What Is A Research Gap?

Research gap
This lecture will briefly discuss the meaning, nature and

dynamics of a research gap. In particular, I will address the
following questions:
1. What is a research gap?
2. What are the importance of identifying a research gap?
3. How to identify a research gap?
What is a research gap?

Research gap is a research topic which has not been addressed. It
provides you the reason for conducting your research. They drive
you to think about your research questions. Research gap equals
the deficiency in literature.
Understood more broadly, a research gap is the problem that

researchers would want to see addressed in the research. As the
name suggests, it is the gap that researchers fill with their
proposed research project.
Hence, a research gap is “what is missing” or “what is not

addressed” in the current state of knowledge. Put simply, a
research gap is the question or problem that has not been
answered in your area of specialization. For this reason, the
research gap establishes “the need” or the “importance, urgency,
and necessity” of your proposed research thesis or dissertation.
Example title of thesis: “Forced Career Study among University

Students in China”
Research AIM:
“The proposed research aims to determine the lived experiences of
those students who were just forced to take certain career course
such as Accounting according to the wishes of their parents or
significant others and how it affects the psycho-emotional and
social wellbeing of these students”
 Some researchers think that Research AIM = Research Gap
 However, Research AIM is NOT a Research Gap
So, what could be the research gap based on this example?
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Research Gap:
According to prior literature, there are university students in
China who were just forced to take certain career course
according to the wishes of their parents or significant others
and that these students were devastated and became rebellious in
schools. For this reason, these students may become social
delinquents in the future. Now, based on my initial review of
related literature, it was found out that no study has been
conducted on this topic (Research GAP: “what is missing” Or “what
is NOT ADDRESSED”)
Now, based on the research GAP, we can formulate our research AIM
Research AIM:
“The proposed research aims to determine the lived experiences of
those students who were just forced to take certain career course
according to the wishes of their parents or significant others
and how it affects the psycho-emotional and social wellbeing of
these students”
After formulating a research aim, you have to explain why the

need for this study?
You can write: “In this paper I argue that there is a need to
determine lived experience of these students so that we can
create a career decision-making program as an alternative in
addressing the problem”
What are the importance of identifying a research gap?

Why is it importance of identifying a research gap? All types of
research always begins with a research gap. Indeed, no research
activity is possible without the research gap.
If you have a research gap, it will help you:
 To prevent major revision
 Publishable research
 Unique and original research
 Deep knowledge of the topic
How to identify a research gap?
How to identify a gap by reading multiple paper on same topic by
reading future directions and limitation in the article. so let's
get started.
Before you starting to identify gaps in the literature you need

to figure out what your area of interest is and then focus and
narrow that research area in order to find articles that are
specific to your research area.
Go to Google Scholar from your browser. Then after that you need
to type here the topic on which you are conducting your research.
Like my research area is “Firm Performance”. So, I will type it
here. Press Enter as you can see of articles that are showing up
all related to “Firm Performance”. The years in which they were
published are mentioned. All these research articles are old.
Like articles that were published in 2010, 2008 2012. Note that
in order to find gaps on your research topic you must consider
research articles that are published in recent years. In order to
do that you need to click on custom range. You have to look for
paper from recent years. Like I'm searching for article from 2017
to 2022. Now all these articles are of recent years in which you
can find what is unexplored area that researchers have pointed
recently on “Firm Performance”. For example I have selected this
article. Now, in order to read this article we need to download
it.
Open the paper titled “The effect of social media on firm

performance”
As you begin to gather gaps, critically read for what has and has
not been learned from the research. Use the discussion in
limitations and future research sections of the articles to
understand what the researchers have found and where they point
out future additional research areas.
Now I am going to highlight the gap. You can also search for
future by pressing ctrl + F button. These methods would be
helpful to organize what information you have found and what is
shared among the literature as well as to identify what areas may
be missing.
In the research the gap which I have identified I will paste them
in word document. Also remember to write the name of author with
the gap and also mention the year this would help when you will
write your research literature and to build the model.
Download multiple articles on a specific topic, find gap from

each paper and construct a table to find multiple gaps on the
same research topic as one gap is not enough to build the model
or to conduct a research.
Author Title/Topic Data Method Findings Future Research
Tajvidi and Social SME (Hotel Survey, positive and This study is confined to a
Karami(2021 media and Industry, Quantitative, significant single industry and needs
) Firm UK) Structural relationship replication, but focusing
performance 2,435 sample Equation between social media on other industries
Method use and firm
performance. The importance of social
media might vary in other
contexts, other industries
and other countries.
Future studies test the

results of current study in
other hospitality sectors
as restaurants or clubs.
Investigating customer
relationship management
(CRM), and advertising are
needed along with the
effect of social media use.
Summary,
How do you find a research topic/gap? A very good piece of
advice is to read research articles’ section or subsection
called ‘recommendations for future research’ Most of the
research papers always make recommendations for further
research.
Topic has to be do-able in terms of:

 Availability of time
 Availability of data
 Availability of necessary skills (or have the willingness
to commit to learning those skills)
There's a couple of pieces of reality that you have to

consider. If you're going to be successful at the end of the
process, you have to have the time to do the work that you
want to do. If you have a great project and not going to have
the time, don't do it. Make sure that data are available.
Don't waste your time struggling around data that isn't
available. Do you have the skills, or do you have the
confidence to gain those skills to do the tasks you do? Do you
want to ask a question that will involve intense statistics,
and do you have the skills to do it, or are you willing to
commit the time and energy necessary to learn statistical
analysis? Time and energy necessary to learn statistical
analysis so you got to be you got to take the stuff seriously.
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Research gap

This lecture will briefly discuss the meaning, nature and

What is a research gap?

Understood more broadly, a research gap is the problem that

Hence, a research gap is “what is missing” or “what is not

Example title of thesis: “Forced Career Study among University

After formulating a research aim, you have to explain why the

What are the importance of identifying a research gap?

Before you starting to identify gaps in the literature you need

Open the paper titled “The effect of social media on firm

Download multiple articles on a specific topic, find gap from

Future studies test the

Topic has to be do-able in terms of:

There's a couple of pieces of reality that you have to

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