Home > Community > What is a research gap or knowledge gap in research and...
Upvote

23

Downvote
+ Research methodology
+ Methodology
Posted by
Larry Walden

What is a research gap or knowledge gap in research and...

Dave Williams  Follow





Harish K Thakur , your contribution comes from your book, as it is written. However, I have remembered this text on knowledge gap from the following resource:
Introduction and research justification, business, social sciences, humanities
https://lo.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=6744§ionid=464344

It is very obvious that some source of plagiarism is present in this contribution. Maybe, you do have some explanation.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Alloyce Jackson  Follow

Hi all,
I wanted to know, can the study area be a research gap, for an environmental or geographical study? Like using methods already used in other studies, but for this particular study area, this kind of research or method hasn't been used before. So can that be the research gap or novelty of the study?


More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Larry Rafey  Follow

I actually perceive these as two different things.  The knowledge gap is that which needs to be filled by new research either because we know little or nothing.  The research gap to me (and I am an applied researcher) is the gap between the discovery of knowledge relevant to practice and the time it takes to put that information into practice in the field.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Chen Tang  Follow

I would say that a research gap also implies a lack of empirical studies (thus involving a particular context), either from a certain theoretical perspective and or methodological approach.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Dan G  Follow
Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Dale Henderson  Follow

Hi Majid Azari
Certainly yes, as the "study area" could be one of the research gaps. By looking at previous studies, you find that studies in this area are somewhat limited and it needs to conduct a new study by applying a method or analysis different from the previous studies that were conducted for the same this area has to come up with a new addition at the level of the study area.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Aiden Nalizda  Follow

Harish K Thakur , why do not you bring us the link to your book?

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Ben Agaran  Follow

Interesting long-going thread!

Considering that methodological frameworks often work and solve issues notwithstanding knowledge-gaps, I see knowledge-gaps as displacements from hypothetical center defining the (minimal operational) paradigm.

Regards.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Michael Grace  Follow

The term "research gap" refers to the limitations of early research, such as empirical studies, in describing a theory or concept.
The knowledge gap, on the other hand, is the difference between what is known and what should be known. A knowledge gap is a disparity in expert knowledge, abilities, or expertise.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Bob McDonald  Follow

Jacic, Maybe, there are multiple sources for the same content several times, for example, the definition of state by Garner has more than 1000 online results, and you can refer to the reliable source only, and I got the statement from Unisa, duly cited.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Daniel Strickland  Follow

Research Gap
The 'gap' in the field typically refers to the explanation provided to support the research question. Questions or objectives grow out of areas of uncertainty, or gaps, in the field of research. In most cases, you will not know what the gap in knowledge is until you have reviewed the literature and written up a good part of the literature review section of the proposal. It is often not possible therefore to confidently write the 'gap' statement until you have done considerable work on the literature review. Once your literature review section is sufficiently developed, you can summarise the missing piece of knowledge in a brief statement in the introduction. Sentence stems for summarising a 'gap' in the literature (Given 2008).
When writing the research proposal, it is useful to think about the research justification and the ‘gap in the literature’ as two distinct conceptual elements, each of which must be established separately. Stating a real world problem or outlining a conceptual or other conundrum or concern is typically not, in itself, enough to justify the research. Similarly, establishing that there is a gap in the literature is often not enough on its own to persuade the reader that the research is important. In the first case, reviewers may still wonder ‘perhaps the problem or concern has already been addressed in the literature’, or, in the second, ‘so little has been done on this focus, but perhaps the proposed research is not important’? The proposal will ideally establish that the research is important, and that it will provide something new to the field of knowledge. In effect, the research justification and the literature review work together to establish the benefit, contribution or 'significance' of the research. The 'significance' of the research is established not in a statement to be incorporated into the proposal, but as something the first two sections of the proposal work to establish. Research is significant when it pertains to something important, and when it provides new knowledge or insights within a field of knowledge (Unisa).
From Harish K. Thakur, 2021. Research Methodology in Social Sciences, New Delhi: Corvette Press.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Dave Shawtie's  Follow

Any blind spot in knowledge pertaining to a specific field is known as "Knowledge Gap" -- the term is pretty self-explanatory. Identifying these gaps is done through extensive literature review. Published articles often point to limitations and future recommendations based off their work. These usually signify knowledge gaps. A rapid way of identifying these gaps, however, would be through reading recently published survey of review articles.

Good Luck

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote