Through Scopes and Limitations, We May Understand Better
If you have ever written a scientific article, whether a paper or a bachelor’s thesis to obtain your degree, you must be familiar with research scope and limitations. I may be one of the ones that are quite late to realise their influences in setting apart between how scientists and laypeople perceive knowledge and the world.
So what are exactly the scope and limitations in research? Evident by their self-explanatory names, both of them practically are constraints. However, they go in opposite ways. While the scope is the boundaries that one sets to give their research a definitive direction and focus, the limitations are challenging external factors that rein in the study beyond the scientist’s control.
For example, you might be wondering about: “Which social media that people frequently use to communicate with each other?” While this is a highly enticing question, in practice this is too complex and unwieldy to carry out an experiment. A scope allows your research to be manageable by defining limiting elements.
Let’s say, this is your question after hand-picking your scope: “Which social media that Generation Z in the five largest cities in Indonesia frequently uses to communicate with each other regarding politics?” Scopes such as age range, specific locations, and communication topics offer more clarity in executing the research than the previously generic, more abstract version question.
Despite that, you will encounter a few challenges that probably hinder your perfect methodology in mind. You may have issues in designing proportional samples, finding relevant literature to support your analysis, or managing the budget and logistics. This is your research limitations, and as long as you acknowledge them, they are not necessarily viewed in a negative light. Regardless, the more seasoned the researcher, the more he/she is expected to reduce these limitations.
A very recent paper delightfully dissected the concept of research scope and limitation. While the authors set the scope on social research, I believe the explanations in general are applicable to all types of the research study.
Having established that, I want to share my impression when doing a research project for the first time: I was eager to cover the problem as widely as possible and bit off more than I can chew. It is simply unfeasible to conduct the experiment without establishing the scope and acknowledging the limitations.
Over time, by conducting more experiments and reading a swathe of papers, it dawned on me that scientists always aim at one small, specific niche for every research study. They rely on other scientists’ findings and what they find will serve the same purpose on the next — “standing on the shoulders of giants.” What they discover about a certain subject can only be positively held under the defined scope and acknowledged limitations. If even one of those constraints is omitted or replaced, the discovery about that subject could be exceedingly different.
Thus, when faced with new information, scientists are trained to perceive it in a nuanced manner. They will not take it at face value. They will ask “What are the contexts?”
Let’s revisit the ‘social media’ question I posed before. For the sake of argument, it is discovered that WhatsApp is the top preference of Generation Z in the five largest Indonesian cities to communicate about politics.
An experienced scientist or even someone who does not have a scholarly background yet has developed critical thinking will automatically run a barrage of questions: “At what age exactly do you define Generation Z? How do you decide the largest cities? Is it by economic production, populace number, or even area size? Which political topic exactly, and how do you draw a distinction between what is politics and what is not?” This will presumably go on up to the technical details such as the mechanisms of your sample choosing and methodology.
It is apparent to see that these questions are limiting in nature. They are aimed to precisely narrow the result’s scope and thus, to gauge what are its scope and limitations. For example, by limiting the aim for only five largest cities, we can assume that other Indonesian cities, however probable it is, can not be held with the same conclusion to them.
It is relatively hard to attentively recognise this rule, and therefore many people could easily fall for it. The rampant phenomenon of fake news spread can be traced from this pitfall. On the one hand, the fault lies in the news fabricator that alter slightly or wholly news to mislead people. On the other hand, many people lack the ability or good judgement to internally interrogate such information’s contexts, even the valid ones. In other words, they tend to easily generalise a claim, and thus, they serve themselves with their own misinterpretation.
I am sure false information, either intentionally created or true but horribly misinterpreted, will stay with us for a long time. What we can do in our capabilities is to take every piece of information with a grain of salt — by always considering the scope and limitations. In an age where information effortlessly holds sway on our emotion and judgement, critically questioning every limiting factor in a boundary of healthy scepticism is now more critical than ever.
