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Research Gap strategy for women Ph.D. scholars currently working as associate / assistant professors in India
Research Gap strategy for women Ph.D. scholars currently working as associate / assistant professors in India
Written by Ankit Gupta for CrossTab PhD Thesis Advisor from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
Target knowledge and population research gaps for your PhD
Target knowledge and population research gaps for your PhD
By this time a PhD scholar would already have done the following in order to select a topic for your PhD:1. Chosen the class of data that you can obtain with ease2. Have identified the area or sub-area or category or keyword of your research topic3. Identified some research topics and have a much clearer picture
Now, you are conducting a literature search to identify a viable research gap. First of all it is important to understand that a research gap may not be a research need if filling the gap would not be of use to stakeholders that make decisions. Therefore, think of the key decision makers within your chosen academic field / domain / discipline and ask "why" or "why is it important to xyz" or "why should anyone care about this topic", the answers could be commercial / business, regulatory / statutory, policy / change etcetera. Secondly, you should also evaluate the current evidence that is available to answer current and past research problems, this is important in three ways. One, to identify "what questions still remain unanswered"; second, to develop "what questions that are still remaining unanswered are viably answerable" and third, what evidence is needed to answer an unanswered question and whether the data that you have or will obtain be sufficient to do so.
While hunting for a research gap within your short-listed topics look carefully at the "suggestions for future research" section of the literature that you are currently searching. This section is an easy way to identify research gaps as listed by authors / researchers themselves, an important aspect to this is the time of publishing of that literature, older it is higher is the probability that someone has already filled the research gap.
There are two frameworks available for systematic identification of research gaps. First is more generic and can be applied to most types of research while second is more specific to evidence based / data driven research. The first framework identifies seven types of research gaps and the second one uses six variables to classify research gaps into four categories. My advice to PhD scholars is to combine both these frameworks to identify their own unique research gap within the data driven approach to topic selection as already described in the topic selection article.
Generally speaking research gaps fall into seven categories, namely, theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, knowledge, population and evidence. Although, a seasoned researcher could follow or choose to incorporate any of the above categories into her own research, My advice to first time researchers is to focus on knowledge and / or population based research gaps for their PhD.
Firstly, a knowledge gap within the existing body of literature is when there is a lack of information on a particular research topic. This usually happens when either a new area of research is emerging or when more research is also required for a different context or setting. In order to fill knowledge gaps within existing body of literature, either new research studies are required or extension of existing research studies is required. A PhD scholar can choose to extend current research studies and apply them in different context or setting. In-order to find such gaps you should look at following categorical reasons in published literature:
Secondly, population gaps within the existing body of literature are a common gap recognized among researchers. There are always under-served populations that have been under-researched. Such a gap can be due to two basic reasons, one, there is a cohort that is although significant is not well researched and, second, there is a cohort that is insignificant and thus not researched. Therefore, a PhD scholar can extend current research to include such cohorts with deeper research. For finding gaps for cohorts that are significant but under-represented you should look into the following categorical reasons:
Now, you are conducting a literature search to identify a viable research gap. First of all it is important to understand that a research gap may not be a research need if filling the gap would not be of use to stakeholders that make decisions. Therefore, think of the key decision makers within your chosen academic field / domain / discipline and ask "why" or "why is it important to xyz" or "why should anyone care about this topic", the answers could be commercial / business, regulatory / statutory, policy / change etcetera. Secondly, you should also evaluate the current evidence that is available to answer current and past research problems, this is important in three ways. One, to identify "what questions still remain unanswered"; second, to develop "what questions that are still remaining unanswered are viably answerable" and third, what evidence is needed to answer an unanswered question and whether the data that you have or will obtain be sufficient to do so.
While hunting for a research gap within your short-listed topics look carefully at the "suggestions for future research" section of the literature that you are currently searching. This section is an easy way to identify research gaps as listed by authors / researchers themselves, an important aspect to this is the time of publishing of that literature, older it is higher is the probability that someone has already filled the research gap.
There are two frameworks available for systematic identification of research gaps. First is more generic and can be applied to most types of research while second is more specific to evidence based / data driven research. The first framework identifies seven types of research gaps and the second one uses six variables to classify research gaps into four categories. My advice to PhD scholars is to combine both these frameworks to identify their own unique research gap within the data driven approach to topic selection as already described in the topic selection article.
Generally speaking research gaps fall into seven categories, namely, theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, knowledge, population and evidence. Although, a seasoned researcher could follow or choose to incorporate any of the above categories into her own research, My advice to first time researchers is to focus on knowledge and / or population based research gaps for their PhD.
Firstly, a knowledge gap within the existing body of literature is when there is a lack of information on a particular research topic. This usually happens when either a new area of research is emerging or when more research is also required for a different context or setting. In order to fill knowledge gaps within existing body of literature, either new research studies are required or extension of existing research studies is required. A PhD scholar can choose to extend current research studies and apply them in different context or setting. In-order to find such gaps you should look at following categorical reasons in published literature:
- Is there insufficient information within the current research or a missing context or setting
- Does the current research provide Imprecise information when it comes to a different context or setting
- Is the current published literature based on biased information in case the context or setting is changed
- Does current research provides information that is not right if applied to a different context or setting
Secondly, population gaps within the existing body of literature are a common gap recognized among researchers. There are always under-served populations that have been under-researched. Such a gap can be due to two basic reasons, one, there is a cohort that is although significant is not well researched and, second, there is a cohort that is insignificant and thus not researched. Therefore, a PhD scholar can extend current research to include such cohorts with deeper research. For finding gaps for cohorts that are significant but under-represented you should look into the following categorical reasons:
- Is there insufficient information within the current research or a missing cohort
- Does the current research provide Imprecise information when it comes to a different cohort
- Is the current published literature based on biased information in case the cohort is different
- Does current research provides information that is not right if applied to a different cohort
- Is there insufficient information within the current research or a missing insignificant cohort
- Does the current research provide Imprecise information when it comes to an insignificant cohort
- Is the current published literature based on biased information in case the cohort is insignificant
- Does current research provides information that is not right if applied to an insignificant cohort
- Are current research results are Inconsistent for an insignificant cohort
- If result consistency is unknown for an insignificant cohort
Additional Resources:
Last Updated: 30-05-2025 IST
Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK126702/, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319244623_ARTICLE_Research_Methods_and_Strategies_Workshop_A_Taxonomy_of_Research_Gaps_Identifying_and_Defining_the_Seven_Research_Gaps
Public Key: 5F0A7C59DA493504 on https://pgp.mit.edu/
Licences: This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International and is owned by Ankit Gupta
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