesn’t mean they won’t vote for Harris. You can be sexist and racist but still prefer her party and her platform to her opponent’s.

Although women make up slightly more than half of the population, the 118th Congress, convened in January 2023, was 72 percent male . That’s still a problem, but it isn’t voters’ fault. The research on women’s electability focuses on a very specific question: Do voters penalize women for their gender when they run for office? But even if they don’t, other parts of the electoral process clearly do. Women themselves don’t run for office at the rates of men. When they do run, they may face barriers behind the scenes from donors who discriminate against women—or even just plain incumbency advantages that lock in longtime elected officials, who are more likely to be male. The political scientist Jennifer Lawless has described a large pipeline issue for women—men are more likely to say they want to run for office and be encouraged to run for office, and are more likely to perceive themselves as qualified for the job.

From the July/August 2012 issue: Why women still can’t have it all

Harris has already cleared all of these hurdles, and she appears to be doing her best to inoculate herself against attacks that she is too liberal, one way that voters may penalize female candidates. Already, she is seeking to moderate her image by promising to sign border legislation and breaking with past views about fracking .

But although the Democratic nominee and her team see a path to victory, they still seem to believe that being a woman is an electoral liability. Harris’s running-mate shortlist included only white men . Two talented midwestern electoral overperformers—Klobuchar and Gretchen Whitmer—didn’t make it.

The irony is that the most consequential gender-based critiques that women candidates face aren’t coming from sexists and bigots. They’re coming from many people who desperately want to see a female candidate elected.

In other words, stop telling voters a woman can’t win. They might start to believe you.

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Researchers urge inclusion of marginalized groups to bridge bulimia nervosa treatment gaps

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In a recent review article published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology , researchers Kim Wilson and Robert Kagabo at the College of Health Sciences, Utah Tech University, discussed the disparities in bulimia nervosa (BN) treatment, highlighting significant exclusions in clinical research.

Their conclusions emphasize the need for more inclusive research that addresses the treatment needs of older adults, males, LGBTQ individuals, and racial minorities to improve BN treatment outcomes across diverse populations.

The review identified critical gaps in current research, particularly the exclusion of individuals with severe mental illness, substance use disorders, and those in inpatient settings. The study calls for these groups to be included in future research to ensure effective treatment approaches across all populations affected by BN.

The onset of bulimia nervosa typically occurs during adolescence, particularly between the ages of 13 and 20.

BN is a serious eating disorder that typically begins in adolescence or early adulthood and is marked by episodes of binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors like vomiting, laxative misuse, or excessive exercise.

Although BN can occur at any age, with a median onset age of 12.4 years, it affects a significant number of people, with prevalence rates varying by gender. Unfortunately, most individuals with BN do not seek timely treatment, which can lead to severe health complications, including an increased risk of suicide and other medical issues related to purging behaviors.

About the study

In this review, researchers explored treatment disparities in BN, particularly focusing on how differences in race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and mental health affect access to and outcomes of treatment across diverse settings.

The review followed a narrative overview approach to analyze randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on BN treatment published between 2010 and 2021. Researchers searched medical databases using specific terms related to BN treatment and diagnosis, ultimately selecting 17 studies that met the inclusion criteria.

These studies primarily involved female participants aged 18-60, with most being white. The review highlighted that participants under 18 and over 60, as well as non-white populations, were underrepresented. The reviewed interventions included pharmacological treatments and various psychosocial therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and mindfulness-based therapies.

Most of the studies were conducted in outpatient settings, focusing on the effectiveness of different treatments and their outcomes in managing BN.

Behavioral treatments for BN

Behavioral treatments for BN include a range of interventions, with BNT being the most commonly used and effective method. CBT is particularly effective in restructuring cognitive distortions related to body image, weight, and self-esteem, thereby reducing binge eating and purging behaviors.

Other behavioral therapies include DBT, family-based therapy (FBT), and emerging approaches like virtual reality (VR) therapy and mindfulness and acceptance-based therapy (MABT). FBT, while generally effective, has shown particular promise in treating adolescents with BN.

While CBT is widely preferred, studies have found that alternative treatments like physical exercise combined with dietary therapy (PED-t) can be equally effective, especially in reducing depression and BN symptoms. For instance, PED-t has been shown to perform comparably to CBT in improving psychosocial outcomes and reducing binge eating, making it a viable alternative when CBT is not feasible.

Some innovative approaches, such as the Identity Intervention Program (IIP) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), have also been explored, although with mixed results. Notably, IIP has demonstrated an increase in positive self-schemas, though further research is needed to establish its long-term efficacy .

While CBT remains the gold standard, other methods, including guided self-help (GSH) and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), offer promising alternatives, particularly when CBT is not feasible or sufficient on its own.

Pharmacological treatments for BN

Pharmacological treatments for BN are often used when patients have additional mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. More than 50% of those with BN also experience major depressive episodes.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed to reduce the frequency of binge eating and purging, particularly for those who do not respond well to therapy alone. However, Bupropion is not recommended as it has been associated with an increased risk of seizures. Furthermore, stimulant medications are typically discontinued until purging behaviors have ceased due to the associated risks.

While behavioral therapies like FBT and CBT can improve self-esteem and mood, they may not be sufficient on their own, making pharmacological interventions a helpful addition, especially for adolescents with BN and comorbid mood disorders.

Common complications include dental erosion, depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

Treatment gaps

The study highlighted several gaps in the treatment of BN. A significant gap was the underrepresentation of individuals under 12, over 60, and those with severe mental illness in the reviewed studies. Most research focuses on adults aged 18-60, leaving limited information on those under 12, over 60, and adolescents. Only three of the 17 included studies included participants aged 12-18, despite evidence that BN affects younger and older individuals.

Additionally, males, non-White populations, LGBTQ individuals, and other minority groups are often underrepresented in studies, even though these groups also experience BN. Furthermore, individuals in inpatient settings are frequently excluded, limiting the applicability of outpatient-focused research findings. The review also pointed out that individuals who experience severe mental illness or substance use disorders and those in inpatient settings are frequently excluded from research. This exclusion creates a significant gap in understanding how these groups might respond to various treatments.

Furthermore, while most treatments reviewed were behavioral, there is a need for more studies on the effectiveness of psychotropic and holistic medicines, either alone or combined with behavioral therapies.

Conclusions

The study concludes that while treatments for BN exist, research often excludes certain groups, such as males, older adults, LGBTQ individuals, and individuals from racial and other minorities. This exclusion contributes to significant treatment-related disparities in BN care.  To address these issues, practitioners and researchers should include these marginalized and vulnerable populations in both treatment and research to ensure more equitable care for everyone with BN.

• Bulimia nervosa and treatment-related disparities: a review. Wilson, K., Kagabo, R. Frontiers in Psychology (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1386347, https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1386347/full

Posted in: Child Health News | Men's Health News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News | Women's Health News

Tags: Adolescents , Anxiety , Bulimia Nervosa , Bupropion , Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , Dental Erosion , Depression , Eating Disorder , Efficacy , Exercise , Frequency , Laxative , Mental Health , Psychology , Research , Serotonin , Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation , Virtual Reality , Vomiting

Priyanjana Pramanik

Priyanjana Pramanik is a writer based in Kolkata, India, with an academic background in Wildlife Biology and economics. She has experience in teaching, science writing, and mangrove ecology. Priyanjana holds Masters in Wildlife Biology and Conservation (National Centre of Biological Sciences, 2022) and Economics (Tufts University, 2018). In between master's degrees, she was a researcher in the field of public health policy, focusing on improving maternal and child health outcomes in South Asia. She is passionate about science communication and enabling biodiversity to thrive alongside people. The fieldwork for her second master's was in the mangrove forests of Eastern India, where she studied the complex relationships between humans, mangrove fauna, and seedling growth.

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Pramanik, Priyanjana. (2024, August 16). Researchers urge inclusion of marginalized groups to bridge bulimia nervosa treatment gaps. News-Medical. Retrieved on August 18, 2024 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240816/Researchers-urge-inclusion-of-marginalized-groups-to-bridge-bulimia-nervosa-treatment-gaps.aspx.

Pramanik, Priyanjana. "Researchers urge inclusion of marginalized groups to bridge bulimia nervosa treatment gaps". News-Medical . 18 August 2024. <https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240816/Researchers-urge-inclusion-of-marginalized-groups-to-bridge-bulimia-nervosa-treatment-gaps.aspx>.

Pramanik, Priyanjana. "Researchers urge inclusion of marginalized groups to bridge bulimia nervosa treatment gaps". News-Medical. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240816/Researchers-urge-inclusion-of-marginalized-groups-to-bridge-bulimia-nervosa-treatment-gaps.aspx. (accessed August 18, 2024).

Pramanik, Priyanjana. 2024. Researchers urge inclusion of marginalized groups to bridge bulimia nervosa treatment gaps . News-Medical, viewed 18 August 2024, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240816/Researchers-urge-inclusion-of-marginalized-groups-to-bridge-bulimia-nervosa-treatment-gaps.aspx.

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