Things we are aware of and understand.
It is possible that authors did not identify, want to identify, or acknowledge potential limitations or were unaware of what limitations existed. Cumulative complexity is the result of the presence of multiple limitations because of the accumulation and interaction of limitations and their components. Just mentioning a limitation category and not the specific parts that are the limitation(s) is not enough. Authors telling readers of their known research limitations is a caution to discount the findings and conclusions. At what point does the caution for each limitation, its ramifications, and consequences become a warning? When does the piling up of mistakes, bad and missing data, biases, small sample size, lack of generalizability, confounding factors, etc., reach a point when the findings become s uninterpretable and meaningless? “Caution” indicates a level of potential hazard; a warning is more dire and consequential. Authors use the word “caution” not “warning” to describe their conclusions. There is a point when the number of limitations and their cumulative effects surpasses the point where a caution statement is no longer applicable, and a warning statement is required. This is the reason for establishing a limitations risk score.
Limitations put medical research articles at risk. The accumulation of limitations (variables having additional limitation components) are gaps and flaws diluting the probability of validity. There is currently no assessment method for evaluating the effect(s) of limitations on research outcomes other than awareness that there is an effect. Authors make statements warning that their results may not be reliable or generalizable, and need more research and larger numbers. Just because the weight effect of any given limitation is not known, explained, or how it discounts findings does not negate a causation effect on data, its analysis, and conclusions. Limitation variables and the ramifications of their effects have consequences. The relationship is not zero effect and accumulates with each added limitation.
As a result of this research, a limitation index score (LIS) system and assessment tool were developed. This limitation risk assessment tool gives a scores assessment of the relative validity of conclusions in a medical article having limitations. The adoption of the LIS scoring assessment tool for authors, researchers, editors, reviewers, and readers is a step toward understanding the effects of limitations and their causal relationships to findings and conclusions. The objective is cleaner, tighter methodologies, and better data assessment, to achieve more reliable findings. Adjustments to research conclusions in the presence of limitations are necessary. The degree of modification depends on context. The cumulative effect of this burden must be acknowledged by a tangible reduction and questioning of the legitimacy of statements made under these circumstances. The description calculating the LIS score is detailed in Appendix 1 .
A limitation word or phrase is not one limitation; it is a group of limitations under the heading of that word or phrase having many additional possible components just as an individual named influence. For instance, when an admission of selection bias is noted, the authors do not explain if it was an exclusion criterion, self-selection, nonresponsiveness, lost to follow-up, recruitment error, how it affects external validity, lack of randomization, etc., or any of the least 263 types of known biases causing systematic distortions of the truth whether unintentional or wanton. 40 , 76 Which forms of selection bias are they identifying? 63 Limitations have branches that introduce additional limitations influencing the study’s ability to reach a useful conclusion. Authors rarely tell you the effect consequences and extent limitations have on their study, findings, and conclusions.
This is a sample of limitations and a few of their component variables under the rubric of a single word or phrase. See Table 3 .
A Limitation Word or Phrase is a Limitation Having Additional Components That Are Additional Limitations. When an Author Uses the Limitation Composite Word or Phrase, They Leave out Which One of Its Components is Contributory to the Research Limitations. Each Limitation Interacts with Other Limitations, Creating a Cluster of Cross Complexities of Data, Findings, and Conclusions That Are Tainted and Negatively Affect Findings and Conclusions
Small Sample Size | Retrospective Study | Selection Bias |
---|---|---|
Low statistical power | Missing information | Affects internal validity |
Estimates not reliable | Recall bias | Nonrandom selection |
Prone to biased samples | Observer bias | Leads to confounding |
Not generalizable | Misclassification bias | Not generalizable |
Prone to false negative error | Observer bias | Inaccurate relation to variables |
Prone to false positive error | Evidence less robust than prospective study | Observer bias |
Sampling error | Missing data | Sampling bias |
Confounding factors | Volunteer bias | |
Selection bias | Survivorship bias |
Limitations rarely occur alone. If you see one there are many you do not see or appreciate. Limitation s components interact with their own and other limitations, leading to complex connections interacting and discounting the reliability of findings. By how much is context dependent: but it is not zero. Limitations are variables influencing outcomes. As the number of limitations increases, the reliability of the conclusions decreases. How many variables (limitations) does it take to nullify the claims of the findings? The weight and influence of each limitation, its aggregate components, and interconnectedness have an unknown magnitude and effect. The result is a disorderly concoction of hearsay explanations. Table 4 is an example of just two single explanation limitations and some of their components illustrating the complex compounding of their effects on each other.
An Example of Interactions between Only Two Limitations and Some of Their Components Causes 16 Interactions
Retrospective Study | Small Sample Size |
---|---|
The novelty of this paper on limitations in medical science is not the identification of research article limitations or their number or frequency; it is the recognition of the multiplier effect(s) limitations and the influence they have on diminishing any conclusion(s) the paper makes. It is possible that limitations contribute to the inability of studies to replicate and why so many are one-time occurrences. Therefore, the generalizability statement that should be given to all readers is BEWARE THERE IS A REDUCTION EFFECT ON THE CONCLUSIONS IN THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE OF ITS LIMITATIONS.
Journals accept studies done with too many limitations, creating forking path situations resulting in an enormous number of possible associations of individual data points as multiple comparisons. 79 The result is confusion, a muddled mess caused by interactions of limitations undermining the ability to make valid inferences. Authors know and acknowledge but rarely explain them or their influence. They also use incomplete and biased databases, biased methods, small sample sizes, and not eliminating confounders, etc., but persist in doing research with these circumstances. Why is that? Is it because when limitations are acknowledged, authors feel justified in their conclusions? It wasn’t my poor research design; it was the limitation(s). How do peer reviewers score and analyze these papers without a method to discount the findings and conclusions in the presence of limitations? What are the calculus editors use to justify papers with multiple limitations, reaching compromised or spurious conclusions? How much caution or warning should a journal say must be taken in interpreting article results? How much? Which results? When? Under what circumstance(s)?
Since a critical component of research is its limitations, the quality and rigor of research are largely defined by, 75 these constraints making it imperative that limitations be exposed and explained. All studies have limitations admitted to or not, and these limitations influence outcomes and conclusions. Unfortunately, they are given insufficient attention, accompanied by feeble excuses, but they all matter. The degrees of freedom of each limitation influence every other limitation, magnifying their ramifications and confusion. Limitations of a scientific article must put the findings in context so the reader can judge the validity and strength of the conclusions. While authors acknowledge the limitations of their study, they influence its legitimacy.
Not only are limitations not properly acknowledged in the scientific literature, 8 but their implications, magnitude, and how they affect a conclusion are not explained or appreciated. Authors work at claiming their work and methods “overcome,” “avoid,” or “circumvent” limitations. Limitations are explained away as “Failure to prove a difference does not prove lack of a difference.” 60 Sample size, bias, confounders, bad data, etc. are not what they seem and do not sully the results. The implication is “trust me.” But that’s not science. Limitations create cognitive distortions and framing (misperception of reality) for the authors and readers. Data in studies with limitations is data having limitations. It was real but tainted.
Limitations are not a trivial aspect of research. It is a tangible something, positive or negative, put into a data set to be analyzed and used to reach a conclusion. How did these extra somethings, known unknowns, not knowns, and unknown knowns, affect the validity of the data set and conclusions? Research presented with the vagaries of explicit limitations is intensified by additional limitations and their component effects on top of the first limitation s , quickly diluting any conclusion making its dependability questionable.
This study’s analysis of limitations in medical articles averaged 3.9% per article for JSLS and 7.4% for Surg Endosc . Authors admit to some and are aware of limitations, but not all of them and discount or leave out others. Limitations were often presented with misleading and hedging language. Authors do not give weight or suggest the percent discount limitations have on the reliance of conclusion(s). Since limitations influence findings, reliability, generalizability, and validity without knowing the magnitude of each and their context, the best that can be said about the conclusions is that they are specific to the study described, context-driven, and suspect.
Limitations mean something is missing, added, incorrect, unseen, unaware of, fabricated, or unknown; circumstances that confuse, confound, and compromise findings and information to the extent that a notice is necessary. All medical articles should have this statement, “Any conclusion drawn from this medical study should be interpreted considering its limitations. Readers should exercise caution, use critical judgement, and consult other sources before accepting these findings. Findings may not be generalizable regardless of sample size, composition, representative data points, and subject groups. Methodologic, analytic, and data collection may have introduced biases or limitations that can affect the accuracy of the results. Controlling for confounding variables, known and unknown, may have influenced the data and/or observations. The accuracy and completeness of the data used to draw a conclusion may not be reliable. The study was specific to time, place, persons, and prevailing circumstances. The weight of each of these factors is unknown to us. Their effect may be limited or compounded and diminish the validity of the proposed conclusions.”
This study and findings are limited and constrained by the limitations of the articles reviewed. They have known and unknown limitations not accounted for, missing data, small sample size, incongruous populations, internal and external validity concerns, confounders, and more. See Tables 2 and and 3 . 3 . Some of these are correctible by the author’s awareness of the consequences of limitations, making plans to address them in the methodology phase of hypothesis assessment and performance of the research to diminish their effects.
Limitations in research articles are expected, but they can be reduced in their effect so that conclusions are closer to being valid. Limitations introduce elements of ignorance and suspicion. They need to be explained so their influence on the believability of the study and its conclusions is closer to meeting construct, content, face, and criterion validity. As the number of limitations increases, common sense, skepticism, study component acceptability, and understanding the ramifications of each limitation are necessary to accept, discount, or reject the author’s findings. As the number of hedging and weasel words used to explain conclusion(s) increases, believability decreases, and raises suspicion regarding claims. Establishing a systematic limitation scoring index limitations for authors, editors, reviewers, and readers and recognizing their cumulative effects will result in a clearer understanding of research content and legitimacy.
How to calculate the Limitation Index Score (LIS). See Tables 5 – 5 . Each limitation admitted to by authors in the article equals (=) one (1) point. Limitations may be generally stated by the author as a broad category, but can have multiple components, such as a retrospective study with these limitation components: 1. data or recall not accurate, 2. data missing, 3. selection bias not controlled, 4. confounders not controlled, 5. no randomization, 6. no blinding, 7. difficult to establish cause and effect, and 8. cannot draw a conclusion of causation. For each component, no matter how many are not explained and corrected, add an additional one (1) point to the score. See Table 2 .
The Limitation Scoring Index is a Numeric Limitation Risk Assessment Score to Rank Risk Categories and Discounting Probability of Validity and Conclusions. The More Limitations in a Study, the Greater the Risk of Unreliable Findings and Conclusions
Number of limitations | Word description of discounting | Proposed percent discounting of conclusions | Outcome probability | Increasing level of less reliable conclusions |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | Unknown unknowns | 1–10% | May have valid conclusion(s) | Warning |
1–2 | Some | 15–25% | ↓ | ↓ |
3–4 | Probable | 35–45% | ↓ | Caution |
5–6 | Likely | 70–80% | ↓ | ↓ |
7–8 | Highly likely | 85–95% | ↓ | ↓ |
>8 | Certain | 97–100% | Very questionable conclusion(s) | Danger |
Limitations May Be Generally Stated by the Author but Have Multiple Components, Such as a Retrospective Study Having Disadvantage Components of 1. Data or Recall Not Accurate, 2. Data Missing, 3. Selection Bias Not Controlled, 4. Confounders Not Controlled, 5. No Randomization, 6. No Blinding, 7 Difficult to Establish Cause and Effect, 8. Results Are Hypothesis Generating, and 9. Cannot Draw a Conclusion of Causation. For Each Component, Not Explained and Corrected, Add an Additional One (1) Point Is Added to the Score. Extra Blanks Are for Additional Limitations
One point for each limitation | |
---|---|
One additional point for each component of each limitation | |
Retrospective study | |
Small sample size | |
Not generalizable | |
Selection bias | |
Not controlling for confounders | |
Not controlling for comorbidities | |
Incomplete or missing data | |
No long-term follow-up | |
Reporting errors | |
Measurement problems | |
Study design problems | |
Lack of standardized treatment | |
Subtotal for Table 2 |
An Automatic 2 Points is Added for Meta-Analysis Studies Since They Have All the Retrospective Detrimental Components. 44 Data from Insurance, State, National, Medicare, and Medicaid, Because of Incorrect Coding, Over Reporting, and Under-Reporting, Etc. Each Component of the Limitation Adds One Additional Point. For Surveys and Questionnaires Add One Additional Point for Each Bias. Extra Blanks Are for Additional Limitations
Two points for these limitations | |
---|---|
One additional point for each limitation and one additional point for each limitation component. | |
Meta-analysis | |
Data from Medicare, Medicaid, insurance companies, disease, state, and national databases | |
Surveys and questionnaires | |
Each limitation not admitted to | |
Subtotal for Table 3 |
Automatic Five (5) Points for Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) Database Articles. The FDA Access Data Site Says Submissions Can Be “Incomplete, Inaccurate, Untimely, Unverified, or Biased” and “the Incidence or Prevalence of an Event Cannot Be Determined from This Reporting System Alone Due to Under-Reporting of Events, Inaccuracies in Reports, Lack of Verification That the Device Caused the Reported Event, and Lack of Information” and “DR Data Alone Cannot Be Used to Establish Rates of Events, Evaluate a Change in Event Rates over Time or Compare Event Rates between Devices. The Number of Reports Cannot Be Interpreted or Used in Isolation to Reach Conclusions” 80
Five points for MAUDE based articles | |
---|---|
One additional point for each additional limitation and one point for each of its components. | |
Subtotal for Table 4 |
Total Limitation Index Score
Limitations | Calculation |
---|---|
Subtotal for Table 2 | |
Subtotal for Table 3 | |
Subtotal for Table 4 | |
Total Limitation Index Score |
Each limitation not admitted to = two (2) points. A meta-analysis study gets an automatic 2 points since they are retrospective and have detrimental components that should be added to the 2 points. Data from insurance, state, national, Medicare, and Medicaid, because of incorrect coding, over-reporting, and underreporting, etc., score 2 points, and each component adds one additional point. Surveys and questionnaires get 2 points, and add one additional point for each bias. See Table 3 .
Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database articles receive an automatic five (5) points. The FDA access data site says, submissions can be “incomplete, inaccurate, untimely, unverified, or biased” and “the incidence or prevalence of an event cannot be determined from this reporting system alone due to underreporting of events, inaccuracies in reports, lack of verification that the device caused the reported event, and lack of information” and “MDR data alone cannot be used to establish rates of events, evaluate a change in event rates over time or compare event rates between devices. The number of reports cannot be interpreted or used in isolation to reach conclusions.” 80 See Table 4 . Add one additional point for each additional limitation noted in the article.
Add one additional point for each additional limitation and one point for each of its components. Extra blanks are for additional
limitations and their component scores.
Funding sources: none.
Disclosure: none.
Conflict of interests: none.
Acknowledgments: Author would like to thank Lynda Davis for her help with data collection.
All references have been archived at https://archive.org/web/
Chris Drew (PhD)
Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]
Learn about our Editorial Process
Research limitations refer to the potential weaknesses inherent in a study. All studies have limitations of some sort, meaning declaring limitations doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing, so long as your declaration of limitations is well thought-out and explained.
Rarely is a study perfect. Researchers have to make trade-offs when developing their studies, which are often based upon practical considerations such as time and monetary constraints, weighing the breadth of participants against the depth of insight, and choosing one methodology or another.
In research, studies can have limitations such as limited scope, researcher subjectivity, and lack of available research tools.
Acknowledging the limitations of your study should be seen as a strength. It demonstrates your willingness for transparency, humility, and submission to the scientific method and can bolster the integrity of the study. It can also inform future research direction.
Typically, scholars will explore the limitations of their study in either their methodology section, their conclusion section, or both.
Qualitative and quantitative research offer different perspectives and methods in exploring phenomena, each with its own strengths and limitations. So, I’ve split the limitations examples sections into qualitative and quantitative below.
Qualitative research seeks to understand phenomena in-depth and in context. It focuses on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.
It’s often used to explore new or complex issues, and it provides rich, detailed insights into participants’ experiences, behaviors, and attitudes. However, these strengths also create certain limitations, as explained below.
Qualitative research often requires the researcher to interpret subjective data. One researcher may examine a text and identify different themes or concepts as more dominant than others.
Close qualitative readings of texts are necessarily subjective – and while this may be a limitation, qualitative researchers argue this is the best way to deeply understand everything in context.
Suggested Solution and Response: To minimize subjectivity bias, you could consider cross-checking your own readings of themes and data against other scholars’ readings and interpretations. This may involve giving the raw data to a supervisor or colleague and asking them to code the data separately, then coming together to compare and contrast results.
The concept of researcher bias is related to, but slightly different from, subjectivity.
Researcher bias refers to the perspectives and opinions you bring with you when doing your research.
For example, a researcher who is explicitly of a certain philosophical or political persuasion may bring that persuasion to bear when interpreting data.
In many scholarly traditions, we will attempt to minimize researcher bias through the utilization of clear procedures that are set out in advance or through the use of statistical analysis tools.
However, in other traditions, such as in postmodern feminist research , declaration of bias is expected, and acknowledgment of bias is seen as a positive because, in those traditions, it is believed that bias cannot be eliminated from research, so instead, it is a matter of integrity to present it upfront.
Suggested Solution and Response: Acknowledge the potential for researcher bias and, depending on your theoretical framework , accept this, or identify procedures you have taken to seek a closer approximation to objectivity in your coding and analysis.
If you’re struggling to find a limitation to discuss in your own qualitative research study, then this one is for you: all qualitative research, of all persuasions and perspectives, cannot be generalized.
This is a core feature that sets qualitative data and quantitative data apart.
The point of qualitative data is to select case studies and similarly small corpora and dig deep through in-depth analysis and thick description of data.
Often, this will also mean that you have a non-randomized sample size.
While this is a positive – you’re going to get some really deep, contextualized, interesting insights – it also means that the findings may not be generalizable to a larger population that may not be representative of the small group of people in your study.
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that take a quantitative approach to the question.
The Hawthorne effect refers to the phenomenon where research participants change their ‘observed behavior’ when they’re aware that they are being observed.
This effect was first identified by Elton Mayo who conducted studies of the effects of various factors ton workers’ productivity. He noticed that no matter what he did – turning up the lights, turning down the lights, etc. – there was an increase in worker outputs compared to prior to the study taking place.
Mayo realized that the mere act of observing the workers made them work harder – his observation was what was changing behavior.
So, if you’re looking for a potential limitation to name for your observational research study , highlight the possible impact of the Hawthorne effect (and how you could reduce your footprint or visibility in order to decrease its likelihood).
Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight ways you have attempted to reduce your footprint while in the field, and guarantee anonymity to your research participants.
Quantitative research has a great benefit in that the studies are replicable – a researcher can get a similar sample size, duplicate the variables, and re-test a study. But you can’t do that in qualitative research.
Qualitative research relies heavily on context – a specific case study or specific variables that make a certain instance worthy of analysis. As a result, it’s often difficult to re-enter the same setting with the same variables and repeat the study.
Furthermore, the individual researcher’s interpretation is more influential in qualitative research, meaning even if a new researcher enters an environment and makes observations, their observations may be different because subjectivity comes into play much more. This doesn’t make the research bad necessarily (great insights can be made in qualitative research), but it certainly does demonstrate a weakness of qualitative research.
“Limited scope” is perhaps one of the most common limitations listed by researchers – and while this is often a catch-all way of saying, “well, I’m not studying that in this study”, it’s also a valid point.
No study can explore everything related to a topic. At some point, we have to make decisions about what’s included in the study and what is excluded from the study.
So, you could say that a limitation of your study is that it doesn’t look at an extra variable or concept that’s certainly worthy of study but will have to be explored in your next project because this project has a clearly and narrowly defined goal.
Suggested Solution and Response: Be clear about what’s in and out of the study when writing your research question.
This is also a catch-all claim you can make about your research project: that you would have included more people in the study, looked at more variables, and so on. But you’ve got to submit this thing by the end of next semester! You’ve got time constraints.
And time constraints are a recognized reality in all research.
But this means you’ll need to explain how time has limited your decisions. As with “limited scope”, this may mean that you had to study a smaller group of subjects, limit the amount of time you spent in the field, and so forth.
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will build on your current work, possibly as a PhD project.
Qualitative research can be expensive due to the cost of transcription, the involvement of trained researchers, and potential travel for interviews or observations.
So, resource intensiveness is similar to the time constraints concept. If you don’t have the funds, you have to make decisions about which tools to use, which statistical software to employ, and how many research assistants you can dedicate to the study.
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will gain more funding on the back of this ‘ exploratory study ‘.
Data analysis in qualitative research often involves coding, which can be subjective and complex, especially when dealing with ambiguous or contradicting data.
After naming this as a limitation in your research, it’s important to explain how you’ve attempted to address this. Some ways to ‘limit the limitation’ include:
Suggested Solution and Response: Triangulate your coding findings with colleagues, and follow a thematic network analysis procedure.
There is always a risk in research that research participants will be unwilling or uncomfortable sharing their genuine thoughts and feelings in the study.
This is particularly true when you’re conducting research on sensitive topics, politicized topics, or topics where the participant is expressing vulnerability .
This is similar to the Hawthorne effect (aka participant bias), where participants change their behaviors in your presence; but it goes a step further, where participants actively hide their true thoughts and feelings from you.
Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be non-responsiveness from some participants.
Attrition refers to the process of losing research participants throughout the study.
This occurs most commonly in longitudinal studies , where a researcher must return to conduct their analysis over spaced periods of time, often over a period of years.
Things happen to people over time – they move overseas, their life experiences change, they get sick, change their minds, and even die. The more time that passes, the greater the risk of attrition.
Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be attrition over time.
Given the detailed nature of qualitative data , ensuring participant anonymity can be challenging.
If you have a sensitive topic in a specific case study, even anonymizing research participants sometimes isn’t enough. People might be able to induce who you’re talking about.
Sometimes, this will mean you have to exclude some interesting data that you collected from your final report. Confidentiality and anonymity come before your findings in research ethics – and this is a necessary limiting factor.
Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight the efforts you have taken to anonymize data, and accept that confidentiality and accountability place extremely important constraints on academic research.
A study that looks at a very specific phenomenon or even a specific set of cases within a phenomenon means that the pool of potential research participants can be very low.
Compile on top of this the fact that many people you approach may choose not to participate, and you could end up with a very small corpus of subjects to explore. This may limit your ability to make complete findings, even in a quantitative sense.
You may need to therefore limit your research question and objectives to something more realistic.
Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that this is going to limit the study’s generalizability significantly.
Ethical limitations refer to the things you cannot do based on ethical concerns identified either by yourself or your institution’s ethics review board.
This might include threats to the physical or psychological well-being of your research subjects, the potential of releasing data that could harm a person’s reputation, and so on.
Furthermore, even if your study follows all expected standards of ethics, you still, as an ethical researcher, need to allow a research participant to pull out at any point in time, after which you cannot use their data, which demonstrates an overlap between ethical constraints and participant attrition.
Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that these ethical limitations are inevitable but important to sustain the integrity of the research.
For more on Qualitative Research, Explore my Qualitative Research Guide
Quantitative research focuses on quantifiable data and statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. It’s often used to test hypotheses, assess relationships and causality, and generalize findings across larger populations.
Quantitative research is widely respected for its ability to provide reliable, measurable, and generalizable data (if done well!). Its structured methodology has strengths over qualitative research, such as the fact it allows for replication of the study, which underpins the validity of the research.
However, this approach is not without it limitations, explained below.
Quantitative research is powerful because it allows you to measure and analyze data in a systematic and standardized way. However, one of its limitations is that it can sometimes simplify complex phenomena or situations.
In other words, it might miss the subtleties or nuances of the research subject.
For example, if you’re studying why people choose a particular diet, a quantitative study might identify factors like age, income, or health status. But it might miss other aspects, such as cultural influences or personal beliefs, that can also significantly impact dietary choices.
When writing about this limitation, you can say that your quantitative approach, while providing precise measurements and comparisons, may not capture the full complexity of your subjects of study.
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest a follow-up case study using the same research participants in order to gain additional context and depth.
Another potential issue with quantitative research is that it often focuses on numbers and statistics at the expense of context or qualitative information.
Let’s say you’re studying the effect of classroom size on student performance. You might find that students in smaller classes generally perform better. However, this doesn’t take into account other variables, like teaching style , student motivation, or family support.
When describing this limitation, you might say, “Although our research provides important insights into the relationship between class size and student performance, it does not incorporate the impact of other potentially influential variables. Future research could benefit from a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights.”
Oftentimes, experimental research takes place in controlled environments to limit the influence of outside factors.
This control is great for isolation and understanding the specific phenomenon but can limit the applicability or “external validity” of the research to real-world settings.
For example, if you conduct a lab experiment to see how sleep deprivation impacts cognitive performance, the sterile, controlled lab environment might not reflect real-world conditions where people are dealing with multiple stressors.
Therefore, when explaining the limitations of your quantitative study in your methodology section, you could state:
“While our findings provide valuable information about [topic], the controlled conditions of the experiment may not accurately represent real-world scenarios where extraneous variables will exist. As such, the direct applicability of our results to broader contexts may be limited.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will engage in real-world observational research, such as ethnographic research.
Once a quantitative study is underway, it can be challenging to make changes to it. This is because, unlike in grounded research, you’re putting in place your study in advance, and you can’t make changes part-way through.
Your study design, data collection methods, and analysis techniques need to be decided upon before you start collecting data.
For example, if you are conducting a survey on the impact of social media on teenage mental health, and halfway through, you realize that you should have included a question about their screen time, it’s generally too late to add it.
When discussing this limitation, you could write something like, “The structured nature of our quantitative approach allows for consistent data collection and analysis but also limits our flexibility to adapt and modify the research process in response to emerging insights and ideas.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use mixed-methods or qualitative research methods to gain additional depth of insight.
Surveys are a common tool in quantitative research, but they carry risks of error.
There can be measurement errors (if a question is misunderstood), coverage errors (if some groups aren’t adequately represented), non-response errors (if certain people don’t respond), and sampling errors (if your sample isn’t representative of the population).
For instance, if you’re surveying college students about their study habits , but only daytime students respond because you conduct the survey during the day, your results will be skewed.
In discussing this limitation, you might say, “Despite our best efforts to develop a comprehensive survey, there remains a risk of survey error, including measurement, coverage, non-response, and sampling errors. These could potentially impact the reliability and generalizability of our findings.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use other survey tools to compare and contrast results.
With quantitative research, you typically can’t ask follow-up questions or delve deeper into participants’ responses like you could in a qualitative interview.
For instance, imagine you are surveying 500 students about study habits in a questionnaire. A respondent might indicate that they study for two hours each night. You might want to follow up by asking them to elaborate on what those study sessions involve or how effective they feel their habits are.
However, quantitative research generally disallows this in the way a qualitative semi-structured interview could.
When discussing this limitation, you might write, “Given the structured nature of our survey, our ability to probe deeper into individual responses is limited. This means we may not fully understand the context or reasoning behind the responses, potentially limiting the depth of our findings.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that engage in mixed-method or qualitative methodologies to address the issue from another angle.
In quantitative research, the collection of data heavily relies on instruments like questionnaires, surveys, or machines.
The limitation here is that the data you get is only as good as the instrument you’re using. If the instrument isn’t designed or calibrated well, your data can be flawed.
For instance, if you’re using a questionnaire to study customer satisfaction and the questions are vague, confusing, or biased, the responses may not accurately reflect the customers’ true feelings.
When discussing this limitation, you could say, “Our study depends on the use of questionnaires for data collection. Although we have put significant effort into designing and testing the instrument, it’s possible that inaccuracies or misunderstandings could potentially affect the validity of the data collected.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use different instruments but examine the same variables to triangulate results.
Quantitative research can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially when dealing with large samples.
It often involves systematic sampling, rigorous design, and sometimes complex statistical analysis.
If resources and time are limited, it can restrict the scale of your research, the techniques you can employ, or the extent of your data analysis.
For example, you may want to conduct a nationwide survey on public opinion about a certain policy. However, due to limited resources, you might only be able to survey people in one city.
When writing about this limitation, you could say, “Given the scope of our research and the resources available, we are limited to conducting our survey within one city, which may not fully represent the nationwide public opinion. Hence, the generalizability of the results may be limited.”
Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will have more funding or longer timeframes.
1. in your research proposal and methodology section.
In the research proposal, which will become the methodology section of your dissertation, I would recommend taking the four following steps, in order:
Overall, you’ll want to acknowledge your own limitations but also explain that the limitations don’t detract from the value of your study as it stands.
In the conclusion of your study, it is generally expected that you return to a discussion of the study’s limitations. Here, I recommend the following steps:
Overall, be clear about both your limitations and how those limitations can inform future studies.
In sum, each type of research method has its own strengths and limitations. Qualitative research excels in exploring depth, context, and complexity, while quantitative research excels in examining breadth, generalizability, and quantifiable measures. Despite their individual limitations, each method contributes unique and valuable insights, and researchers often use them together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative research , 1 (3), 385-405. ( Source )
Atkinson, P., Delamont, S., Cernat, A., Sakshaug, J., & Williams, R. A. (2021). SAGE research methods foundations . London: Sage Publications.
Clark, T., Foster, L., Bryman, A., & Sloan, L. (2021). Bryman’s social research methods . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Köhler, T., Smith, A., & Bhakoo, V. (2022). Templates in qualitative research methods: Origins, limitations, and new directions. Organizational Research Methods , 25 (2), 183-210. ( Source )
Lenger, A. (2019). The rejection of qualitative research methods in economics. Journal of Economic Issues , 53 (4), 946-965. ( Source )
Taherdoost, H. (2022). What are different research approaches? Comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research, their applications, types, and limitations. Journal of Management Science & Engineering Research , 5 (1), 53-63. ( Source )
Walliman, N. (2021). Research methods: The basics . New York: Routledge.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey
The limitations of the study convey to the reader how and under which conditions your study results will be evaluated. Scientific research involves investigating research topics, both known and unknown, which inherently includes an element of risk. The risk could arise due to human errors, barriers to data gathering, limited availability of resources, and researcher bias. Researchers are encouraged to discuss the limitations of their research to enhance the process of research, as well as to allow readers to gain an understanding of the study’s framework and value.
Limitations of the research are the constraints placed on the ability to generalize from the results and to further describe applications to practice. It is related to the utility value of the findings based on how you initially chose to design the study, the method used to establish internal and external validity, or the result of unanticipated challenges that emerged during the study. Knowing about these limitations and their impact can explain how the limitations of your study can affect the conclusions and thoughts drawn from your research. 1
Table of Contents
Researchers are probably cautious to acknowledge what the limitations of the research can be for fear of undermining the validity of the research findings. No research can be faultless or cover all possible conditions. These limitations of your research appear probably due to constraints on methodology or research design and influence the interpretation of your research’s ultimate findings. 2 These are limitations on the generalization and usability of findings that emerge from the design of the research and/or the method employed to ensure validity internally and externally. But such limitations of the study can impact the whole study or research paper. However, most researchers prefer not to discuss the different types of limitations in research for fear of decreasing the value of their paper amongst the reviewers or readers.
Writing the limitations of the research papers is often assumed to require lots of effort. However, identifying the limitations of the study can help structure the research better. Therefore, do not underestimate the importance of research study limitations. 3
All studies have limitations to some extent. Including limitations of the study in your paper demonstrates the researchers’ comprehensive and holistic understanding of the research process and topic. The major advantages are the following:
The limitations of your research can be stated at the beginning of the discussion section, which allows the reader to comprehend the limitations of the study prior to reading the rest of your findings or at the end of the discussion section as an acknowledgment of the need for further research.
There are different types of limitations in research that researchers may encounter. These are listed below:
All possible limitations of the study cannot be included in the discussion section of the research paper or dissertation. It will vary greatly depending on the type and nature of the study. These include types of research limitations that are related to methodology and the research process and that of the researcher as well that you need to describe and discuss how they possibly impacted your results.
Limitations of research due to methodological problems are addressed by identifying the potential problem and suggesting ways in which this should have been addressed. Some potential methodological limitations of the study are as follows. 1
Limitations related to the researcher can also influence the study outcomes. These should be addressed, and related remedies should be proposed.
Limitations are an inherent part of any research study. Issues may vary, ranging from sampling and literature review to methodology and bias. However, there is a structure for identifying these elements, discussing them, and offering insight or alternatives on how the limitations of the study can be mitigated. This enhances the process of the research and helps readers gain a comprehensive understanding of a study’s conditions.
Restrict limitations to what is pertinent to the research question under investigation. The specific limitations you include will depend on the nature of the study, the research question investigated, and the data collected.
Stating the limitations of the research is considered favorable by editors and peer reviewers. Connecting your study’s limitations with future possible research can help increase the focus of unanswered questions in this area. In addition, admitting limitations openly and validating that they do not affect the main findings of the study increases the credibility of your study. However, if you determine that your study is seriously flawed, explain ways to successfully overcome such flaws in a future study. For example, if your study fails to acquire critical data, consider reframing the research question as an exploratory study to lay the groundwork for more complete research in the future.
Strategies to minimize limitations of the research should focus on convincing reviewers and readers that the limitations do not affect the conclusions of the study by showing that the methods are appropriate and that the logic is sound. Here are some steps to follow to achieve this:
Admit limitations openly and, at the same time, show how they do not affect the main conclusions of the study.
Limitations in your research can arise owing to restrictions in methodology or research design. Although this could impact your chances of publishing your research paper, it is critical to explain your study’s limitations to your intended audience. For example, it can explain how your study constraints may impact the results and views generated from your investigation. It also shows that you have researched the flaws of your study and have a thorough understanding of the subject.
The limitations of a study give you an opportunity to offer suggestions for further research. Your study’s limitations, including problems experienced during the study and the additional study perspectives developed, are a great opportunity to take on a new challenge and help advance knowledge in a particular field.
References:
R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.
Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !
During the process of writing your thesis or dissertation, you might suddenly realize that your research has inherent flaws. Don’t worry! Virtually all projects contain restrictions to your research. However, being able to recognize and accurately describe these problems is the difference between a true researcher and a grade-school kid with a science-fair project. Concerns with truthful responding, access to participants, and survey instruments are just a few of examples of restrictions on your research. In the following sections, the differences among delimitations, limitations, and assumptions of a dissertation will be clarified.
Delimitations are the definitions you set as the boundaries of your own thesis or dissertation, so delimitations are in your control. Delimitations are set so that your goals do not become impossibly large to complete. Examples of delimitations include objectives, research questions, variables, theoretical objectives that you have adopted, and populations chosen as targets to study. When you are stating your delimitations, clearly inform readers why you chose this course of study. The answer might simply be that you were curious about the topic and/or wanted to improve standards of a professional field by revealing certain findings. In any case, you should clearly list the other options available and the reasons why you did not choose these options immediately after you list your delimitations. You might have avoided these options for reasons of practicality, interest, or relativity to the study at hand. For example, you might have only studied Hispanic mothers because they have the highest rate of obese babies. Delimitations are often strongly related to your theory and research questions. If you were researching whether there are different parenting styles between unmarried Asian, Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic women, then a delimitation of your study would be the inclusion of only participants with those demographics and the exclusion of participants from other demographics such as men, married women, and all other ethnicities of single women (inclusion and exclusion criteria). A further delimitation might be that you only included closed-ended Likert scale responses in the survey, rather than including additional open-ended responses, which might make some people more willing to take and complete your survey. Remember that delimitations are not good or bad. They are simply a detailed description of the scope of interest for your study as it relates to the research design. Don’t forget to describe the philosophical framework you used throughout your study, which also delimits your study.
Limitations of a dissertation are potential weaknesses in your study that are mostly out of your control, given limited funding, choice of research design, statistical model constraints, or other factors. In addition, a limitation is a restriction on your study that cannot be reasonably dismissed and can affect your design and results. Do not worry about limitations because limitations affect virtually all research projects, as well as most things in life. Even when you are going to your favorite restaurant, you are limited by the menu choices. If you went to a restaurant that had a menu that you were craving, you might not receive the service, price, or location that makes you enjoy your favorite restaurant. If you studied participants’ responses to a survey, you might be limited in your abilities to gain the exact type or geographic scope of participants you wanted. The people whom you managed to get to take your survey may not truly be a random sample, which is also a limitation. If you used a common test for data findings, your results are limited by the reliability of the test. If your study was limited to a certain amount of time, your results are affected by the operations of society during that time period (e.g., economy, social trends). It is important for you to remember that limitations of a dissertation are often not something that can be solved by the researcher. Also, remember that whatever limits you also limits other researchers, whether they are the largest medical research companies or consumer habits corporations. Certain kinds of limitations are often associated with the analytical approach you take in your research, too. For example, some qualitative methods like heuristics or phenomenology do not lend themselves well to replicability. Also, most of the commonly used quantitative statistical models can only determine correlation, but not causation.
Assumptions are things that are accepted as true, or at least plausible, by researchers and peers who will read your dissertation or thesis. In other words, any scholar reading your paper will assume that certain aspects of your study is true given your population, statistical test, research design, or other delimitations. For example, if you tell your friend that your favorite restaurant is an Italian place, your friend will assume that you don’t go there for the sushi. It’s assumed that you go there to eat Italian food. Because most assumptions are not discussed in-text, assumptions that are discussed in-text are discussed in the context of the limitations of your study, which is typically in the discussion section. This is important, because both assumptions and limitations affect the inferences you can draw from your study. One of the more common assumptions made in survey research is the assumption of honesty and truthful responses. However, for certain sensitive questions this assumption may be more difficult to accept, in which case it would be described as a limitation of the study. For example, asking people to report their criminal behavior in a survey may not be as reliable as asking people to report their eating habits. It is important to remember that your limitations and assumptions should not contradict one another. For instance, if you state that generalizability is a limitation of your study given that your sample was limited to one city in the United States, then you should not claim generalizability to the United States population as an assumption of your study. Statistical models in quantitative research designs are accompanied with assumptions as well, some more strict than others. These assumptions generally refer to the characteristics of the data, such as distributions, correlational trends, and variable type, just to name a few. Violating these assumptions can lead to drastically invalid results, though this often depends on sample size and other considerations.
Click here to cancel reply.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Copyright © 2024 PhDStudent.com. All rights reserved. Designed by Divergent Web Solutions, LLC .
APA Citation Generator
MLA Citation Generator
Chicago Citation Generator
Vancouver Citation Generator
The limitations of a study are the elements of methodology or study design that impact the interpretation of your research results. The limitations essentially detail any flaws or shortcomings in your study. Study limitations can exist due to constraints on research design, methodology, materials, etc., and these factors may impact the findings of your study. However, researchers are often reluctant to discuss the limitations of their study in their papers, feeling that bringing up limitations may undermine its research value in the eyes of readers and reviewers.
In spite of the impact it might have (and perhaps because of it) you should clearly acknowledge any limitations in your research paper in order to show readers—whether journal editors, other researchers, or the general public—that you are aware of these limitations and to explain how they affect the conclusions that can be drawn from the research.
In this article, we provide some guidelines for writing about research limitations, show examples of some frequently seen study limitations, and recommend techniques for presenting this information. And after you have finished drafting and have received manuscript editing for your work, you still might want to follow this up with academic editing before submitting your work to your target journal.
Although limitations address the potential weaknesses of a study, writing about them toward the end of your paper actually strengthens your study by identifying any problems before other researchers or reviewers find them.
Furthermore, pointing out study limitations shows that you’ve considered the impact of research weakness thoroughly and have an in-depth understanding of your research topic. Since all studies face limitations, being honest and detailing these limitations will impress researchers and reviewers more than ignoring them.
Some limitations might be evident to researchers before the start of the study, while others might become clear while you are conducting the research. Whether these limitations are anticipated or not, and whether they are due to research design or to methodology, they should be clearly identified and discussed in the discussion section —the final section of your paper. Most journals now require you to include a discussion of potential limitations of your work, and many journals now ask you to place this “limitations section” at the very end of your article.
Some journals ask you to also discuss the strengths of your work in this section, and some allow you to freely choose where to include that information in your discussion section—make sure to always check the author instructions of your target journal before you finalize a manuscript and submit it for peer review .
There are several reasons why limitations of research might exist. The two main categories of limitations are those that result from the methodology and those that result from issues with the researcher(s).
Limitations of research due to methodological problems can be addressed by clearly and directly identifying the potential problem and suggesting ways in which this could have been addressed—and SHOULD be addressed in future studies. The following are some major potential methodological issues that can impact the conclusions researchers can draw from the research.
Sampling errors occur when a probability sampling method is used to select a sample, but that sample does not reflect the general population or appropriate population concerned. This results in limitations of your study known as “sample bias” or “selection bias.”
For example, if you conducted a survey to obtain your research results, your samples (participants) were asked to respond to the survey questions. However, you might have had limited ability to gain access to the appropriate type or geographic scope of participants. In this case, the people who responded to your survey questions may not truly be a random sample.
When conducting a study, it is important to have a sufficient sample size in order to draw valid conclusions. The larger the sample, the more precise your results will be. If your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to identify significant relationships in the data.
Normally, statistical tests require a larger sample size to ensure that the sample is considered representative of a population and that the statistical result can be generalized to a larger population. It is a good idea to understand how to choose an appropriate sample size before you conduct your research by using scientific calculation tools—in fact, many journals now require such estimation to be included in every manuscript that is sent out for review.
Citing and referencing prior research studies constitutes the basis of the literature review for your thesis or study, and these prior studies provide the theoretical foundations for the research question you are investigating. However, depending on the scope of your research topic, prior research studies that are relevant to your thesis might be limited.
When there is very little or no prior research on a specific topic, you may need to develop an entirely new research typology. In this case, discovering a limitation can be considered an important opportunity to identify literature gaps and to present the need for further development in the area of study.
After you complete your analysis of the research findings (in the discussion section), you might realize that the manner in which you have collected the data or the ways in which you have measured variables has limited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results.
For example, you might realize that you should have addressed your survey questions from another viable perspective, or that you were not able to include an important question in the survey. In these cases, you should acknowledge the deficiency or deficiencies by stating a need for future researchers to revise their specific methods for collecting data that includes these missing elements.
Study limitations that arise from situations relating to the researcher or researchers (whether the direct fault of the individuals or not) should also be addressed and dealt with, and remedies to decrease these limitations—both hypothetically in your study, and practically in future studies—should be proposed.
If your research involved surveying certain people or organizations, you might have faced the problem of having limited access to these respondents. Due to this limited access, you might need to redesign or restructure your research in a different way. In this case, explain the reasons for limited access and be sure that your finding is still reliable and valid despite this limitation.
Just as students have deadlines to turn in their class papers, academic researchers might also have to meet deadlines for submitting a manuscript to a journal or face other time constraints related to their research (e.g., participants are only available during a certain period; funding runs out; collaborators move to a new institution). The time available to study a research problem and to measure change over time might be constrained by such practical issues. If time constraints negatively impacted your study in any way, acknowledge this impact by mentioning a need for a future study (e.g., a longitudinal study) to answer this research problem.
Researchers might hold biased views due to their cultural backgrounds or perspectives of certain phenomena, and this can affect a study’s legitimacy. Also, it is possible that researchers will have biases toward data and results that only support their hypotheses or arguments. In order to avoid these problems, the author(s) of a study should examine whether the way the research problem was stated and the data-gathering process was carried out appropriately.
When you discuss the limitations of your study, don’t simply list and describe your limitations—explain how these limitations have influenced your research findings. There might be multiple limitations in your study, but you only need to point out and explain those that directly relate to and impact how you address your research questions.
We suggest that you divide your limitations section into three steps: (1) identify the study limitations; (2) explain how they impact your study in detail; and (3) propose a direction for future studies and present alternatives. By following this sequence when discussing your study’s limitations, you will be able to clearly demonstrate your study’s weakness without undermining the quality and integrity of your research.
The first step is to identify the particular limitation(s) that affected your study. There are many possible limitations of research that can affect your study, but you don’t need to write a long review of all possible study limitations. A 200-500 word critique is an appropriate length for a research limitations section. In the beginning of this section, identify what limitations your study has faced and how important these limitations are.
You only need to identify limitations that had the greatest potential impact on: (1) the quality of your findings, and (2) your ability to answer your research question.
After identifying your research limitations, it’s time to explain the nature of the limitations and how they potentially impacted your study. For example, when you conduct quantitative research, a lack of probability sampling is an important issue that you should mention. On the other hand, when you conduct qualitative research, the inability to generalize the research findings could be an issue that deserves mention.
Explain the role these limitations played on the results and implications of the research and justify the choice you made in using this “limiting” methodology or other action in your research. Also, make sure that these limitations didn’t undermine the quality of your dissertation .
After acknowledging the limitations of the research, you need to discuss some possible ways to overcome these limitations in future studies. One way to do this is to present alternative methodologies and ways to avoid issues with, or “fill in the gaps of” the limitations of this study you have presented. Discuss both the pros and cons of these alternatives and clearly explain why researchers should choose these approaches.
Make sure you are current on approaches used by prior studies and the impacts they have had on their findings. Cite review articles or scientific bodies that have recommended these approaches and why. This might be evidence in support of the approach you chose, or it might be the reason you consider your choices to be included as limitations. This process can act as a justification for your approach and a defense of your decision to take it while acknowledging the feasibility of other approaches.
The following phrases are frequently used to introduce the limitations of the study:
For more articles on research writing and the journal submissions and publication process, visit Wordvice’s Academic Resources page.
And be sure to receive professional English editing and proofreading services , including paper editing services , for your journal manuscript before submitting it to journal editors.
Proofreading & Editing Guide
Writing the Results Section for a Research Paper
How to Write a Literature Review
Research Writing Tips: How to Draft a Powerful Discussion Section
How to Captivate Journal Readers with a Strong Introduction
Tips That Will Make Your Abstract a Success!
APA In-Text Citation Guide for Research Writing
Pearson-Stuttard, J., Kypridemos, C., Collins, B., Mozaffarian, D., Huang, Y., Bandosz, P.,…Micha, R. (2018). Estimating the health and economic effects of the proposed US Food and Drug Administration voluntary sodium reformulation: Microsimulation cost-effectiveness analysis. PLOS. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002551
Xu, W.L, Pedersen, N.L., Keller, L., Kalpouzos, G., Wang, H.X., Graff, C,. Fratiglioni, L. (2015). HHEX_23 AA Genotype Exacerbates Effect of Diabetes on Dementia and Alzheimer Disease: A Population-Based Longitudinal Study. PLOS. Retrieved from https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001853
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your research. They are the constraints on generalizability, applications to practice, and/or utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you initially chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.
Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67.
Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better that you identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.
Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.
Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but to also confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.
Claiming limitations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the results and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?
Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.
All studies have limitations . However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in the introduction of your paper.
Here are examples of limitations related to methodology and the research process you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your results. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense because they were discovered after you completed your research.
Possible Methodological Limitations
Possible Limitations of the Researcher
NOTE: If you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating that bias.
Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology; ter Riet, Gerben et al. “All That Glitters Isn't Gold: A Survey on Acknowledgment of Limitations in Biomedical Studies.” PLOS One 8 (November 2013): 1-6.
Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section. If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations, such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as an exploratory study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in a new study. But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic. If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to revise your study. When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to: Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms; Explain why each limitation exists; Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to acquire or gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible]; Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and, If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research. Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't interview a group of people that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in a future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to show what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification. Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed. January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.
Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section.
If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as an exploratory study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in a new study.
But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic . If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to revise your study.
When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:
Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't interview a group of people that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in a future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to show what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.
Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion . The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.
4-minute read
An important part of writing up research is to consider whether your study has any limitations. But what are study limitations? And why are they important? In this post, we explain what you need to know.
The term “study limitations” refers to anything that may affect the reliability or generalizability of the results in a study or experiment.
This could relate to the design of the research (e.g., your methods or research approach). Or it could be an issue with how the study was carried out (e.g., running out of time and resources before the study is over).
In either case, it’s important to note limitations when writing up your study. Typically, this will be as part of the discussion and analysis . However, different schools may have different guidelines on this, so make sure to check your style guide for advice on where to discuss study limitations.
It may seem counterintuitive to include limitations when writing up your research, especially if something went wrong. But there are several good reasons to mention study limitations, including:
In addition, most of the time your professor will spot any problems with your study regardless of whether you mention them. Thus, it’s much better to embrace limitations and make them part of your analysis.
But what exactly counts as a limitation? Typically, they come in two broad types: methodological limitations and researcher limitations.
Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.
Methodological limitations are to do with the way a study was designed and carried out. Some examples include:
There are other methodological limitations you may encounter depending on what you’re studying. But, in all cases, it is important to think about your methods and how they may affect your results.
These are factors to do with the attitudes, capabilities, and situation of the researcher. Examples of this type of limitation include:
As above, the key here is thinking about how these limitations may affect your results. If you do this, you can then factor any limitations into your analysis and discussion when writing up your study.
In conclusion, remember that study limitations occur in all research. This isn’t something to worry about or try and hide. However, you should:
To ensure your academic writing is clear and consistent, moreover, why not make use of our expert proofreaders ? Sign up for a free trial today.
Post A New Comment
5-minute read
Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...
6-minute read
If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...
9-minute read
Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...
8-minute read
Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...
7-minute read
Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...
Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. They are the constraints on generalizability and utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.
Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better for you to identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.
Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.
Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate to your professor that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.
Claiming limitiations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the findings and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?
Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.
All studies have limitations . However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in your paper.
Here are examples of limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your findings. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense.
Possible Methodological Limitations
Possible Limitations of the Researcher
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology.
Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section.
If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as a pilot study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in later studies.
But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic . If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to reframe your study.
When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:
Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't ask a particular question in a survey that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in any future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to prove what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.
Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings! After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitiations of your study. Inflating of the importance of your study's findings in an attempt hide its flaws is a big turn off to your readers. A measure of humility goes a long way!
Negative Results are Not a Limitation!
Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated, or, perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.
A Note about Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research
Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgement about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.
Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. Data Management and Analysis Methods. In Handbook of Qualitative Research. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444.
FIND US ON
We are all subject to imperfections. This means that while we may excel at something, it’ll always have some flaws. On that note, every study, no matter how proficient the writer may be, has study limitations. Therefore, while you want your academic work to be viewed as exemplary and worthy of premium grades, it’s also essential that you accept it’ll always be subject to the limitations of a study. The sooner you do, the better your work will be, and the better your professor will view you. To put it simply, a little humility goes a long way not only in life but also in research. Described herein is all you need to know about limitations to a study.
Why should you include limitations of a study in your paper, examples of limitations of study in research proposal.
Study limitations refer to those characteristics or constraints that hinder or influence the interpretation of the writer’s findings from research. To put it simply, a limitation is any shortcoming that impacts a study and its outcomes. They are a normal part of any study, observational, or cross-sectional study. In most cases, they are often a result of flawed methodology, insufficient academic resources, or a lack of previous research studies on the topic. These limitations are usually part of the discussion section of the survey, just before the conclusion.
Before we even head over to the examples of study limitations in various papers, take time to see why it’s essential you first understand why you should acknowledge your study limitations below
Now that you know study limitations are normal and help make your grade stronger, what are the various limitations of a research study that you should mention? Here are a few to study limitation examples to get you started.
As you’ve seen, the limitations of a research study are normal and are quite many. The above are just a few examples. So next time you’re doing research and lack access to data, make sure you include this fact in your work. Honest is a virtue, and admitting as well as explaining why your findings may be flawed will impress your readers.
Enjoy a completely custom, expertly-written dissertation. Choose from hundreds of writers, all of whom are career specialists in your subject.
Research limitations make most studies imperfect. At its core, the research aims to investigate a specific question or questions about a topic. However, some things can hinder your ability to investigate the question or questions extensively. While this can make achieving your goals challenging, it enables you to point areas that require further studies.
That’s why you should demonstrate how future studies can provide answers to your unanswered questions if you encounter study limitations that affect your findings. Presenting the limitations of a study properly shows the readers that you understand your research problem.
After presenting your research findings, your assessment committee wants to see that you did your work professionally. And presenting limitations in a study shows that you carefully thought about your study problem and performed a review of the available literature while analyzing your preferred methods.
Well, limitations mean anything that might affect the generalizability or reliability of the outcomes of an experiment or a study. And this can relate to research design, like your approach or methods. It can also be something to do with how you carried out your research, like running out of resources or time before completing the study.
Either way, students should include their limitations when writing up their studies. In most cases, researchers include limitations in their analysis and discussions. But different schools can provide varying guidelines on how to include limitations in a research paper. Therefore, seek advice from your educator or check your writing style guide to know where to include the limitations of a study when writing a dissertation.
Each study can have unique limitations. However, most students encounter common study limitations when writing academic papers. Here are some of the most common limitations you’re likely to encounter when writing your academic papers.
Sample profile or size: Most researchers encounter sampling as a limitation for their studies. That’s because they have difficulties finding the right sample with the necessary characteristics and size parameters. And this hinders the generalizability of their study results. Also, different sampling techniques are prone to bias and errors. And this can influence the study outcomes. In some cases, researchers have difficulties selecting their samples and opt to pick their participants selectively. Some researchers can even include irrelevant subjects in their general pool to hit their preferred sample size. Availability of previous research or information: Theoretical concepts or previous knowledge form the basis of studies on specific topics. And this provides a sound foundation on which a researcher can develop a research problem for their investigation and a design. However, a topic can be relatively specific or very progressive. In that case, the lack of or inadequate knowledge and previous studies can limit the analysis scope. And this can cause inaccuracies in the arguments or present a significant error margin in several methodologies and research aspects. Methodology errors: Modern research complexity can cause potential methodology limitations. In most cases, these research limitations relate to how the researchers collect and analyze data. That’s because these aspects can influence the outcomes of a study. Researchers use different techniques to gather data. While these techniques may suit a study design, they can present limitations in terms of inappropriate detail levels, distractions, and privacy. Bias: Bias is a potential limitation whose effects can influence the outcome of every study. However, a researcher can avoid this limitation by eliminating prejudiced or emotional attitudes towards their topic and conflict of interest. Researchers should also establish an oversight level by referring to peer-review procedures or an ethics committee. Bias is an inherent trait for human beings. Even the most objective people exhibit a bias to some extent. Nevertheless, a researcher should remain objective while trying to control potential inaccuracies or bias during the research process.
A researcher may not have control over the limitation of study. However, the limitation can be the condition, influence, or shortcoming that places restrictions on their conclusions or methodology. Therefore, researchers should mention all limitations that can influence their results.
The purpose of most studies is to confirm or establish facts, reaffirm a previous study’s outcomes, solve current or new issues, develop a new theory, or support theorems. Research should also enable experts to develop knowledge on specific subjects. And people research different subjects, depending on their interests. However, researchers experience limitations of quantitative research and qualitative research. Here are the most common limitations in research.
Lack or inadequate interactions: Researchers might lack adequate interactions with government institutions and businesses. Consequently, they do not tap a substantial data amount. Researchers should arrange interaction programs with other establishments. That way, they can identify issues that warrant investigation and the necessary data for conducting research, as well as, the benefits of their studies. Overlapping studies can lead fritter resources away or duplicate the findings. Appropriate revision and compilation at regular intervals can solve this problem. Costly publishing: After researching a topic, a researcher should find ways to publish their findings. However, international journals cost a lot of money to publish a study. And this can discourage a researcher from publishing their work. For instance, a study involving females only or carried out in a specific town can have limitations like sample size, gender, and location. What’s more, the entire study could be limited to the researcher’s perception. Lack of or inadequate training: The research process doesn’t have a systematic methodology. Many researchers do not understand the research method when carrying out their work. Consequently, most researchers experience methodological limitations. Essentially, most researchers replicate the methodologies of similar studies. Even some research guides don’t explain the methodologies accurately. And this can limit the outcome of some studies. Lack of code of conduct: Researchers don’t have a code of conduct. And this causes inter-university and inter-departmental rivalries. Library functioning and management are not adequate in most places. Consequently, some researchers spend a lot of energy and time tracing the necessary books, reports, and journals for their studies. Such energy and time can be spent tracing relevant materials. Lack of confidence: The lack of confidence is among the most common limitations of research studies because company managers think that a researcher can misuse the data they disclose to them. Consequently, they don’t want to reveal their business information. And this can affect studies, yet data from researchers can help the same institutions. Therefore, organizations and researchers should implement confidence-building strategies to encourage companies to share data, knowing that researchers will use it productively.
When writing a research paper or a thesis, some people think including study limitations is counterintuitive. That’s particularly the case for researchers that experienced something wrong. However, mentioning the limitations of your study is imperative for the following reasons.
Most professors spot problems with the students’ work even if they don’t mention them. Consequently, embracing the limitations of your study and including them in your analysis is the best approach. Leaving out the limitations of research or vital aspects of a study can be detrimental to the entire study field. That’s because it can establish a potentially fallacious and incomplete depiction of the study.
In the academic world, players expect researchers to include the limitations of their works. And this includes a section that demonstrates a holistic and comprehensive understanding of a topic and research process by the author. Discussing limitations is a learning process for assessing the magnitude while critically evaluating the extenuating effect of the stated limitations.
Stating the limitations of a study also improves the validity and quality of future studies. And this includes limitations whose basis is the transparency principle in scientific research, whose purpose is to promote further progress while maintaining mutual integrity in similar studies.
When writing your research limitations, do it in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the core concepts of confounding, analytical self-criticism, and bias. Highlighting every limitation might not be necessary. However, include every limitation with a direct impact on your research problem or study results.
Present your thought process as a researcher and explain the pros and cons of your decisions. Also, explain circumstances that may have led to a research limitation. Here’s how you should structure your limitations.
Don’t forget that acknowledging your study limitations provides a chance to suggest the direction for further studies. Therefore, connect the limitations of your study to the suggestions you make for further research. Also, explain how your study can make the unanswered questions more focused.
Also, acknowledging the limitation of the study enables you to demonstrate to the professor that you have critically thought about your research problem and understood the importance of the already-published literature. What’s more, it shows that you’ve carefully assessed the methods for studying your study problem. In research, a key objective is to discover new knowledge while confronting assumptions as you explore what others might not know.
Writing limitations should be a subjective process. That’s because you must analyze the impacts of the limitations and include them in your paper. In this section, don’t include the key weaknesses only. Instead, highlight the magnitude of the limitations of your research. And doing this requires you to demonstrate your study’s validity. Show the readers how the limitations have impacted your study outcomes and conclusions. Thus, writing the limitations section of your paper requires an overall, critical interpretation and appraisal of the impact. Essentially, this section should tell the readers why the problems with methods, errors, validity, and other limitations matter and to what extent.
When writing a research paper, include information about your study’s limitations at the beginning of the discussion section. That way, your readers can understand your study limitations before delving into the deeper analysis. In some cases, authors bring out limitations when concluding their research discussion and highlighting the essence of further study on the subject. Here are practical tips to help you write the limitations of your study more effectively.
When working on the limitations section of a research paper, be precise and clear. If writing this section becomes challenging, follow the tips shared in this article or seek assistance. That way, you can impress your educator by highlighting the limitations of your study properly.
Richard Ginger is a dissertation writer and freelance columnist with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the writing industry. He handles every project he works on with precision while keeping attention to details and ensuring that every work he does is unique.
Succeed With A Perfect Dissertation
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
As Putin continues killing civilians, bombing kindergartens, and threatening WWIII, Ukraine fights for the world's peaceful future.
Ukraine Live Updates
You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.
All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .
Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.
Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.
Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.
Original Submission Date Received: .
Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.
Please let us know what you think of our products and services.
Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.
A systematic literature review of modalities, trends, and limitations in emotion recognition, affective computing, and sentiment analysis.
2. methodology, 2.1. research questions, 2.2. search process, 2.2.1. search terms, 2.2.2. inclusion and exclusion criteria, 2.2.3. quality assessment, 2.2.4. data extraction, 3.1. overview, 3.2. unimodal data approaches, 3.2.1. unimodal physical approaches, 3.2.2. unimodal speech data approaches.
3.2.4. unimodal physiological data approaches.
Author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.
Click here to enlarge figure
Database | Resulted Studies with Key Terms | After Years Filter | After Article Type | Relevant Order |
---|---|---|---|---|
IEEE | 2112 | 1152 | 536 | 200 |
Springer | 4121 | 1808 | 1694 | 200 |
Science Direct | 1041 | 582 | 480 | 200 |
MDPI | 686 | 643 | 635 | 200 |
Database | Quantity |
---|---|
IEEE | 148 |
Springer | 112 |
Science Direct | 166 |
MDPI | 183 |
Modality | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Multi-physical | 8 | 6 | 8 | 22 | 27 | 71 | |
Multi-physical–physiological | 2 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 18 | ||
Multi-physiological | 2 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 21 | |
Unimodal | 37 | 26 | 29 | 37 | 176 | 194 | 499 |
Total | 49 | 32 | 35 | 51 | 210 | 232 | 609 |
Article Title | Databases Used | Ref. |
---|---|---|
AffectNet: A Database for Facial Expression, Valence, and Arousal Computing in the Wild. | AffectNet | [ ] |
Video-Based Depression Level Analysis by Encoding Deep Spatiotemporal Features. | AVEC2013, AVEC2014 | [ ] |
Exploiting Multi-CNN Features in CNN-RNN Based Dimensional Emotion Recognition on the OMG in-the-Wild Dataset. | Aff-Wild, Aff-Wild2, OMG | [ ] |
A Deeper Look at Facial Expression Dataset Bias. | CK+, JAFFE, MMI, Oulu-CASIA, AffectNet, FER2013, RAF-DB 2.0, SFEW 2.0 | [ ] |
Automatic Recognition of Facial Displays of Unfelt Emotions. | CK+, OULU-CASIA, BP4D | [ ] |
Spatio-Temporal Encoder-Decoder Fully Convolutional Network for Video-Based Dimensional Emotion Recognition. | OMG, RECOLA, SEWA | [ ] |
Efficient Net-XGBoost: An Implementation for Facial Emotion Recognition Using Transfer Learning. | CK+, FER2013, JAFFE, KDEF | [ ] |
Masked Face Emotion Recognition Based on Facial Landmarks and Deep Learning Approaches for Visually Impaired People. | AffectNet | [ ] |
Facial Feature Extraction Using a Symmetric Inline Matrix-LBP Variant for Emotion Recognition. | JAFFE | [ ] |
Manta Ray Foraging Optimization with Transfer Learning Driven Facial Emotion Recognition. | CK+, FER-2013 | [ ] |
Emotion recognition at a distance: The robustness of machine learning based on hand-crafted facial features vs deep learning models. | CK+ | [ ] |
Deep learning-based dimensional emotion recognition combining the attention mechanism and global second-order feature representations. | AffectNet | [ ] |
On-road driver facial expression emotion recognition with parallel multi-verse optimizer (PMVO) and optical flow reconstruction for partial occlusion in internet of things (IoT). | CK+, KMU-FED | [ ] |
Emotion recognition by web-shaped model. | CK+, KDEF | [ ] |
Edge-enhanced bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition-based emotion recognition using fusion of feature set | eNTERFACE, CK, JAFFE | [ ] |
A novel driver emotion recognition system based on deep ensemble classification | AffectNet, CK+, DFER, FER-2013, JAFFE, and custom- dataset) | [ ] |
1.Facial emotion recognition for mental health assessment (depression, schizophrenia) | 14. Emotion recognition performance assessment from faces acquired at a distance. |
2. Emotion analysis in human-computer interaction | 15. Facial emotion recognition for IoT and edge devices |
3. Emotion recognition in the context of autism | 16. Idiosyncratic bias in emotion recognition |
4. Driver emotion recognition for intelligent vehicles | 17. Emotion recognition in socially assistive robots |
5. Assessment of emotional engagement in learning environments | 18. In the wild facial emotion recognition |
6. Facial emotion recognition for apparent personality trait analysis | 19. Video-based emotion recognition |
7. Facial emotion recognition for gender, age, and ethnicity estimation | 20. Spatio-temporal emotion recognition in videos |
8. Emotion recognition in virtual reality and smart homes | 21. Spontaneous emotion recognition |
9. Emotion recognition in healthcare and clinical settings | 22. Emotion recognition using facial components |
10. Emotion recognition in real-world and COVID-19 masked scenarios | 23. Comparing emotion recognition from genuine and unfelt |
11. Personalized and group-based emotion recognition | facial expressions. |
12. Music-enhanced emotion recognition | |
13. Cross-dataset emotion recognition |
Database Name | Description | Advantages | Limitation |
---|---|---|---|
MELD (Multimodal Emotion Lines Dataset) [ ] | Focuses on emotion recognition in movie dialogues. It contains transcriptions of dialogues and their corresponding audio and video tracks. Emotions are labeled at the sentence and speaker levels. | Large amount of data, multimodal (text, audio, video). | Emotions induced by movies. Manually labeled. |
IEMOCAP (Interactive Emotional Dyadic Motion Capture), 2005 [ ] | Focuses on emotional interactions between two individuals during acting sessions. It contains video and audio recordings of actors performing emotional scenes. | Realistic data, emotional interactions, a wide range of emotions. | Not real induced emotions (acting). |
CMU-MOSI (Multimodal Corpus of Sentiment Intensity. 2014, 2017 [ ] | Focuses on sentiment intensity in speeches and interviews. It includes transcriptions of audio and video, along with sentiment annotations. Updated in the 2017 CMU-MOSEI. | Emotions are derived from real speeches and interviews. | Relatively small size. |
AVEC (Affective Behavior in the Context of E-Learning with Social Signals 2007–2016 [ ] | AVEC is a series of competitions focused on the detection of emotions and behaviors in the context of online learning. It includes video and audio data of students participating in e-learning activities. | Emotions are naturally induced during online learning activities. | Context-specific data, enables emotion assessment in e-learning settings. |
RAVDESS (The Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song) 2016 [ ] | Audio and video database that focuses on emotion recognition in speech and song. It includes performances by actors expressing various emotions. | Diverse data in terms of emotions, modalities, and contexts. | Does not contain natural dialogues. |
SAVEE (Surrey Audio–Visual Expressed Emotion) 2010 [ ] | Focuses on emotion recognition in speech. It contains recordings of speakers expressing emotions through phrases and words. | Clean audio data. | |
SAMM (Spontaneous Micro-expression Dataset) [ ] | Focuses on spontaneous micro-expressions that last only a fraction of a second. It contains videos of people expressing emotions in real emotional situations. | Real spontaneous micro-expressions. | |
CASME (Chinese Academy of Sciences Micro-Expression) [ ] | Focus on the detection of micro-expressions in response to emotional stimuli. They contain videos of micro-expressions. | Induced by emotional stimuli. | Not multicultural. |
Database Name | Description | Advantages | Limitation |
---|---|---|---|
WESAD (Wearable Stress and Affect Detection) [ ] | It focuses on stress and affect recognition from physiological signals like ECG, EMG, and EDA, as well as motion signals from accelerometers. Data were collected while participants performed tasks and experienced emotions in a controlled laboratory setting, wearing wearable sensors. | Facilitates the development of wearable emotion recognition systems. | The dataset is relatively small, and participant diversity may be limited. |
AMIGOS [ ] | It is a multimodal dataset for personality traits and mood. Emotions are induced by emotional videos in two social contexts: one with individual viewers and one with groups of viewers. Participants’ EEG, ECG, and GSR signals were recorded using wearable sensors. Frontal HD videos and full-body videos in RGB and depth were also recorded. | Participants’ emotions were scored by self-assessment of valence, arousal, control, familiarity, liking, and basic emotions felt during the videos, as well as external assessments of valence and arousal. | Reduced number of participants. |
DREAMER [ ] | Records physiological ECG, EMG, and EDA signals and self-reported emotional responses. Collected during the presentation of emotional video clips. | Enables the study of emotional responses in a controlled environment and their comparison with self-reported emotions. | Emotions may be biased towards those induced by video clips, and the dataset size is limited. |
ASCERTAIN [ ] | Focus on linking personality traits and emotional states through physiological responses like EEG, ECG, GSR, and facial activity data while participants watched emotionally charged movie clips. | Suitable for studying emotions in stressful situations and their impact on human activity. | The variety of emotions induced is limited. |
DEAP (Database for Emotion Analysis using Physiological Signals), [ , ] | Includes physiological signals like EEG, ECG, EMG, and EDA, as well as audiovisual data. Data were collected by exposing participants to audiovisual stimuli designed to elicit various emotions. | Provides a diverse range of emotions and physiological data for emotion analysis. | The size of the database is small. |
MAHNOB-HCI (Multimodal Human Computer Interaction Database for Affect Analysis and Recognition) [ , ]. | Includes multimodal data, such as audio, video, physiological, ECG, EDA, and kinematic data. Data were collected while participants engaged in various human–computer interaction scenarios. | Offers a rich dataset for studying emotional responses during interactions with technology. |
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. |
García-Hernández, R.A.; Luna-García, H.; Celaya-Padilla, J.M.; García-Hernández, A.; Reveles-Gómez, L.C.; Flores-Chaires, L.A.; Delgado-Contreras, J.R.; Rondon, D.; Villalba-Condori, K.O. A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis. Appl. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
García-Hernández RA, Luna-García H, Celaya-Padilla JM, García-Hernández A, Reveles-Gómez LC, Flores-Chaires LA, Delgado-Contreras JR, Rondon D, Villalba-Condori KO. A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis. Applied Sciences . 2024; 14(16):7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
García-Hernández, Rosa A., Huizilopoztli Luna-García, José M. Celaya-Padilla, Alejandra García-Hernández, Luis C. Reveles-Gómez, Luis Alberto Flores-Chaires, J. Ruben Delgado-Contreras, David Rondon, and Klinge O. Villalba-Condori. 2024. "A Systematic Literature Review of Modalities, Trends, and Limitations in Emotion Recognition, Affective Computing, and Sentiment Analysis" Applied Sciences 14, no. 16: 7165. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14167165
Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.
Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals
A title page is required for all APA Style papers. There are both student and professional versions of the title page. Students should use the student version of the title page unless their instructor or institution has requested they use the professional version. APA provides a student title page guide (PDF, 199KB) to assist students in creating their title pages.
The student title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation, course number and name for which the paper is being submitted, instructor name, assignment due date, and page number, as shown in this example.
Title page setup is covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 2.3 and the Concise Guide Section 1.6
Student papers do not include a running head unless requested by the instructor or institution.
Follow the guidelines described next to format each element of the student title page.
|
|
|
---|---|---|
Paper title | Place the title three to four lines down from the top of the title page. Center it and type it in bold font. Capitalize of the title. Place the main title and any subtitle on separate double-spaced lines if desired. There is no maximum length for titles; however, keep titles focused and include key terms. |
|
Author names | Place one double-spaced blank line between the paper title and the author names. Center author names on their own line. If there are two authors, use the word “and” between authors; if there are three or more authors, place a comma between author names and use the word “and” before the final author name. | Cecily J. Sinclair and Adam Gonzaga |
Author affiliation | For a student paper, the affiliation is the institution where the student attends school. Include both the name of any department and the name of the college, university, or other institution, separated by a comma. Center the affiliation on the next double-spaced line after the author name(s). | Department of Psychology, University of Georgia |
Course number and name | Provide the course number as shown on instructional materials, followed by a colon and the course name. Center the course number and name on the next double-spaced line after the author affiliation. | PSY 201: Introduction to Psychology |
Instructor name | Provide the name of the instructor for the course using the format shown on instructional materials. Center the instructor name on the next double-spaced line after the course number and name. | Dr. Rowan J. Estes |
Assignment due date | Provide the due date for the assignment. Center the due date on the next double-spaced line after the instructor name. Use the date format commonly used in your country. | October 18, 2020 |
| Use the page number 1 on the title page. Use the automatic page-numbering function of your word processing program to insert page numbers in the top right corner of the page header. | 1 |
The professional title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation(s), author note, running head, and page number, as shown in the following example.
Follow the guidelines described next to format each element of the professional title page.
|
|
|
---|---|---|
Paper title | Place the title three to four lines down from the top of the title page. Center it and type it in bold font. Capitalize of the title. Place the main title and any subtitle on separate double-spaced lines if desired. There is no maximum length for titles; however, keep titles focused and include key terms. |
|
Author names
| Place one double-spaced blank line between the paper title and the author names. Center author names on their own line. If there are two authors, use the word “and” between authors; if there are three or more authors, place a comma between author names and use the word “and” before the final author name. | Francesca Humboldt |
When different authors have different affiliations, use superscript numerals after author names to connect the names to the appropriate affiliation(s). If all authors have the same affiliation, superscript numerals are not used (see Section 2.3 of the for more on how to set up bylines and affiliations). | Tracy Reuter , Arielle Borovsky , and Casey Lew-Williams | |
Author affiliation
| For a professional paper, the affiliation is the institution at which the research was conducted. Include both the name of any department and the name of the college, university, or other institution, separated by a comma. Center the affiliation on the next double-spaced line after the author names; when there are multiple affiliations, center each affiliation on its own line.
| Department of Nursing, Morrigan University |
When different authors have different affiliations, use superscript numerals before affiliations to connect the affiliations to the appropriate author(s). Do not use superscript numerals if all authors share the same affiliations (see Section 2.3 of the for more). | Department of Psychology, Princeton University | |
Author note | Place the author note in the bottom half of the title page. Center and bold the label “Author Note.” Align the paragraphs of the author note to the left. For further information on the contents of the author note, see Section 2.7 of the . | n/a |
| The running head appears in all-capital letters in the page header of all pages, including the title page. Align the running head to the left margin. Do not use the label “Running head:” before the running head. | Prediction errors support children’s word learning |
| Use the page number 1 on the title page. Use the automatic page-numbering function of your word processing program to insert page numbers in the top right corner of the page header. | 1 |
March 21, 2024
Writing out intermediate steps can make it easier to solve problems.
Nick Slater for Quanta Magazine
Your grade school teacher probably didn’t show you how to add 20-digit numbers. But if you know how to add smaller numbers, all you need is paper and pencil and a bit of patience. Start with the ones place and work leftward step by step, and soon you’ll be stacking up quintillions with ease.
Problems like this are easy for humans, but only if we approach them in the right way. “How we humans solve these problems is not ‘stare at it and then write down the answer,’” said Eran Malach , a machine learning researcher at Harvard University. “We actually walk through the steps.”
That insight has inspired researchers studying the large language models that power chatbots like ChatGPT. While these systems might ace questions involving a few steps of arithmetic, they’ll often flub problems involving many steps, like calculating the sum of two large numbers. But in 2022, a team of Google researchers showed that asking language models to generate step-by-step solutions enabled the models to solve problems that had previously seemed beyond their reach. Their technique, called chain-of-thought prompting, soon became widespread, even as researchers struggled to understand what makes it work.
Now, several teams have explored the power of chain-of-thought reasoning by using techniques from an arcane branch of theoretical computer science called computational complexity theory. It’s the latest chapter in a line of research that uses complexity theory to study the intrinsic capabilities and limitations of language models. These efforts clarify where we should expect models to fail, and they might point toward new approaches to building them.
“They remove some of the magic,” said Dimitris Papailiopoulos , a machine learning researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “That’s a good thing.”
Large language models are built around mathematical structures called artificial neural networks. The many “neurons” inside these networks perform simple mathematical operations on long strings of numbers representing individual words, transmuting each word that passes through the network into another. The details of this mathematical alchemy depend on another set of numbers called the network’s parameters, which quantify the strength of the connections between neurons.
To train a language model to produce coherent outputs, researchers typically start with a neural network whose parameters all have random values, and then feed it reams of data from around the internet. Each time the model sees a new block of text, it tries to predict each word in turn: It guesses the second word based on the first, the third based on the first two, and so on. It compares each prediction to the actual text, then tweaks its parameters to reduce the difference. Each tweak only changes the model’s predictions a tiny bit, but somehow their collective effect enables a model to respond coherently to inputs it has never seen.
Researchers have been training neural networks to process language for 20 years. But the work really took off in 2017, when researchers at Google introduced a new kind of network called a transformer.
“This was proposed seven years ago, which seems like prehistory,” said Pablo Barceló , a machine learning researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
What made transformers so transformative is that it’s easy to scale them up — to increase the number of parameters and the amount of training data — without making training prohibitively expensive. Before transformers, neural networks had at most a few hundred million parameters; today, the largest transformer-based models have more than a trillion. Much of the improvement in language-model performance over the past five years comes from simply scaling up.
Transformers made this possible by using special mathematical structures called attention heads, which give them a sort of bird’s-eye view of the text they’re reading. When a transformer reads a new block of text, its attention heads quickly scan the whole thing and identify relevant connections between words — perhaps noting that the fourth and eighth words are likely to be most useful for predicting the 10th. Then the attention heads pass words along to an enormous web of neurons called a feedforward network, which does the heavy number crunching needed to generate the predictions that help it learn.
Real transformers have multiple layers of attention heads separated by feedforward networks, and only spit out predictions after the last layer. But at each layer, the attention heads have already identified the most relevant context for each word, so the computationally intensive feedforward step can happen simultaneously for every word in the text. That speeds up the training process, making it possible to train transformers on increasingly large sets of data. Even more important, it allows researchers to spread the enormous computational load of training a massive neural network across many processors working in tandem.
To get the most out of massive data sets, “you have to make the models really large,” said David Chiang , a machine learning researcher at the University of Notre Dame. “It’s just not going to be practical to train them unless it’s parallelized.”
However, the parallel structure that makes it so easy to train transformers doesn’t help after training — at that point, there’s no need to predict words that already exist. During ordinary operation, transformers output one word at a time, tacking each output back onto the input before generating the next word, but they’re still stuck with an architecture optimized for parallel processing.
As transformer-based models grew and certain tasks continued to give them trouble, some researchers began to wonder whether the push toward more parallelizable models had come at a cost. Was there a way to understand the behavior of transformers theoretically?
Theoretical studies of neural networks face many difficulties, especially when they try to account for training. Neural networks use a well-known procedure to tweak their parameters at each step of the training process. But it can be difficult to understand why this simple procedure converges on a good set of parameters.
Rather than consider what happens during training, some researchers study the intrinsic capabilities of transformers by imagining that it’s possible to adjust their parameters to any arbitrary values. This amounts to treating a transformer as a special type of programmable computer.
“You’ve got some computing device, and you want to know, ‘Well, what can it do? What kinds of functions can it compute?’” Chiang said.
These are the central questions in the formal study of computation. The field dates back to 1936, when Alan Turing first imagined a fanciful device , now called a Turing machine, that could perform any computation by reading and writing symbols on an infinite tape. Computational complexity theorists would later build on Turing’s work by proving that computational problems naturally fall into different complexity classes defined by the resources required to solve them.
In 2019, Barceló and two other researchers proved that an idealized version of a transformer with a fixed number of parameters could be just as powerful as a Turing machine. If you set up a transformer to repeatedly feed its output back in as an input and set the parameters to the appropriate values for the specific problem you want to solve, it will eventually spit out the correct answer.
That result was a starting point, but it relied on some unrealistic assumptions that would likely overestimate the power of transformers. In the years since, researchers have worked to develop more realistic theoretical frameworks.
One such effort began in 2021, when William Merrill , now a graduate student at New York University, was leaving a two-year fellowship at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. While there, he’d analyzed other kinds of neural networks using techniques that seemed like a poor fit for transformers’ parallel architecture. Shortly before leaving, he struck up a conversation with the Allen Institute for AI researcher Ashish Sabharwal , who’d studied complexity theory before moving into AI research. They began to suspect that complexity theory might help them understand the limits of transformers.
“It just seemed like it’s a simple model; there must be some limitations that one can just nail down,” Sabharwal said.
The pair analyzed transformers using a branch of computational complexity theory, called circuit complexity, that is often used to study parallel computation and had recently been applied to simplified versions of transformers. Over the following year, they refined several of the unrealistic assumptions in previous work. To study how the parallel structure of transformers might limit their capabilities, the pair considered the case where transformers didn’t feed their output back into their input — instead, their first output would have to be the final answer. They proved that the transformers in this theoretical framework couldn’t solve any computational problems that lie outside a specific complexity class. And many math problems, including relatively simple ones like solving linear equations, are thought to lie outside this class.
Basically, they showed that parallelism did come at a cost — at least when transformers had to spit out an answer right away. “Transformers are quite weak if the way you use them is you give an input, and you just expect an immediate answer,” Merrill said.
Merrill and Sabharwal’s results raised a natural question — how much more powerful do transformers become when they’re allowed to recycle their outputs? Barceló and his co-authors had studied this case in their 2019 analysis of idealized transformers, but with more realistic assumptions the question remained open. And in the intervening years, researchers had discovered chain-of-thought prompting, giving the question a newfound relevance.
Merrill and Sabharwal knew that their purely mathematical approach couldn’t capture all aspects of chain-of-thought reasoning in real language models, where the wording in the prompt can be very important . But no matter how a prompt is phrased, as long as it causes a language model to output step-by-step solutions, the model can in principle reuse the results of intermediate steps on subsequent passes through the transformer. That could provide a way to evade the limits of parallel computation.
Meanwhile, a team from Peking University had been thinking along similar lines, and their preliminary results were positive. In a May 2023 paper, they identified some math problems that should be impossible for ordinary transformers in Merrill and Sabharwal’s framework, and showed that intermediate steps enabled the transformers to solve these problems.
In October, Merrill and Sabharwal followed up their earlier work with a detailed theoretical study of the computational power of chain of thought. They quantified how that extra computational power depends on the number of intermediate steps a transformer is allowed to use before it must spit out a final answer. In general, researchers expect the appropriate number of intermediate steps for solving any problem to depend on the size of the input to the problem. For example, the simplest strategy for adding two 20-digit numbers requires twice as many intermediate addition steps as the same approach to adding two 10-digit numbers.
Examples like this suggest that transformers wouldn’t gain much from using just a few intermediate steps. Indeed, Merrill and Sabharwal proved that chain of thought only really begins to help when the number of intermediate steps grows in proportion to the size of the input, and many problems require the number of intermediate steps to grow much larger still.
The thoroughness of the result impressed researchers. “They really pinned this down,” said Daniel Hsu , a machine learning researcher at Columbia University.
Merrill and Sabharwal’s recent work indicates that chain of thought isn’t a panacea — in principle, it can help transformers solve harder problems, but only at the cost of a lot of computational effort.
“We’re interested in different ways of getting around the limitations of transformers with one step,” Merrill said. “Chain of thought is one way, but this paper shows that it might not be the most economical way.”
Still, researchers caution that this sort of theoretical analysis can only reveal so much about real language models. Positive results — proofs that transformers can in principle solve certain problems — don’t imply that a language model will actually learn those solutions during training.
And even results that address the limitations of transformers come with caveats: They indicate that no transformer can solve certain problems perfectly in all cases. Of course, that’s a pretty high bar. “There might be special cases of the problem that it could handle just fine,” Hsu said.
Despite these caveats, the new work offers a template for analyzing different kinds of neural network architectures that might eventually replace transformers. If a complexity theory analysis suggests that certain types of networks are more powerful than others, that would be evidence that those networks might fare better in the real world as well.
Chiang also stressed that research on the limitations of transformers is all the more valuable as language models are increasingly used in a wide range of real-world applications, making it easy to overestimate their abilities.
“There’s actually a lot of things that they don’t do that well, and we need to be very, very cognizant of what the limitations are,” Chiang said. “That’s why this kind of work is really important.”
Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox
Quanta Magazine moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.
Health Research Policy and Systems volume 22 , Article number: 111 ( 2024 ) Cite this article
Metrics details
Countries in the Middle East have some of the lowest rates of physical activity and some of the highest rates of obesity in the world. Policies can influence population levels of physical activity. However, there is a dearth of research on physical activity policies in the Gulf region. This qualitative study analyses cross-sectoral barriers and facilitators for the development, implementation and evaluation of physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman, two of the largest countries in the region.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 senior policymakers from the Ministries of Health, Education, and Sport in Saudi Arabia and Oman, and were examined using thematic analysis.
We identified seven themes related to physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman: leadership; existing policies; physical activity programs related to policies; private sector policies; challenges; data/monitoring; and future opportunities. Both countries have a central document that guides policy-makers in promoting physical activity, and the available policies in both countries are implemented via multiple programs and initiatives to increase physical activity. Compared with Oman, in Saudi Arabia, programs from the non-profit sector, represented by community groups, play a more significant role in promoting physical activity outside the government framework. The private sector has contributed to promoting physical activity in both countries, but interviewees stated that more financial support is required. Policy limitations differ between Saudi Arabia and Oman: intersectoral collaboration in Oman is limited and mainly based on individuals’ own initiative, while the health transformation in Saudi Arabia tends to slow down policy implementation in relevant areas. Physical education in Saudi Arabia and Oman is similar; however, increased support and collaboration between government agencies and the private sector for out-of-school sports academies are needed.
This study addresses key gaps in analysing physical activity policies in Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Our study highlights the importance of increasing financial support, improving collaboration between governmental agencies and between them and the private sector and consolidating efforts to back physical activity policies and dismantle cross-sectoral barriers in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Educational institutions in Saudi Arabia and Oman play a crucial role in promoting physical activity from early childhood to young adults. Our insights assist policy-makers, public health officials and stakeholders in shaping effective physical activity-promoting policies, programs and interventions to prevent non-communicable diseases. Challenges identified in Saudi Arabia and Oman's policies will inform their future development.
Peer Review reports
Despite the health benefits of physical activity [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], in most countries, large proportions of the population remain insufficiently active [ 4 , 5 ]. In line with social–ecological models of health [ 6 ], the need for policies to increase population levels of physical activity has been highlighted [ 7 , 8 ]. Physical activity policy is defined as any formal or informal legislative or regulatory action or organized guidance provided by governments and organizations [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Policies can be cross-sectoral and encompass access to various forms of physical activity, including walking and cycling, regulate and promote programs and initiatives, and provide a comprehensive framework for the design, funding and implementation of diverse physical activity interventions [ 9 , 13 , 14 ].
Countries in the Middle East have amongst the lowest levels of physical activity and some of the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the world [ 4 , 15 ]. In Saudi Arabia and Oman, only 29.7% and 25.6% of the adult population, respectively, meet the physical activity recommendations. For the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region the rate is 38.5% and the global average is 31.3% [ 4 ]. Moreover, in 2020 in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, more than 80% of teenagers and 55% of adults (45% of men and 65% of women) were not sufficiently active [ 16 ]. In Saudi Arabia and Oman, dietary patterns are shifting due to increased consumption of processed foods, leading to higher rates of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Traditional diets rich in fruits, vegetables and lean meats are being replaced by fast food and sugary drinks. Moreover, reduced physical activity and increasingly sedentary lifestyles are major determinants of the obesity epidemic [ 17 , 18 ]. Therefore, there is an urgent need in this region for action on physical activity, including policy development, implementation and evaluation.
The 2014 report from the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean on promoting physical activity in the region included a policy mapping exercise on national policy and action on physical activity in all 22 member states [ 19 ]. National physical activity policies were reported for most countries, including all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries [Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain and Oman] that share a similar cultural, social and economic background. According to WHO’s recent Global Status Report on Physical Activity [ 16 ], only 11 of the 22 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region had a national physical activity strategy, while all GCC countries had one. The report also identified some partnerships to promote physical activity between various ministries in the Gulf states, particularly across the health, sports and education sectors.
In a systematic scoping review, Klepac Pogrmilovic et al. examined the academic literature on physical activity policy and identified 163 papers, covering 168 countries, including all 6 GCC members [ 20 ]. Few papers on physical activity policy across the Eastern Mediterranean region were identified, thus, the findings for the region were largely based on the 2014 report of the WHO Regional Office [ 20 ]. In another study by Klepac Pogrmilovic and colleagues, a survey on national physical activity policies was completed by representatives of 76 countries. However, this only included three of the 22 countries from the Eastern Mediterranean Region. The authors also emphasized that although national policies and strategies exist in all GCC countries, implementation is lacking. The authors recommended that further research be undertaken into physical activity and sedentary behaviour policy in the region [ 8 ]. It is essential to contextualize these findings with regard to physical activity policies in the Gulf region, including disparities and challenges in their implementation.
Recently, Albujulaya et al. analysed physical activity policy initiatives in Saudi Arabia by conducting semi-structured interviews with three policy-makers from the Ministries of Education and Sports and with six Saudi academics working in this field [ 21 ]. Surprisingly, they did not interview anyone from the Ministry of Health. They concluded that while physical activity amongst Saudis overall has increased, levels among women are still low. While Albujulaya et al. analysed aspects of physical activity policy development, implementation and evaluation in Saudi Arabia, they did not address potential cross-sectoral barriers and facilitators for these processes.
The primary objective of the present study was to analyse cross-sectoral barriers and facilitators for physical activity policy development, implementation and evaluation in GCC countries. The best research paradigm for this study is qualitative research. We chose interpretivist research to describe complex social realities, explore new or under-researched subjects and generate hypotheses for future quantitative research. This approach allows for a detailed examination of phenomena, which is difficult with quantitative methods. Practically, we also lacked a large, easily accessible sample to survey quantitatively. Therefore, interpretivism is particularly effective for understanding stakeholder perspectives on physical activity policies in unique cultural settings, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Oman, providing deep insights into subjective experiences and nuanced views. To achieve this, we interviewed policy-makers from the Ministries of Health, Sport and Education in Saudi Arabia and Oman, the two largest countries in the GCC. We picked these three ministries as previous research highlights that they are chiefly responsible for promoting physical activity and implementing related policies in the Gulf region [ 22 , 23 , 24 ].
This is a qualitative study using the interpretivist research paradigm [ 25 ], comprising semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in physical activity policy-making in Saudi Arabia and Oman. We utilized the COREQ checklist to ensure the rigour and transparency of our qualitative methods (Appendix 1).
We defined stakeholders as those that are directly involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of physical activity policies. We initially sought to conduct interviews with stakeholders in all six GCC countries. We attempted to reach a contact in the Ministry of Health (MoH) in each GCC country by writing to the official email address of the ministries to introduce the study and request the contact details of relevant stakeholders. Despite following up with non-responders, we did not receive any replies from Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Therefore, we narrowed the scope to Saudi Arabia and Oman, the two largest countries of the six, with 36.4 million and 4.6 million inhabitants, respectively, accounting for 70% of the GCC’s population [ 26 ]. After obtaining contact details of key stakeholders from the ministries, the participants were contacted directly via email or telephone. To recruit additional participants, we used snowball sampling by asking interviewees to provide contact details of other relevant stakeholders in their organization. Because of the documented previous involvement of the sports and education sectors in promoting physical activity in the Gulf States [ 19 ], we also asked participants to identify relevant stakeholders in the Ministries of Sports and Education in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Our study focussed on the Ministries of Sports, Health and Education as they are significantly involved in promoting physical activity within Gulf Cooperation Council countries [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Attempts to contact the ministers directly were unsuccessful. However, we managed to reach senior staff in the ministries and in university sports federations which belong to the Ministries of Education. Additionally, we employed different strategies to engage participants from the non-governmental sector in both countries, including networking through professional contacts of the first author, utilizing online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and forums and capitalizing on established partnerships with both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental sectors.
Participants were provided with information on the study, and all gave written consent to participate. Additionally, participants were informed at the beginning of the interview that they could withdraw from the study at any time if they chose not to continue participating. An interview guide, based on a review of previous literature [ 22 , 24 ] and collaborative input from the authors, was developed (Appendix 2). In the interviews, we explored stakeholders’ perspectives and opinions regarding existing physical activity policy documents from the Ministries of Health, Education and Sport in their country, as well as facilitators and barriers to physical activity policy development, implementation and evaluation, with field notes made during the interviews. A.A. conducted the interviews via Zoom due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic between December 2021 and February 2022. Interviews were conducted in Arabic, were audio-recorded with permission obtained from the participants and transcribed verbatim, and lasted between 10 min and 45 min. Repeat interviews were not carried out. The following personal information was collected from each participant: name, organization, position, age, gender and previous work experience. The participants were provided with an opportunity to review the Arabic transcripts for accuracy, and the final transcripts were translated to English. Monitoring of data saturation, an ongoing process based on the notion of informational redundancy [ 27 ], was conducted to ensure that comprehensive insights were obtained. The determination of the number of samples needed to reach data saturation was done separately in each country.
Authors A.A., A.B. and P.G. reviewed the transcripts to familiarize themselves with the content, after which thematic analysis was jointly undertaken by A.A., A.B. and P.G. to code each transcript. Themes were subsequently developed through a partially deductive approach: Main categories in Table 1 were derived from existing frameworks of the policy process, such as the HARDWIRED framework [ 28 ] (covering aspects such as development process, partnerships, resources, communication, evaluation and evidence-base) and CAPPA criteria [ 29 ] (including sectors/institutions involved, implementation, legal status, target groups, goals and targets, timeframe, budget and evaluation/surveillance). Subsequently, sub-categories were added via an inductive process conducted by A.A. during the thematic exploration stage, involving a comprehensive review of all codes within the combined dataset encompassing both Saudi Arabia and Oman. A.A., A.B. and P.G. discussed the coding and the preliminary interpretations to cross-validate the findings. These themes were informed by a comprehensive analysis of the extant literature and relevant findings from previous studies [ 22 , 24 ]. As a medical doctor at King Faisal Medical City in the southern region of Saudi Arabia, the lead author’s professional background informed his approach to data analysis in this qualitative study.
The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS HREC ref. no. ETH21-6428).
Interviews were conducted with 19 high-level stakeholders in physical activity policy; 12 from Saudi Arabia and 7 from Oman. A total of four of the participants (two from each country) were women. In Saudi Arabia, four participants were from the Ministry of Health (MoH, including one from an NGO that is supervised by the MoH), five were from the Ministry of Education (MoE) and three represented the Ministry of Sport (MoS). In Oman, one participant represented the Ministry of Health, three were from the Ministry of Education and three were from the Ministry of Sport.
We generated six themes regarding physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman: leadership; existing policy documents; implementation of physical activity policies; challenges; data/monitoring for physical activity policies; and future opportunities. The theme non-profit sector/community groups was generated only for Saudi Arabia. Table 1 provides an overview of the derived main themes and findings.
Participants from the Saudi MoH and MoS stated that the leadership in the legislation, regulation, and evaluation of physical activity policies is divided between the two ministries. They also collaborate with other government agencies, including the MoE and the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, to increase physical activity opportunities in schools, workplaces and communities. Two participants from the MoE mentioned that the University Affairs Council and the Supreme Economic Council also work in the promotion of physical activity by regulating the implementation of programs in their sectors according to policy documents from the MoH and MoE.
According to the participant from the NGO supervised by the MoH, the non-profit sector is instrumental in promoting physical activity through walking groups. These have been established throughout the country to provide opportunities for people to engage in physical activity and to socialize, and which are co-organized by various stakeholders, including local businesses, schools, healthcare providers and government agencies: “I firmly believe that the non-profit sector plays a pivotal role in advocating for physical activity in Saudi Arabia” (NGO participant).
Participants from the Saudi MoH underlined that Health in All Policies is one of the main objectives in the new health care transformation in the kingdom. Most participants from the three ministries identified a certain level of cooperation between different stakeholders, particularly between the Ministries of Health, Sport and Education.
The Omani MoH leads the policies and programs to promote physical activity. Participant 1 from the MoH said that their non-communicable disease (NCD) and Health Committees are crucial for leading policy-making and promoting physical activity related to the National Policy for Prevention and Control of NCDs document [ 30 ].
Regarding Health in All Policies, all participants from Oman stated that there is cooperation between the different ministries, but that it is limited and based on individual agencies’ own initiatives rather than combined efforts or a policy imprimatur: “Partnerships exist, but they are limited and based on individual initiatives” (participant 2 from the MoS).
Most of the participants from all three ministries in Saudi Arabia referred to the Quality of Life document [ 31 ], an economic and social reform blueprint that is part of the government’s overarching Saudi Vision 2030 development program [ 32 ]. The Quality of Life document includes the most important physical activity policies implemented by the three ministries: “There is no doubt that the 2030 Vision is our basic guidance” (participant 3 from the MoH). “Before 2017 there were no clear policies. Everyone works on vision files, and everyone has to achieve the [Vision 2030] target to increase the quality of life of the Saudi community” (participant 2 from the MoE). The Quality of Life document emphasizes the need to enhance public health and healthcare services, promote healthy behaviours, and provide opportunities for physical activity and sports participation.
Interviewees from the MoE highlighted that the University Sports Federation strategy promotes physical activity and sport in tertiary education [ 33 ]. Some important miscellaneous policy documents were identified by staff of the three ministries, such as the National Strategy for Healthy Food and Physical Activity 2015–2025 [ 34 ], the Physical Activity Guidelines for Health Practitioners [ 35 ], the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines [ 36 ] (all by the MoH) and the annual report of the Sport for All Federation by the MoS [ 37 ].
Almost all participants across all three ministries stated that the government of Oman’s overarching Vision 2040 [ 38 ] is currently the most important policy document. Participants from the MoE reported that the Vision 2040 guides the promotion of student physical activity, with support from related documents such as the student learning calendar, education document, standards document and the school sports curriculum. These policy documents aim to promote physical activity among students by better integrating physical education (PE) classes into the overall curriculum to encourage regular physical activity and healthy habits. According to participant 1 from the MoH, the Education Document is a comprehensive strategy, including PE and promotion of physical activity in schools and universities. The document outlines various initiatives, policies and guidelines to ensure that education includes a focus on physical health and fitness [ 39 ]. Three participants from the three different Omani ministries referred to the National Policy for Prevention and Control of NCDs [ 30 ], published by the MoH, as the central policy document for physical activity promotion in Oman. Three study participants from the MoS suggested that the Omani Sports Strategy [ 40 ] is important for guiding the promotion of physical activity for different segments of society.
(a) physical activity programs.
The MoH and MoE collaborate on a range of health-related issues (obesity, diabetes, mental health and visual acuity) to improve the overall health of school students and to detect problems at an early stage [ 41 ]. This led to the development of the Rashaka initiative, a large-scale multi-component school-based obesity prevention program, which started in 2016 and involved nearly 1000 schools across the country. In 2020, Rashaka was replaced by an annual program composed of screening of students for early signs of chronic diseases and lectures highlighting the significance of physical activity and a healthy diet.
Participants 3 and 4 of the Saudi MoH mentioned the Walk 30 Minutes initiative, which was implemented in 2021 and intends to increase physical activity through mass media and social media, and forms part of the National Strategy for Healthy Food and Physical Activity 2015–2025 of the MoH. An initiative by the University Sports Federation [ 33 ] (related to policies from the MoS), aiming to support sports facilities and clubs for girls and women, was mentioned by three participants from the MoS, and one participant highlighted the MoS’s Talent Support Program to identify and develop talented athletes in different sports.
Participant 3 of the Saudi MoH and participant 5 of the MoE mentioned the Healthy Mall Campaign and the Healthy Campus Project to promote physical activity in air-conditioned malls and universities. These initiatives are related to policies of the National Strategy for Healthy Food and Physical Activity (MoH and MoE). Despite challenges, the study participants considered the Saudi physical activity programs to be effective.
Participants 1 and 2 of the MoE identified programs related to PE policies from the Education Document, which include increasing the number of PE classes per week and organizing tournaments in different sports. According to participants from the three different ministries, a range of physical activity programs took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, including campaigns calling for physical activity at home using apps with exercise videos. These initiatives, as reported by the participants, align with and are supported by the physical activity policy documents from the Ministries of Health, Sport and Education, that is, the National Policy for Prevention and Control of NCDs [ 30 ] and the Oman Sport Strategy [ 40 ].
According to multiple participants, several community-based initiatives were underway in Oman, such as Active Community, Healthy Cities and Healthy Villages and The Green Playgrounds Project. These initiatives had been set up in all Omani cities to make the built environment more activity friendly, for example, by improving neighbourhood walkability, which is also based on the National Policy for Prevention and Control of NCDs [ 30 ].
According to most of the participants, the private sector makes important contributions to physical activity promotion in Saudi Arabia by being directly involved in the policy development process. The Tatweer Educational Company, a private holding dedicated to implementing the government's education reform initiative, has developed programs to promote physical activity in schools, aligning with its commitment to a holistic education system. In line with the conceptualization of active travel as physical activity, the Red Sea Company drives the development of Saudi Arabia’s west coast and aims to improve neighbourhood walkability. Participants from the MoE were unanimous in the view that private universities make significant contributions to the promotion of physical activity among staff and students on the basis of financial support from their funders. International and local investors in the education sector are urging private universities to promote physical activity to enhance the universities’ reputation and to be more attractive for prospective students.
According to participant 1 from the Ministry of Health, walking and hiking groups supported by the Health Promotion Center [ 42 ] (a non-profit charitable organization under the umbrella of the Saudi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs) play an important role in promoting physical activity in Saudi Arabia. This is despite a lack of governmental support, with influencers and celebrities utilizing social media platforms for the promotion of physical activity. This organization has internal policies for the promotion of physical activity through different programs: “The fact is that community groups working to spread this culture of walking have no ceilings, no limits, and no bureaucracy” (participant 1 from the MoH).
In contrast to Saudi Arabia, participants in Oman stated that more support from the private sector is needed to promote physical activity in the country. However, participant 3 from the MoE mentioned an agreement between the MoE and Muscat Pharmacy & Stores limited liability company (LLC) to hold a football tournament for elementary school students. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that there is a prevailing perception that physical activity cannot be easily monetized. This contributes to the private sector’s limited interest in supporting such initiatives in the Gulf countries, as it is not perceived to yield immediate profits. Overall, the participants from both Saudi Arabia and Oman stated that, unlike in government-supported programs, in the private sector there are no performance indicators to track the progress of physical activity programs.
Two participants from the Saudi MoH and MoE mentioned challenges in relation to physical activity monitoring, as each of the three involved ministries independently conducts surveys on physical activity with different methodologies and tools, which may yield conflicting results in monitoring the effects or end-product of physical activity policies. Furthermore, participants from all three ministries confirmed the existence of national surveys for physical activity and emphasized their importance in assessing activity levels. They also shared insights about how they monitor the implementation of physical activity policies and evaluate the effectiveness of various initiatives in their respective sectors: “We follow and evaluate health through periodic national surveys, but each ministry has its own survey with different results. It is not clear how widely these data are utilized in different sectors, such as education, and sports, to inform policies and interventions” (participant 2 from the MoH).
Participants from the MoH and MoS stated that participation rates, policy compliance, budget allocation and health outcomes are being tracked to assess the effectiveness and progress of physical activity policies, with a specific focus on regular reports and data analysis. Furthermore, one participant from the MoE said that there is no monitoring happening for their education-specific policies.
Participant 4 from the MoH suggested that limited policy implementation is likely until the health transformation process is completed by 2030. The health transformation in Saudi Arabia is a recent, prominent project that aims to restructure the health sector to make it more comprehensive, effective and integrated. The transformation is mainly focussed on the prevention of chronic diseases and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle through physical activity and a nutritious diet. On the ground, this transformation entails significant changes in healthcare infrastructure, delivery and accessibility, as well as increased awareness campaigns and the implementation of various programs aimed at improving public health and wellbeing [ 43 ]. To expedite the health transformation in Saudi Arabia, the respondent considered it essential to implement the policies from the Quality of Life document, which is part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. This particularly involves promoting physical activity and healthy lifestyles. By fostering these habits, the country could achieve significant improvements in public health and wellbeing. Participant 3 suggested that bureaucracy is a limitation, as new policies and regulations take a long time to implement under different administrations. Moreover, participants from the MoH and MoE declared that a lack of sustainability of physical activity programs and funding were major limitations due to changes in administrations over short periods. Most participants representing the three Saudi ministries stated that a lack of collaboration and cooperation between government departments was a major challenge. For instance, some policies from the MoH need to be implemented by the MoE, such as the screening program of school students [ 41 ]. The hot climate and the desert environment in the Gulf region also present challenges when it comes to implementing physical activity policies.
According to most participants, a lack of funding for the promotion of physical activity was a common challenge in Saudi Arabia because health budgets are mostly allocated to hospitals and curative services rather than to NCD prevention, including physical activity promotion. A lack of facilities (e.g. sports fields, recreation centres, indoor and outdoor courts and multi-use sporting hubs) is a further challenge according to most Saudi respondents. Moreover, negative societal attitudes towards physical activity were highlighted by one participant, citing challenges such as the prevalence of social norms that prioritize sedentary pastimes and leisure activities, thereby reinforcing a culture that tends to discourage physical activity [ 44 ].
According to most participants, insufficient collaboration between different stakeholders, as well as a lack of government funding and support from the private sector, were the most important barriers to physical activity promotion. Like in Saudi Arabia, participants from Oman said that the hot climate and desert environment in the Gulf region, a lack of facilities and/or a lack of access to them and negative attitudes in the population towards physical activity (social norms that prioritize sedentary pastimes and leisure activities) all pose obstacles to physical activity. Some participants from the MoE stated that a lack of support for PE facilities in schools has been a major obstacle to increasing students’ physical activity. Like in Saudi Arabia, respondents from Oman felt that the country should rapidly implement the provisions of the Vision 2040, specifically those related to the prevention of chronic diseases through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle and physical activity. Furthermore, an increase in government funding dedicated to promoting physical activity would be desirable.
Participant 3 from the Saudi MoH stated that future policies might include investment in technology, such as developing smartphone apps for the promotion of physical activity during pandemics, and these could contribute to future physical activity programs. However, this requires direct support from the government, both financially and technically, by providing technical expertise, developing and implementing technology-based solutions and ensuring privacy and security. Furthermore, participant 1 from the MoS and participant 3 of the MoE claimed that programs, such as out-of- school academies for talented young athletes, could further encourage physical activity and foster athletic talent. Three participants from the MoE pointed out that unifying efforts between different stakeholders would be important. Moreover, more support in terms of funding, infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and research are considered promising opportunities by most participants from the three ministries.
Participants from the three ministries stated that community participation, such as activating schools as centres for physical activity promotion in the community, would be a great opportunity in the future if cooperation between different ministries is enhanced. Three participants from the Omani MoS and MoE said that improvements to facilities and the skills of the workforce (e.g. PE teachers, coaches, gym instructors, etc.) are required to increase activity levels. Despite the existence of the national plan for physical activity promotion in Oman [ 45 ], all participants emphasized that the lack of partnerships between the government and other relevant parties, such as schools, sports clubs and community organizations, is a common and significant obstacle. Furthermore, participant 1 from the MoS and participant 3 from the MoE said that more support for out-of-school sport academies, including improved collaboration between governmental agencies and the private sector, and supporting physical education as a part of the Omani education strategy, would be great opportunities.
Participants from the Ministries of Education of Saudi Arabia and Oman highlighted that physical education is crucial for the future in both countries, fostering healthy habits essential for a productive workforce. Integrating physical education into the curriculum promotes wellness and prevents lifestyle-related diseases, contributing to various sectors [ 39 ]. As both nations progress, emphasizing physical education will enhance individual health and serve as a strategic investment in a robust, dynamic workforce.
This study examined cross-sectoral barriers and facilitators for physical activity policy development, implementation and evaluation in Saudi Arabia and Oman by interviewing high-level stakeholders from their Ministries of Health, Sports and Education. Oman established a national policy framework for physical activity in 2014 [ 18 ] under the umbrella of the Oman Vision 2040 [ 38 ], 3 years before Saudi Arabia introduced its Quality of Life Program [ 46 ] under the umbrella of the Saudi Vision 2030 [ 31 ]. Many programs and initiatives to enhance physical activity in both countries were identified, particularly sports initiatives. However, it is worth noting that these efforts often lack comprehensiveness, encompassing a broad range of activities and demographics, and face challenges in effective implementation – observations that are in line with findings from a survey on national physical activity policies by Klepac Pogrmilovic et al. [ 8 ]. The programs and initiatives are predominantly focussed on urban areas and may neglect rural communities [ 44 , 47 ]. Interest in promoting gender equity in physical activity in Oman was prominent, with several programs for female participants [ 24 ]; there was less focus on gender equity in Saudi Arabia, although a positive development was the introduction of PE classes for female students in primary and secondary education in 2018. Policies for promoting physical activity should also support individuals with special needs, patients and the elderly by implementing community programs targeted at these groups, such as walking groups and fitness classes for older adults, and programs targeting people with chronic conditions. Additionally, it is important to focus on policies and programs that support gender equality in physical activity and health.
Our finding regarding insufficient backing of policy interventions to create environments supportive of physical activity in both countries aligns with a study by Allender et al., who interviewed stakeholders in local government in Victoria, Australia, to analyse physical activity policies and initiatives. Similar to our findings from Saudi Arabia and Oman, they identified a lack of relevance and competing priorities (i.e. promoting healthy eating environments was not considered a priority above food safety) as reasons for the lack of support towards creating supportive environments for physical activity and healthy eating [ 48 ].
Health in All Policies has been embraced in Saudi Arabia by integrating the promotion of physical activity into policy development across various areas such as education, sports and the private sector. However, while this integration is mentioned in the respective documents, challenges in implementation may have arisen due to limited cooperation between sectors. Many partnerships have been established with multiple parties in the Kingdom (MoH, MoS, MoE, and the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs) to further develop physical activity policies in each sector and to remove obstacles to the implementation of physical activity programs. According to a WHO report from 2017, promoting Health in All Policies in Saudi Arabia has been identified as a national priority, monitored by the Ministry of Health [ 49 ]. Intersectoral collaboration in Oman is apparently less developed than in Saudi Arabia, hindering the integration of physical activity policies across sectors. Unlike Saudi Arabia’s comprehensive approach of Health in All Policies, Oman relies more on individual agency initiatives. However, there is potential for improvement in Oman to strengthen intersectoral collaboration and enhance the integration of physical activity policies by establishing a comprehensive policy framework and promoting coordinated efforts among sectors. For instance, the Omani government could create an intersectoral task force or committee dedicated to fostering collaboration.
In Saudi Arabia, the non-profit sector, represented by community groups, plays a significant role in promoting physical activity outside of the government framework, aided by the promotion of physical activity by influencers and celebrities through social media platforms [ 42 ]. By contrast, our study participants did not mention any significant involvement of the non-profit sector in physical activity promotion in Oman, either because these types of organizations do not play a role or because their role is not valued by the government stakeholders who we interviewed. The private sector contributes to promoting physical activity in both countries, with particularly strong partnerships with the governmental sector in Saudi Arabia. This may be because tax benefits exist for companies that encourage and promote physical activity in Saudi Arabia [ 31 ]. There are previous examples of these types of partnerships in Oman, such as a collaboration between the education and private sector aiming to create a healthier environment and lifestyle in schools. These partnerships have been achieved through the provision of financial support and sponsorships, specifically targeting sports equipment, facilities and physical activity programs in schools [ 50 ]. However, insufficient budget allocation in this area was considered a challenge, which is consistent with our study, with most participants from the sultanate expressing the need for greater financial support from the private sector.
Policy limitations differ between both countries, mainly due to the health transformation in Saudi Arabia, specifically with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 [ 51 ]. The slow pace of transformation in various Saudi public health, infrastructure, urban planning, sports and recreation policies may impact their likelihood of being fully implemented by 2030, potentially falling short of WHO’s target for increased physical activity by that year set in their Global Action Plan on Physical Activity [ 52 ]. One of the objectives of the health sector transformation and the Quality of Life Program is to decrease the proportion of the Saudi population who are not sufficiently physically active below (67%) by 2030 [ 51 ]. The government has taken proactive measures to promote physical activity, investing in initiatives that raise awareness about its importance and the associated health benefits. This includes campaigns, public awareness programs and the establishment of recreational facilities to facilitate physical activity. In Oman, more collaboration between political parties is essential to improve the implementation of physical activity policies. According to participant 1 from the Omani MoH, several meetings were recently held with all parties to create plans to better implement physical activity policies. These meetings have led to increased monitoring and stricter enforcement by the Omani government regarding the implementation of physical activity policies in all relevant ministries. Effective health system policies significantly depend on inter-institutional collaboration. While primary health institutions play a central role, the impact of related entities is equally crucial. Educational bodies, sports organizations and community health centres contribute significantly to decision-making processes. Their closer involvement would ensure a more comprehensive approach to promoting physical activity, enhancing wellness and preventing lifestyle-related diseases [ 53 ].
According to previous studies, insufficient funding for promoting physical activity, and more broadly for NCD prevention, is a challenge in both Saudi Arabia and Oman [ 23 , 24 ]. Similarly, in a US study, state public health practitioners were interviewed about the National Physical Activity Plan, who also identified implementation costs and the complexity of physical activity policies as significant challenges [ 54 ]. Financial incentives and private sector involvement, while valuable, do not ensure adequate funding for all aspects of public health initiatives. The private sector’s contribution is often focussed on areas aligned with their business interests or corporate social responsibility. Nevertheless, in Saudi Arabia, certain private sector companies run national programs, such as the Tatweer Educational Company, a private holding dedicated to implementing the government's education reform initiative [ 55 , 56 ]. Enhancing funding for the implementation of physical activity policies in the Gulf region holds great promise in advancing infrastructure, cultivating a proficient workforce, and fostering research initiatives. On the basis of the Saudi Quality of Life document 2030 [ 46 ], the budget of the Ministries of Health, Sport and Education for promoting physical activity will likely increase until 2030.
The monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation across ministries in both countries is challenging due to the absence of comprehensive and precise data on physical activity prevalence in key sectors such as health, sport and education. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address data quality issues, such as inconsistent measurement methods employed across different sectors, which make it difficult to compare and consolidate data, and the lack of standardized protocols which undermines the accuracy and reliability of prevalence estimates. To efficiently monitor policy implementation, the responsibility could, for instance, be entrusted to the MoH for coordination with all pertinent sectors, while the General Statistics Authority should be designated to collect data on physical activity.
Responsibility for ensuring data quality rests with various stakeholders involved in the data collection, including researchers, survey administrators, data analysts and policy-makers. These stakeholders must work collectively to implement robust data collection methodologies, appropriate sampling techniques, rigorous quality control measures and transparent reporting practices. Monitoring of the impact of policies on population levels of physical activity in Saudi Arabia and Oman has improved, but more work is needed, particularly in the education sector in Oman, which requires evaluation of the progress and impact of policies.
To create and implement comprehensive policies, programs and supporting environments, a variety of sectors must collaborate in both countries. This may include transport, urban planning, media, social work, religious and cultural affairs [ 23 ]. In Saudi Arabia, one of the most effective health-promoting practices is physician-recommended physical activity [ 57 ], which is recognized as one of the eight best investments for physical activity by the International Society for Physical Activity and Health [ 58 ]. Therefore, the primary healthcare system in the Gulf region has a critical role in the promotion of physical activity, and further policy development in this area would be promising [ 57 ]. In addition, physical education policies in schools play an integral part in the Gulf states [ 59 ]. Educational institutions in Saudi Arabia and Oman are crucial in promoting physical activity among various age groups. From childhood through adolescence to young adulthood, schools offer structured physical education programs, health education and gender-inclusive activities. Universities support these efforts by providing sports facilities and activities as well as by conducting research on active lifestyles. Coordinated national policies amplify the effectiveness of these initiatives [ 22 , 39 , 60 ]. Furthermore, active transport and urban design policies have not yet been developed sufficiently to become potential contributors to population levels of physical activity in these countries due to cultural, environmental and climatic differences [ 23 ].
Strengths of this study include a sample of high-level stakeholders who are directly involved in the formulation of physical activity policies from three ministries in Saudi Arabia and Oman, the two largest countries in the GCC. Additionally, we recruited one prominent participant from an NGO that is supervised by the Saudi Ministry of Health. We were not able to reach participants from the non-governmental sector in Oman. The original research plan was targeted at all six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but we were not able to recruit participants from the other GCC states due to political sensitivities surrounding the subject and a lack of responsiveness from relevant authorities. This may limit the generalizability of our findings beyond these specific contexts. However, we managed to recruit senior participants from the two largest GCC countries, which account for 70% of the GCC population. As in many countries, governmental representatives may have been constrained in what they reported in these interviews. Regarding the limitation of interview responses, some participants spoke about the existence of physical activity policies but did not want to provide further information on how they are being implemented, and this kind of information is not easy to obtain from other sources either. Thus, these gaps constitute a need for future research. To ensure research quality based on Lincoln and Guba’s criteria [ 61 ], we implemented several strategies. For credibility, we used investigator triangulation (involving multiple researchers) and theoretical triangulation (utilizing multiple policy frameworks). We did not use methodological triangulation, as we only conducted interviews, nor data triangulation, relying solely on audio transcripts. To ensure dependability, we kept detailed records of data collection and assessed coding accuracy and reliability among our team. For transferability, we addressed inherent challenges by collecting data from two countries, Saudi Arabia and Oman, enhancing the applicability of our findings to similar contexts. Although achieving confirmability was challenging due to our focus on individual perceptions, we aimed for transparency and objectivity in documenting our procedures and decisions.
This study fills important gaps in the analysis of physical activity policies in the Gulf region. Understanding the unique challenges, barriers and successes in promoting physical activity in the GCC countries is essential for developing relevant policies and strategies in the future. Our study highlights the importance of increasing financial support, improving collaboration between governmental agencies and between them and the private sector, and consolidating efforts to back physical activity policies and dismantle cross-sectoral barriers in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Educational institutions in Saudi Arabia and Oman play a crucial role in promoting physical activity from early childhood to young adults. Schools offer structured physical education, health education and gender-inclusive activities, while universities provide sport facilities and conduct research on active lifestyles. Coordinated national policies enhance the effectiveness of these efforts.
Specifically, we recommend allocating dedicated funds, establishing a centralized task force for coordinated policy implementation, creating incentives for private sector investment, developing a national strategy with measurable targets and conducting comprehensive policy reviews to remove bureaucratic obstacles. These steps will facilitate sustained progress and broader engagement in physical activity initiatives.
Our findings provide valuable insights and evidence for policy-makers, public health officials and other stakeholders in the region to develop targeted policies, programs and interventions that promote physical activity and prevent non-communicable diseases. The identified challenges and limitations of physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman will guide their future development.
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available to maintain participants’ confidentiality. However, they can be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Coronavirus disease 2019
Gulf Cooperation Council
Health in all policies
Limited liability company
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Sport
Non-communicable disease
Non-governmental organization
Physical education
United Arab Emirates
United States
World Health Organization
Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee. 2018 physical activity guidelines advisory committee scientific report. Washington DC: US Department of Health and Human Services; 2018.
Google Scholar
World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020.
Dishman RK, Heath G, Schmidt MD, Lee I-M. Physical activity epidemiology. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 2022.
Strain T, Flaxman S, Guthold R, Semenova E, Cowan M, Riley LM, Bull FC, Stevens GA. National, regional, and global trends in insufficient physical activity among adults from 2000 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 507 population-based surveys with 5·7 million participants. Lancet Glob Health. 2024;12(8):e1232–43.
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Guthold R, Stevens GA, Riley LM, Bull FC. Global trends in insufficient physical activity among adolescents: a pooled analysis of 298 population-based surveys with 1·6 million participants. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2020;4(1):23–35.
Sallis JF, Owen N, Fisher E. Ecological models of health behavior. In: Glanz K, Rimer BK, Viswanath K, editors. Health behavior: theory, research, and practice. 5th ed. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons; 2015.
Calvert HG, Turner L, Leider J, Piekarz-Porter E, Chriqui JF. Comprehensive policies to support comprehensive practices: physical activity in elementary schools. J Phys Act Health. 2020;17(3):313–22.
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Klepac Pogrmilovic B, Ramirez Varela A, Pratt M, Milton K, Bauman A, Biddle SJ, Pedisic Z. National physical activity and sedentary behaviour policies in 76 countries: availability, comprehensiveness, implementation, and effectiveness. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2020;17(1):1–13.
Article Google Scholar
Gelius P, Messing S, Goodwin L, Schow D, Abu-Omar K. What are effective policies for promoting physical activity? A systematic review of reviews. Prev Med Rep. 2020;18:101095.
Sallis J, Bauman A, Pratt M. Environmental and policy interventions to promote physical activity. Am J Prev Med. 1998;15(4):379–97.
Schmid TL, Pratt M, Witmer L. A framework for physical activity policy research. J Phys Act Health. 2006;3(s1):S20–9.
Bull F, Milton K, Kahlmeier S, Arlotti A, Juričan AB, Belander O, Martin B, Martin-Diener E, Marques A, Mota J. Turning the tide: national policy approaches to increasing physical activity in seven European countries. Br J Sports Med. 2015;49(11):749–56.
Volf K, Kelly L, García Bengoechea E, Casey B, Gobis A, Lakerveld J, Zukowska J, Gelius P, Messing S, Forberger S. Policy Evaluation Network (PEN): protocol for systematic literature reviews examining the evidence for impact of policies on physical activity across seven different policy domains. HRB Open Res. 2022;3:62.
Volf K, Kelly L, García Bengoechea E, Casey B, Gelius P, Messing S, Forberger S, Lakerveld J, Den Braver NR, Zukowska J. Evidence of the impact of sport policies on physical activity and sport participation: a systematic mixed studies review. Int J Sport Pol Polit. 2022;14(4):697–712.
Abarca-Gómez L, Abdeen ZA, Hamid ZA, Abu-Rmeileh NM, Acosta-Cazares B, Acuin C, Adams RJ, Aekplakorn W, Afsana K, Aguilar-Salinas CA. Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies in 128·9 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet. 2017;390(10113):2627–42.
World Health Organization. Global status report on physical activity. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022.
Al-Hazzaa HM. Physical inactivity in Saudi Arabia revisited: a systematic review of inactivity prevalence and perceived barriers to active living. Int J Health Sci. 2018;12(6):50.
Al Siyabi H, Mabry RM, Al Siyabi A, Al Subhi M, Milton K. The development of a national policy framework for physical activity in Oman. J Phys Act Health. 2021;18(12):1471–2.
World Health Organization. Promoting physical activity in the Eastern Mediterranean Region through a life-course approach. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2014.
Klepac Pogrmilovic B, O’Sullivan G, Milton K, Biddle SJ, Bauman A, Bull F, Kahlmeier S, Pratt M, Pedisic Z. A global systematic scoping review of studies analysing indicators, development, and content of national-level physical activity and sedentary behaviour policies. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2018;15(1):1–17.
Albujulaya N, Stevinson C, Piggin J. Physical activity policy in Saudi Arabia: analysis of progress and challenges. Int J Sport Pol Polit. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2023.2228812 .
Al-Hazzaa HM, AlMarzooqi MA. Descriptive analysis of physical activity initiatives for health promotion in Saudi Arabia. Front Public Health. 2018;6:329.
Al-Hazzaa HM. Physical activity research in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: progress made but work still to do. J Phys Act Health. 2022;19(11):769–70.
Al Siyabi H, Mabry RM, Al Siyabi A, Milton K. A critique of national physical activity policy in Oman using 3 established policy frameworks. J Phys Act Health. 2021;18(12):1473–8.
Denzin NK, Lincoln YS. The Sage handbook of qualitative research. 5th ed. Los Angeles: Sage; 2018.
The World Bank: Data for Saudi Arabia and Oman. https://data.worldbank.org/?locations=SA-OM . Accessed 5 Jan 2024.
Saunders B, Sim J, Kingstone T, Baker S, Waterfield J, Bartlam B, Burroughs H, Jinks C. Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. Qual Quant. 2018;52(4):1893–907.
Bellew B, Bauman A, Bull FC, Schoeppe S. The rise and fall of Australian physical activity policy 1996–2006: a national review framed in an international context. Aust N Z Health Policy. 2008. https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-8462-5-18 .
Klepac Pogrmilovic B, O’Sullivan G, Milton K, Biddle SJH, Bauman A, Bellew W, Cavill N, Kahlmeier S, Kelly MP, Mutrie N, et al. The development of the Comprehensive Analysis of Policy on Physical Activity (CAPPA) framework. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2019;16(1):60.
Omani Ministry of Health: The national policy for prevention and control of NCDs. https://extranet.who.int/nutrition/gina/sites/default/filesstore/OMN_2016_%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D9%84%D9%84%D9%88%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D9%85%D9%86%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B6%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A9%20%D8%BA%D9%8A%D8%B1%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D9%88%D9%85%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7_1.pdf . Accessed 12 Dec 2023.
Saudi Vision 2030: Quality of life program. https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/v2030/vrps/qol/ . Accessed 25 Dec 2023.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: National transformation program. https://vision2030.gov.sa/sites/default/files/NTP_En.pdf . Accessed 2 Jan 2024.
University Sports Federation: University sports federation strategy. https://m.susfweb.com/publication/f-a4f22d74-b999-465c-9cd0-2a89895555a8.pdf . Accessed 17 Nov 2023.
Ministry of Health 2015: The National Diet and Physical Activity Strategy (DPAS) 2015–2025. https://extranet.who.int/nutrition/gina/sites/default/filesstore/SAU_2015_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D9%84%D9%84%D8%BA%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%A1%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D8%AD%D9%8A%20%D8%A9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B7%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%AF%D9%86%D9%8A.pdf . Accessed 23 Dec 2023.
Saudi Ministry of Health: Physical activity guidelines for health practitioners. https://www.moh.gov.sa/Ministry/About/Health%20Policies/037.pdf . Accessed 2 Nov 2023.
Public Health Authority: 24-hour movement guidance Saudi Arabia. https://covid19.cdc.gov.sa/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/24-hrs-ar.pdf . Accessed 4 Jan 2024.
Saudi Sports for All Federation: Annual report. https://sportsforall.com.sa/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SFA-Annual-Report-2020-EN-V2-4.pdf . Accessed 24 Oct 2023.
Oman Vision 2040: Vision Document. https://www.oman2040.om/assets/books/oman2040-en/index.html#p=51 . Accessed 10 Sept 2023.
Omani Ministry of Education: The physical education standards document. https://ict.moe.gov.om/omcust/PDF/Sport1_9_Oman.pdf . Accessed 26 Dec 2023.
Oman Olympic Committee: Regulations. https://ooc.om/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/RulesAndRegulationsArabic.pdf . Accessed 7 Jan 2024.
Saudi Ministry of Health: Exploratory examination for students. https://www.my.gov.sa/downloads/manuals/87d1f31c-1c7a-41a2-8a89-650a718a4a9d.pdf . Accessed 2 Dec 2023.
Saudi Health Promotion Centre 2021: HPC. https://saudihpc.com/ . Accessed 21 Sept 2023.
Chowdhury S, Mok D, Leenen L. Transformation of health care and the new model of care in Saudi Arabia: Kingdom’s Vision 2030. J Med Life. 2021;14(3):347–54.
Alqahtani BA, Alenazi AM, Alhowimel AS, Elnaggar RK. The descriptive pattern of physical activity in Saudi Arabia: analysis of national survey data. Int Health. 2021;13(3):232–9.
Omani Ministry of Health: National nutrition strategy. https://extranet.who.int/nutrition/gina/sites/default/filesstore/OMN%202014%20National%20Nutrition%20Startegy.pdf . Accessed 8 Jan 2024.
Quality of Life Program 2020: Vision 2030. https://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ressources/saudi_arabia_quality_of_life.pdf . Accessed 27 Nov 2023.
Evenson KR, Alhusseini N, Moore CC, Hamza MM, Al-Qunaibet A, Rakic S, Alsukait RF, Herbst CH, AlAhmed R, Al-Hazzaa HM. Scoping review of population-based physical activity and sedentary behavior in Saudi Arabia. J Phys Act Health. 2023;20(6):471–86.
Allender S, Gleeson E, Crammond B, Sacks G, Lawrence M, Peeters A, Loff B, Swinburn B. Policy change to create supportive environments for physical activity and healthy eating: which options are the most realistic for local government? Health Promot Int. 2012;27(2):261–74.
World Health Organization: Country cooperation strategy at glance. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/136842/ccsbrief_sau_en.pdf?sequence=1 . Accessed 18 Oct 2023.
World Health Organization. Health-promoting schools initiative in Oman: a WHO case study in intersectoral action. Cairo: Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean; 2013.
Government of Saudi Arabia: Vision 2030. https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/media/rc0b5oy1/saudi_vision203.pdf . Accessed 9 Jan 2024.
World Health Organization: Global action plan on physical activity 2018–2030. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272722/9789241514187-eng.pdf . Accessed 11 Nov 2023.
Aunger JA, Millar R, Greenhalgh J, Mannion R, Rafferty A-M, McLeod H. Why do some inter-organisational collaborations in healthcare work when others do not? A realist review. Syst Rev. 2021;10(1):82.
Evenson KR, Satinsky SB, Valko C, Gustat J, Healy I, Litt JS, Hooker SP, Reed HL, Tompkins NOH. In-depth interviews with state public health practitioners on the United States National Physical Activity Plan. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2013;10(1):1–9.
Al-Otaibi HH. Measuring stages of change, perceived barriers and self efficacy for physical activity in Saudi Arabia. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2013;14(2):1009–16.
Abdel-Salam D, Abdel-Khalek E. Pattern and barriers of physical activity among medical students of Al-Jouf University, Saudi Arabia. J High Inst Public Health. 2016;46(2):41–8.
Alahmed Z, Lobelo F. Physical activity promotion in Saudi Arabia: a critical role for clinicians and the health care system. J Epidemiol Global Health. 2018;7:S7–15.
International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH): ISPAH’s eight investments that work for physical activity. www.ISPAH.org/Resources . Accessed 2 Oct 2023.
Alhumaid MM, Khoo S, Bastos T. The effect of an adapted physical activity intervention program on pre-service physical education teachers’ self-efficacy towards inclusion in Saudi Arabia. Sustainability. 2021;13(6):3459.
Alghannam AF, Malkin JD, Al-Hazzaa HM, AlAhmed R, Evenson KR, Rakic S, Alsukait R, Herbst CH, Alqahtani SA, Finkelstein EA. Public policies to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior: a narrative synthesis of “reviews of reviews.” Glob Health Action. 2023;16(1):2194715.
Lincoln YS, Guba EG. But is it rigorous? Trustworthiness and authenticity in naturalistic evaluation. New Dir Eval. 1986;1986(30):73–84.
Download references
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the policy-makers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Oman for their participation in this research.
This project is kindly supported through a PhD scholarship from King Faisal Medical City in Saudi Arabia and PhD funding from the Faculty of Health of the University of Technology Sydney.
Authors and affiliations.
School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, City Campus, Ultimo, NSW, 2007, Australia
Ali Ahmed Alzahrani & Klaus Gebel
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Institute of Sport Sciences, Quartier UNIL-Centre, Bâtiment Synathlon, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
Peter Gelius
Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Adrian E. Bauman
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
A.A. recruited participants and conducted interviews with policy-makers. A.A., A.B. and P.G. collectively analysed the transcripts. K.G., A.B. and P.G. made significant contributions to the thorough review and editing of the manuscript.
Correspondence to Klaus Gebel .
Ethics approval and consent to participate, competing interests.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Publisher’s note.
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary material 1., supplementary material 2., rights and permissions.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .
Reprints and permissions
Cite this article.
Alzahrani, A.A., Gelius, P., Bauman, A.E. et al. Physical activity policies in Saudi Arabia and Oman: a qualitative study using stakeholder interviews. Health Res Policy Sys 22 , 111 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-024-01192-w
Download citation
Received : 17 January 2024
Accepted : 20 July 2024
Published : 19 August 2024
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-024-01192-w
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
ISSN: 1478-4505
The library building will be open from 9:00am-3:00pm on Friday, March 29th. Our services will be available online 7:45am-4:30pm for your convenience.
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. They are the constraints on generalizability and utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.
Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better for you to identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.
Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research . If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.
Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate to your professor that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.
Claiming limitations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations. Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the findings and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?
Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.
All studies have limitations. However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in your paper.
Here are examples of limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your findings. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense.
Possible Methodological Limitations
Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred.
Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is a lack of prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note that this limitation can serve as an important opportunity to describe the need for further research.
Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need in future research to revise the specific method for gathering data.
Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing self-reported data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you must take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data contain several potential sources of bias that should be noted as limitations: (1) selective memory (remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past); (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].
Possible Limitations of the Researcher
Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or otherwise limited, the reasons for this need to be described.
Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single research problem, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability within a sample is constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a topic that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure, talk to your professor.
Cultural and other types of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. It is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the way you have ordered events, people, or places and how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation. Note that if you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged, and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating bias.
Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican American ESL [English as a Second Language] students, for example, and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic. This deficiency should be acknowledged.
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology.
Information about the limitations of your study is generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section.
If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations, such as an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as a pilot study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in later studies.
But do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic. If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to reframe your study.
When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:
Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
Explain why each limitation exists;
Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.
Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't ask a particular question in a survey that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in any future study. An underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to prove what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.
Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.
Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings! After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitations of your study. Inflating the importance of your study's findings in an attempt to hide its flaws is a big turn off to your readers. A measure of humility goes a long way!
Negative Results are Not a Limitation!
Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated, or perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.
A Note about Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research
Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied, and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgement about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.
Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. Data Management and Analysis Methods. In Handbook of Qualitative Research. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444.
COMMENTS
Common types of limitations and their ramifications include: Theoretical: limits the scope, depth, or applicability of a study. Methodological: limits the quality, quantity, or diversity of the data. Empirical: limits the representativeness, validity, or reliability of the data. Analytical: limits the accuracy, completeness, or significance of ...
Limitations in Research. Limitations in research refer to the factors that may affect the results, conclusions, and generalizability of a study.These limitations can arise from various sources, such as the design of the study, the sampling methods used, the measurement tools employed, and the limitations of the data analysis techniques.
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your research. Study limitations are the constraints placed on the ability to generalize from the results, to further describe applications to practice, and/or related to the utility of findings ...
Research process limitations. The study's design can impose constraints on the process. For example, as you're conducting the research, issues may arise that don't conform to the data collection methodology you developed. You may not realize until well into the process that you should have incorporated more specific questions or ...
Abstract. Study limitations represent weaknesses within a research design that may influence outcomes and conclusions of the research. Researchers have an obligation to the academic community to present complete and honest limitations of a presented study. Too often, authors use generic descriptions to describe study limitations.
Research limitations are one of those things that students tend to avoid digging into, and understandably so. No one likes to critique their own study and point out weaknesses. Nevertheless, being able to understand the limitations of your study - and, just as importantly, the implications thereof - a is a critically important skill. In this post, we'll unpack some of the most common ...
The ideal way is to divide your limitations section into three steps: 1. Identify the research constraints; 2. Describe in great detail how they affect your research; 3. Mention the opportunity for future investigations and give possibilities. By following this method while addressing the constraints of your research, you will be able to ...
3. Identify your limitations of research and explain their importance. 4. Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices. 5. Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future. Limitations can help structure the research study better.
sentence tha. signals what you're about to discu. s. For example:"Our study had some limitations."Then, provide a concise sentence or two identifying each limitation and explaining how the limitation may have affected the quality. of the study. s findings and/or their applicability. For example:"First, owing to the rarity of the ...
Research Limitations. Research limitations are, at the simplest level, the weaknesses of the study, based on factors that are often outside of your control as the researcher. These factors could include things like time, access to funding, equipment, data or participants.For example, if you weren't able to access a random sample of participants for your study and had to adopt a convenience ...
iStock, Jacob Wackerhausen. Scientists work with many different limitations. First and foremost, they navigate informational limitations, work around knowledge gaps when designing studies, formulating hypotheses, and analyzing data. They also handle technical limitations, making the most of what their hands, equipment, and instruments can achieve.
Even a single limitation can compromise the study's implementation and adversely influence research parameters, resulting in diminished value of the findings, outcomes, and conclusions. This becomes more problematic as the number of limitations and their components increase. Any limitation influences a research paper.
In research, studies can have limitations such as limited scope, researcher subjectivity, and lack of available research tools. Acknowledging the limitations of your study should be seen as a strength. It demonstrates your willingness for transparency, humility, and submission to the scientific method and can bolster the integrity of the study.
Writing the limitations of the research papers is often assumed to require lots of effort. However, identifying the limitations of the study can help structure the research better. Therefore, do not underestimate the importance of research study limitations. 3. Opportunity to make suggestions for further research.
Limitations of a dissertation are potential weaknesses in your study that are mostly out of your control, given limited funding, choice of research design, statistical model constraints, or other factors. In addition, a limitation is a restriction on your study that cannot be reasonably dismissed and can affect your design and results.
Step 1. Identify the limitation (s) of the study. This part should comprise around 10%-20% of your discussion of study limitations. The first step is to identify the particular limitation (s) that affected your study. There are many possible limitations of research that can affect your study, but you don't need to write a long review of all ...
Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. ... Lack of prior research studies on the topic-- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the ...
The term "study limitations" refers to anything that may affect the reliability or generalizability of the results in a study or experiment. This could relate to the design of the research (e.g., your methods or research approach). Or it could be an issue with how the study was carried out (e.g., running out of time and resources before the ...
Answer: The limitations of a study are its flaws or shortcomings which could be the result of unavailability of resources, small sample size, flawed methodology, etc. No study is completely flawless or inclusive of all possible aspects. Therefore, listing the limitations of your study reflects honesty and transparency and also shows that you ...
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. ... Lack of prior research studies on the topic-- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the ...
Study limitations refer to those characteristics or constraints that hinder or influence the interpretation of the writer's findings from research. To put it simply, a limitation is any shortcoming that impacts a study and its outcomes. They are a normal part of any study, observational, or cross-sectional study.
For instance, a study involving females only or carried out in a specific town can have limitations like sample size, gender, and location. What's more, the entire study could be limited to the researcher's perception. Lack of or inadequate training: The research process doesn't have a systematic methodology.
This systematic literature review delves into the extensive landscape of emotion recognition, sentiment analysis, and affective computing, analyzing 609 articles. Exploring the intricate relationships among these research domains, and leveraging data from four well-established sources—IEEE, Science Direct, Springer, and MDPI—this systematic review classifies studies in four modalities ...
For a professional paper, the affiliation is the institution at which the research was conducted. Include both the name of any department and the name of the college, university, or other institution, separated by a comma. Center the affiliation on the next double-spaced line after the author names; when there are multiple affiliations, center ...
To study how the parallel structure of transformers might limit their capabilities, the pair considered the case where transformers didn't feed their output back into their input — instead, their first output would have to be the final answer. ... Chiang also stressed that research on the limitations of transformers is all the more valuable ...
Countries in the Middle East have some of the lowest rates of physical activity and some of the highest rates of obesity in the world. Policies can influence population levels of physical activity. However, there is a dearth of research on physical activity policies in the Gulf region. This qualitative study analyses cross-sectoral barriers and facilitators for the development, implementation ...
The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. ... Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the ...
Your body cannot make these substances. People with healthy kidneys who eat a variety of foods from all the food groups (meats, grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products) can get enough vitamins and minerals. But if you have chronic kidney disease or are on dialysis, your diet may limit some food groups.
A 2018 study in both rats and humans found baking soda reduced inflammation, Largeman-Roth said, which is a risk factor for various health problems including heart disease, depression, Alzheimer ...