I What I need to know?

Scope and Delimitation of the

Study
In this lesson, you are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the
scope and delimitation of the study. This will guide you as well in indicat-
ing the scope and delimitation of your own research.

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 I What is New?

Instructions: Analyze the text below and answer the questions that fol-
low.
The study covers the banner headlines about President Rodrigo Duterte
from the three national daily broadsheets namely The Philippine Star, The
Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star during his first one hun-
dred days in the office. The newspapers to be considered as part of the
corpus shall fall on and between the dates June 30 to October 8, 2016.
The newspapers containing the name of President Duterte regardless of
the term used to refer to him (i.e. PDU30, DU30, Digong, Rody, The Presi-
dent, etc.) shall be part of the data. These banner headlines will be ana-
lyzed in the light of Transitivity Theory to shed light into the images of the
president created by the headlines as clauses.
What does the text exactly tell its readers?
How does the text help the researcher?
How does the text aid or guide the readers of the research?

2
 I What I Know?

Let’s have this short self-assessment to check as to how much do you

know about our lesson! Rate yourself 1 to 5; with 5 as you confidently
know and can do and 1 you’ve never learned nor knew about. Be honest
with your answers. Don’t worry! There are no right or wrong answers
here.

1 2 3 4 5

I can distinguish a scope from a delimitation.

I know what details to include when writing a

I can concisely discuss and write the scope

I know that I should briefly but completely dis-

cuss the scope and delimitation of the
study before the readers find loopholes in
it
I know that I should also include the methods
that I intend not to do in the scope and
delimitation.
TOTAL SCORE:

Score Level of Proficiency

21 – 25 Advanced
16 – 20 Proficient
10 – 15 Approaching Proficiency
6 – 10 Developing
5 and below Beginning

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 D What is in?

When you decide about the topic for your research, you also identify the
important variables as well as their relationship that you intend to investi-
gate on. You specifically delve into it through asking a series of questions.
Now, let’s ponder on these:
How do topic and the research questions help you in the planning of
your research project?
Do these also help you in identifying the boundaries and limitations of
your study? How?

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 D What is it?

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

Researchers must acknowledge the limitations of their own studies and
inform others what these are. It is better to be preemptive of it than
having the readers find loopholes in the research. This is where the
scope and delimitation of the study comes in. The text from the previ-
ous activity is an example of this part of research.
The scope and delimitation of the study presents the coverage of the re-
search in terms of location, time duration, respondents as well as the
potential weaknesses or problems with the study identified by the re-
searcher. It also includes what the researchers intend not to do. Howev-
er, the researcher must remember that the limitations to be reported
are only the ones that are solely related to the topic or the problem. Al-
so, the researcher must also bear in mind that negative results are not
a study’s limitation. There are times that the findings may turn out un-
expectedly. It is not a study’s dead end. Rather, take this as an oppor-
tunity to critically analyze and interpet the data more.
The Scope versus the Delimitation
The scope identifies the boundaries of the study in terms of re-
spondents, objectives, facilities, area, time duration or frame of
the conduct, and the issues to which the research is focused. The
scope usually starts with phrases such as, “This study focuses
on...”, “This study covers...” and the like. Delimitation, on the
other hand, states the delimiting factors of the study by geo-
graphic location, age, sex, population size and others. It may
start with phrases such as, “This study is limited to…”

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 D What is it?
Writing the Scope and Delimitation of the Study
The researchers must include the following in writing the scope and delim-
itation of the study:
data collection procedure
locale, population/ sample
inadequate measures of variables, loss or lack of participants, small
sample sizes, errors in measurement, and other factors typically re-
lated to data collection and analysis
Take note that this may not be necessarily an in-depth discussion as most
of it may be comprehensively discussed in Chapter III – Methodology or
other parts of the research.
Below is an example of a quantitative study’s scope and delimitation:

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

The study is a correlational research that focuses on the asso-
ciation between the use of social media and attention span of
100 Grade 10 students of Tagaytay City National High School
of the academic year, 2019-2020.
Furthermore, the study delimits itself to attention span
in class and will not attempt to measure this variable in other
environment. Social media use will be limited to the use of so-
cial networking sites and exclude the use of the internet by the
respondents for educational purposes.

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E What is more?
Activity 1: Textual Analysis
Instructions: Read and analyze the excerpt below from a study that
investigates on the Information Technology teachers and students’ use
of Online Learning Management System. Answer the questions that
follow.
Paragraph 1:
ABC Bachelor of Science Information Systems-Online Learning Man-
agement System is intended for Bachelor of Science in Information
Systems students and teachers. This system will not replace the tradi-
tional teaching techniques but can certainly help the quality of educa-
tion by making a collaborative way of teaching between the teachers
and students.
Paragraph 2:
The study covers ABC Bachelor of Science in Information Systems De-
partment. This study focused on allowing the teachers to upload
downloadable files; posting an announcement, creating topic and quiz-
zes for the class; creating a message, changing their profile picture as
well as their password for the user. A student can register, view and
download uploaded files.
Paragraph 3:
This study is limited to Carlos Hilado Memorial State College-Fortune
Towne Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Department, only
for students and teachers of the said department. Only Bachelor of
Science in Information Systems teachers have the authority to manage
their classes, subject and upload files; It is only applicable with the
use of the internet.
Source: https://capstoneguide.com/lesson/scope-and-delimitation-online-learning-management-
system/

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E What is more?
Activity 1: Textual Analysis
What are the most essential variables investigated by the study?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

Which of the three paragraphs presents the scope of the study?

____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Which of the three paragraphs presents the delimitation of the
study?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Which of the three paragraphs provided a brief discussion of essen-
tial details about the topic of the study?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

What is lacking thus the weakness in the scope of this text? How
did you say so?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

What could be added to the delimitation of the text that will further
strengthen it? Why?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

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E What is more?
Activity 2: Comparative Textual Analysis Task

Form a group with three members. Look for three studies in

your library or from online journals and get its scope and delimi-
tation part. Analyze the text carefully as some of the research
papers do not particularly have a separated scope and delimita-
tion especially those in IMRD format. Make sure that you’ll take
note of the references correctly as well. The following are your
specific tasks:
Identify the topic of the research.
Identify the scope and the components specified in the study.
Identify the delimitation and the delimiting factors specified in
the study.
Identify the strengths an the weaknesses of the studies’ scope
and delimitation. You may want to follow the suggested ma-
trix below for your answers.

Title of
the Re- Author/ Re- Scope Delimita- Strengt Weak-
search s search tion hs nesses
Topic

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 E What I can do?
Activity 1
Instructions: Complete the chart below by filling in the boxes with the
possible scope and delimitation factors based on the topic given (30
points).

100 Grade 11

The socio-
economic status
and the reading
comprehension of
Grade 11 students
of Tagaytay City
National High

Activity 2:
By now, you should have already chosen a topic for your researcher pa-
per. With your cooperative learning group or research team, write down
your topic and research questions that have been approved by your re-
search teacher. Then, write down the possible scope and delimiting fac-
tors of your own research project.
Research topic
General Research Question
Specific Research Questions
Scope and Delimitation

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 A What I have learned?
Scope and delimitation of the study provides a specific yet concise discus-
sion of the boundaries and limitations of a research. Scope is what the
study will actually cover, do and work on while delimitation are the limit-
ing factors per se and what the researcher does not intend to do.
Researchers should be vigilant enough to take note of these so as not to
put their own results and findings in question.

A Assessment
Instructions: Read each question carefully and choose the letter of your
answer.
1. Which of the following details the boundaries or what exactly the re-
search study covers and focuses on?
A. Scope C. Research topic
B. Delimitation D. Both A and B

2. Which of the following discusses what the researcher intends not to do

and the specific restricting factors that may possibly influence the re-
sults or findings of a study?
A. Scope C. Research topic
B. Delimitation D. Both A and B

3. Which of the following is NOT true about the scope and delimitation of
the study?
A. All the possibly related issues must be stated
B. It should be well-acknowledged by the researcher
C. The negative findings should not be considered as a delimiting
factor
D. It should be concisely discuss let alone the other parts of the
study (i.e.: methodology) contain the details

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A Assessment
4. The following are the components of a study’s scope, EXCEPT:
A. Objectives of the study
B. Time duration of the research project
C. Issues that are solely related to the chosen topic
D. Demographic profile of the participants or respondents

5. The following are considered as delimiting factor for a research on

academic performance of Grade 11 students and their use of social
media, EXCEPT:
A. 150 Grade 11 students
B. Cyberbullying cases on social media
C. The Grade Weight Average of the students in a semester
D. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as social media platforms

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