Research gap
Once you have selected your research field, you can look for a research gap. A research gap is the fragment of social reality that you will investigate.
A research gap should be possible to research. Your added value can be a new method, a new sample, or a new research subject (a process or a phenomenon). The number of these elements in the social world is infinite. You will find your research gap among these combinations. You will know if you properly identified when you evaluate whether investigating your research gap makes sense. What does that mean exactly? It means that the research gap answers a relevant question and the research is doable, i.e. you can conduct your research project. The two cases below illustrate the significance of these points.
- “Experience of romantic love by cooks in sushi restaurants” might be an exciting topic but hard to analyze. What data could be used to indicate that romantic love by cooks in this type of restaurant is peculiar?
- “Reading preferences of imprisoned in a penitentiary institution in Bratislava” might also be an interesting case. Probably no one has studied it, and the topic makes sense because the imprisoned have access to libraries and might engage in reading. However, you might have limited access to such data.
In order to identify the research gap, you can use the matrix below.
|
|
|
Who are you studying? |
|
|
|
|
A group that had been studied before |
A group that has not been studied before (2) |
|
What phenomenon are you studying? What methods will you use?
|
A known phenomenon / process / method (A) |
This is not a research gap. Most probably everything has already been studied. |
There is a chance for a research gap! You can use a known concept to study a new group. |
|
A new phenomenon / process / method (B) |
There is a chance for a research gap! You can try this concept on a group that has been already extensively investigated. |
If there are no studies on the topic it might be hard to start from scratch. |
|
Here are examples:
1A: “Education of Roma children in Slovakian schools” – this topic has been studied extensively. Synthesis of existing studies will not add a lot unless a new element is added, e.g., new educational policy.
1B: “Identity of Polish Muslims. A study of visual ethnography”. There are several studies on Polish Muslims, but none used the methodology of visual ethnography. Your study can use photographs taken by the Polish Muslims in everyday situations (only if they agree to participate in your project).
2A: “Role of neighbourhood groups in social media on the example of Facebook Group ‘Our district’”. There are many FB groups and many studies on social media. There are also many studies on neighbourhood and neighbour groups. However, no one has studied the FB group “Our district”.
2B: “Feeling of shame by miners from Upper Silesia”. There is hardly any chance to prepare a meaningful study. There are plenty of studies on miners, but most probably none refers to the feeling of shame. There are plenty of studies about shame, but unrelated to miners. And what should the research gap cover? Why do we believe that miners have any particular feeling of shame?