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Limitations of Research

Chapter · January 2017

DOI: 10.4135/9781483381411.n297

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 The SAGE Encyclopedia of
Communication Research Methods
Limitations of Research

Contributors: James O. Olufowote

Edited by: Mike Allen
Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods
Chapter Title: "Limitations of Research"
Pub. Date: 2017
Access Date: April 12, 2017
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9781483381435
Online ISBN: 9781483381411
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n297
Print pages: 863-864
©2017 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of
the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
SAGE SAGE Reference
Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com.

Communication research studies, such as an experiment, an interview study, or survey

research, and their results are often reported in a 25-page double-spaced report. This
research report could be a research assignment for an undergraduate or graduate course in
communication studies, a research paper that is being presented at a panel of an academic
conference, or a published research paper in an academic journal. “Limitations of Research”
is a section in the standard research report (the research report is usually divided into the
major sections of Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Findings or Results,
Discussion, and Conclusion). The “Limitations of Research” section is often one to two
paragraphs in length and is usually placed after the Discussion section and before the final
Conclusion section. In this section, the researcher seeks to achieve several objectives by
simultaneously addressing three audiences: the peer reviewers, the interested readers, and
the writers or researchers. This entry addresses the researchers’ objectives with each of these
three audiences.

Addressing the Peer Reviewers

Communication research reports can be submitted for presentation at an academic

conference and for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal. The discipline of
communication studies is home to several professional associations that sponsor yearly
conferences in the United States and throughout the world. These conferences, such as
those of the Eastern Communication Association, the National Communication Association, or
the Southern States Communication Association, provide communication researchers the
opportunity to present their research studies and to get feedback from listeners and other
conference participants. Communication studies is also home to several peer-reviewed
academic journals (e.g., Communication Research, Journal of Communication, New Media
and Society). These academic journals can be found online and in print. Some of these
academic journals are sponsored by specific professional associations. For example, the
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication i s sponsored by the International
Communication Association. These journals usually publish several issues every year with
each issue containing multiple research reports.

Before the communication research report can be accepted for presentation at an academic
conference or publication in an academic journal, it has to undergo a rigorous peer-review
process. Peer review happens when two or more subject experts conduct a blind review and
evaluation of a research report. Blind review refers to the researchers being kept unaware of
the reviewers’ identities and the reviewers being kept “blind” as to the researchers’ identities.
For conference papers, reviewers usually recommend either “accept” or “reject” and provide
written feedback to the researchers. A leader for the division of the professional association to
w h i c h t h e p a p e r w a s s u b m i t t e d ( e . g . , Communication Technology, Interpersonal
Communication, Organizational Communication) then communicates a final “accept” or
“reject” decision to the researchers. For academic journals, reviewers usually recommend
either “accept,” “revise and resubmit,” or “reject” and also provide detailed written feedback.
The journal’s editor, upon considering these reviews, then communicates a final decision to
the researchers.

In the “Limitations of Research” section, communication researchers have the opportunity to

write about the major problems of the research study. This not only gives the researchers the
opportunity to demonstrate to peer reviewers their awareness of the study’s problems, but it
also allows them to write about how they addressed the problems of the particular study. For
example, a team of undergraduate researchers conducted a study comparing college

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students’ levels of public speaking anxiety in the traditional public speaking class with public
speaking anxiety in an online public speaking class that included video conferencing tools
such as Skype. The researchers administered the same previously developed five-item
measure of public speaking anxiety for students taking the traditional public speaking class
and for those taking the online public speaking class. Unfortunately, while analyzing the data
collected for their study, the researchers discovered the public speaking anxiety measure
produced a low reliability score for students taking the online public speaking class. This is a
problem because it indicates the items of the measure were not consistently measuring public
speaking anxiety for students in the online class. The researchers then took a closer look at
the items of the public speaking anxiety measure only to realize that two of the five items were
relevant to speaking situations in a traditional classroom (e.g., “I experience considerable
anxiety while standing in the room just before my speech starts”). After dropping these items
from the computation of the measure’s reliability score, the researchers arrived at a more
acceptable reliability score for the measure of public speaking anxiety completed by students
taking the online class. The “Limitations of Research” section gives the researchers the
opportunity to discuss this type of problem (e.g., low reliability score for a measure) and how
they overcame it.

Addressing the Interested Reader

The “Limitations of Research” section also gives the researchers the opportunity to address
the interested readers. The interested reader could be a college professor, a friend who the
researchers have asked to proofread their manuscript, or a fellow student who shares similar
research interests with the researchers. Here, the researchers want the interested readers to
be aware of limitations of the study that can influence their interpretations or understandings
of the study’s results. For example, in the study comparing public speaking anxiety in the
traditional classroom with public speaking anxiety in a virtual classroom, the researchers
found a lower average score on public speaking anxiety for students in the online class than
for those in the traditional classroom. Although this is what the researchers had hypothesized
earlier in their report, in the “Limitations of Research” section, they cautioned readers that
comparing results obtained on the five-item measure of public speaking anxiety for students
in the traditional classroom with the three-item measure for those in the online class may be
akin to comparing apples and oranges. After deleting the unsuitable items that hurt the
reliability score on the measure of public speaking anxiety, the researchers now had two
measures of public speaking anxiety that were not exactly identical. In the “Limitations of
Research” section, the researchers can point out such limitations of their study that can
influence the readers’ interpretations of the study’s results.

Addressing the Writers or Researchers

In the “Limitations of Research” section, the researchers can also address themselves. This
section gives them the opportunity to think critically and to write about the implications of the
study’s limitations for future research studies on the same topic. Communication research can
be conducted in a systematic and programmatic manner. Research studies can build on one
another and work toward improving overall understanding or explanation of a specific
communication phenomenon. For example, in a future study, the researchers could develop
their own measure of public speaking anxiety that would be applicable to both students taking
a traditional class and students enrolled in a virtual classroom. The researchers may decide
instead to conduct a future study in which the same sample of college students would
respond to both the three-item measure of public speaking anxiety and the five-item measure

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of public speaking anxiety. The results of such a study would allow them to determine
whether the three-item measure and the five-item measure are tapping into the same
construct and are essentially comparable.

Alternatively, in light of the low reliability score on the measure of public speaking anxiety in
the virtual classroom, the researchers may have a hunch that public speaking anxiety in the
traditional classroom does not translate straightforwardly to the virtual classroom. They
suspect that more exploration of the initial idea of public speaking anxiety in the virtual
classroom is needed. They may decide instead to unobtrusively observe a virtual class and, at
the end of the class, interview students on their experiences with communication and public
speaking anxiety. Such a study could result in the researchers discarding the concept of
“public speaking anxiety in the virtual class” and developing instead the concept of “digital
withdrawal in the virtual class.”

See alsoAcademic Journals; Academic Journal Structure; Peer Review; Peer-Reviewed

Publication; Publishing Journal Articles; Research Report, Organization of

Further Readings

Pyrczak, F., & Bruce, R. R. (2014). Writing empirical research reports: A basic guide for
students of the social and behavioral sciences (8th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Pyrczak Publishing.

James O. Olufowote
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n297
10.4135/9781483381411.n297

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