limitations of desktop research

• Desk Research: Definition, Types, Application, Pros & Cons

If you are looking for a way to conduct a research study while optimizing your resources, desk research is a great option. Desk research uses existing data from various sources, such as books, articles, websites, and databases, to answer your research questions. 

Let’s explore desk research methods and tips to help you select the one for your research.

What Is Desk Research?

Desk research, also known as secondary research or documentary research, is a type of research that relies on data that has already been collected and published by others. Its data sources include public libraries, websites, reports, surveys, journals, newspapers, magazines, books, podcasts, videos, and other sources. 

When performing desk research, you are not gathering new information from primary sources such as interviews, observations, experiments, or surveys. The information gathered will then be used to make informed decisions.

The most common use cases for desk research are market research , consumer behavior , industry trends , and competitor analysis .

How Is Desk Research Used?

Here are the most common use cases for desk research:

• Exploring a new topic or problem
• Identifying existing knowledge gaps
• Reviewing the literature on a specific subject
• Finding relevant data and statistics
• Analyzing trends and patterns
• Evaluating competitors and market trends
• Supporting or challenging hypotheses
• Validating or complementing primary research

Types of Desk Research Methods

There are two main types of desk research methods: qualitative and quantitative. 

• Qualitative Desk Research 

Analyzing non-numerical data, such as texts, images, audio, or video. Here are some examples of qualitative desk research methods:

Content analysis – Examining the content and meaning of texts, such as articles, books, reports, or social media posts. It uses data to help you identify themes, patterns, opinions, attitudes, emotions, or biases.

Discourse analysis – Studying the use of language and communication in texts, such as speeches, interviews, conversations, or documents. It helps you understand how language shapes reality, influences behavior, constructs identities, creates power relations, and more.

Narrative analysis – Analyzing the stories and narratives that people tell in texts, such as biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, or testimonials. This allows you to explore how people make sense of their experiences, express their emotions, construct their identities, or cope with challenges.

• Quantitative Desk Research

Analyzing numerical data, such as statistics, graphs, charts, or tables. 

Here are common examples of quantitative desk research methods:

Statistical analysis : This method involves applying mathematical techniques and tools to numerical data, such as percentages ratios, averages, correlations, or regressions.

You can use statistical analysis to measure, describe, compare, or test relationships in the data.

Meta-analysis : Combining and synthesizing the results of multiple studies on a similar topic or question. Meta-analysis can help you increase the sample size, reduce the margin of error, or identify common findings or discrepancies in data.

Trend analysis : This method involves examining the changes and developments in numerical data over time, such as sales, profits, prices, or market share. It helps you identify patterns, cycles, fluctuations, or anomalies. 

Examples of Desk Research

Here are some real-life examples of desk research questions:

• What are the current trends and challenges in the fintech industry?
• How do Gen Z consumers perceive money and financial services?
• What are the best practices for conducting concept testing for a new fintech product?
• Documentary on World War II and its effect on Austria as a country

You can use the secondary data sources listed below to answer these questions:

Industry reports and publications

• Market research surveys and studies
• Academic journals and papers
• News articles and blogs
• Podcasts and videos
• Social media posts and reviews
• Government and non-government agencies

How to Choose the Best Type of Desk Research

The main factors for selecting a desk research method are:

• Research objective and question
• Budget and deadlines
• Data sources availability and accessibility.
• Quality and reliability of data sources
• Your data analysis skills

Let’s say your research question requires an in-depth analysis of a particular topic, a literature review may be the best method. But if the research question requires analysis of large data sets, you can use trend analysis.

Differences Between Primary Research and Desk Research

The main difference between primary research and desk research is the source of data. Primary research uses data that is collected directly from the respondents or participants of the study. Desk research uses data that is collected by someone else for a different purpose.

Another key difference is the cost and time involved. Primary research is usually more expensive, time-consuming, and resource-intensive than desk research. However, it can also provide you with more specific, accurate, and actionable data that is tailored to your research goal and question.

The best practice is to use desk-based research before primary research; it refines the scope of the work and helps you optimize resources.

Read Also – Primary vs Secondary Research Methods: 15 Key Differences

How to Conduct a Desk Research

Here are the four main steps to conduct desk research:

• Define Research Goal and Question

What do you want to achieve with your desk research? What problem do you want to solve or what opportunity do you want to explore? What specific question do you want to answer with your desk research?

• Identify and Evaluate Data Sources

Where can you find relevant data for your desk research? How relevant and current are the data sources for your research? How consistent and comparable are they with each other? 

You can evaluate your data sources based on factors such as- 

– Authority: Who is the author or publisher of the data source? What are their credentials and reputation? Are they experts or credible sources on the topic?

– Accuracy: How accurate and precise is the data source? Does it contain any errors or mistakes? Is it supported by evidence or references?

– Objectivity: How objective and unbiased is the data source? Does it present facts or opinions? Does it have any hidden agenda or motive?

– Coverage: How comprehensive and complete is the data source? Does it cover all aspects of your topic? Does it provide enough depth and detail?

– Currency: How current and up-to-date is the data source? When was it published or updated? Is it still relevant to your topic?

• Collect and Analyze Your Data

How can you collect your data efficiently and effectively? What tools or techniques can you use to organize and analyze your data? How can you interpret your data with your research goal and question?

• Present and Report Your Findings

How can you communicate your findings clearly and convincingly? What format or medium can you use to accurately record your findings?

You can use spreadsheets, presentation slides, charts, infographics, and more.

Advantages of Desk Research

• Cost Effective

It is cheaper and faster than primary research, you don’t have to collect new data or report them. You can simply analyze and leverage your findings to make deductions.

• Prevents Effort Duplication

Desk research provides you with a broad and thorough overview of the research topic and related issues. This helps to avoid duplication of efforts and resources by using existing data.

• Improves Data Validity

Using desk research, you can compare and contrast various perspectives and opinions on the same topic. This enhances the credibility and validity of your research by referencing authoritative sources.

• Identify Data Trends and Patterns

 It helps you to identify new trends and patterns in the data that may not be obvious from primary research. This can help you see knowledge and research gaps to offer more effective solutions.

Disadvantages of Desk Research

• Outdated Information

One of the main challenges of desk research is that the data may not be relevant, accurate, or up-to-date for the specific research question or purpose. Desk research relies on data that was collected for a different reason or context, which may not match the current needs or goals of the researcher.

• Limited Scope

Another limitation of desk research is that it may not provide enough depth or insight into qualitative aspects of the market, such as consumer behavior, preferences, motivations, or opinions. 

Data obtained from existing sources may be biased or incomplete due to the agenda or perspective of the source.

Read More – Research Bias: Definition, Types + Examples

• Data Inconsistencies

It may also be inconsistent or incompatible with other data sources due to different definitions or methodologies.

• Legal and Technical Issues

Desk research data may also be difficult to access or analyze due to legal, ethical, or technical issues.

How to Use Desk Research Effectively

Here are some tips on how to use desk research effectively:

• Define the research problem and objectives clearly and precisely.
• Identify and evaluate the sources of secondary data carefully and critically.
• Compare and contrast different sources of data to check for consistency and reliability.
• Use multiple sources of data to triangulate and validate the findings.
• Supplement desk research with primary research when exploring deeper issues.
• Cite and reference the sources of data properly and ethically.

Desk research should not be used as a substitute for primary research, but rather as a complement or supplement. Combine it with primary research methods, such as surveys, interviews, observations, experiments, and others to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of your research topic.

Desk research is a cost-effective tool for gaining insights into your research topic. Although it has limitations, if you choose the right method and carry out your desk research effectively, you will save a lot of time, money, and effort that primary research would require.

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• desk research
• market research
• primary vs secondary research
• research bias
• secondary research
• Moradeke Owa

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What is Desk Research? A Guide + Examples

Desk research can help you make data-driven decisions, define or adapt strategies, and uncover untapped market potential to drive growth – when it’s done right!

Nowadays, we have all the information we need at our fingertips; but knowing where to find the right data quickly is key.

So, what is desk research? What does it involve, and how can Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence help?

Let’s find out.

What is desk research?

Desk research is a type of market research that uses existing data to support or validate outcomes and conclusions. Also known as secondary research , it’s a cost-effective way to obtain relevant data from a broad range of channels.

How is desk research used?

From small start-ups to established businesses, doing desk research provides you with crucial insights into trends, competitors, and market size . Whatever you do, desk research can help with product positioning and guide data-driven business decisions that help you become the ultimate competitor and find new ways to grow.

According to the latest data on the Internet of Things , around 130 new devices connect to the web every second. Stats on the state of data show we create and consume data at an exponential rate–data interactions will only continue to rise.

Primary vs. secondary research – what’s the difference?

Most market research methods fall into either primary or secondary research. When we talk about desk research, we tend to focus only on secondary methods. However, most primary research can also be done remotely, from a desk.

Primary research is self-conducted research that gathers data to answer questions. It usually involves going directly to a source, such as a customer or a prospect. Compared to secondary research, it takes longer, costs more, and demands more resources. Primary research methods include interviews, market research surveys , questionnaires, competitor reviews, market mapping , focus groups, etc.

Secondary research is the synthesis or summary of existing research using previously gained information from various sources. Most market research starts with secondary research: It aims to provide a researcher or analyst with a basis of knowledge formed from existing data. Secondary research methods include collecting data from the internet, government databases, reports, and academic journals, to name just a few.

Pros and cons of desk research

As with any type of market research, you need to choose the right method to deliver the best outcome for your research goal. Desk research is advantageous for several reasons, but it won’t always suit every market research project. Market research best practice tells us that we should use desk-based research before primary research – as this helps to reduce or refine the scope of the work before the second, more costly phase.

Here’s a summary of the pros and cons of desk research.

Advantages of desk-based research

Doing secondary market research is highly beneficial; here’s why.

• 💰 Low cost – most secondary research sources are low-to-no cost.
• 💨 Speed – as the data already exists, data collection is quick.
• 💎 Clarity – desk research drives & add-value to primary research actions.
• 🌱 Scalability – due to the large datasets used in secondary research.
• 📆 Availability – pre-collected data is readily available to analyze.
• 💡 Insightful – get valuable insights and help resolve some initial research questions.

Disadvantages of desk-based research

As any good researcher will attest, it’s always good to look at a topic from every angle. Here are a few things to consider before starting any secondary research process.

• Out of-date data – consider if the coverage dates of the research are relevant. In a fast-moving market, having access to up-to-date information could be critical.
• Lack of perceived control over the data – secondary research is undertaken by a third party; as such, methodology controls need to be reviewed with caution.
• No exclusivity – desk research data is widely available and can be used by other researchers.
• Verification & interpretation – particularly when working with large data sets, it can take time to analyze and review to ensure the information is suitable for your research.

Types of desk-based research

Nowadays, you can do most market research from a desk. Here, I’ll focus solely on secondary research methods: Where finding and using the right resources is key. The data you use needs to be up-to-date and should always come from a trusted source.

Desk research methods – internal data resources

Before stepping into external research, look for any relevant internal sources. This data can often prove invaluable, and it’s a great place to start gathering insights that only you can see. The information is already yours, so aside from the fact it won’t cost a dime, it’s data your rivals won’t have access to.

Sources of internal information that can help you do desk research include:

• Historical campaign and sales analysis: Everything from website traffic and conversions through to sales. Accessible through your own analytics platform(s).
• Website and mobile application data: Your own platforms can also tell you where users are – such as the device split between mobile and desktop.
• Existing customer information: audience demographics , product use, and efficiency of service.
• Previous research conducted by other analysts: Even if the research seems unrelated, there could be indicative information within.

Desk research methods – external data resources

Using external data sources for desk research is an ideal way to get information about market trends, and explore a new topic.

• The internet: A virtual aggregator of all secondary research sources – always validate findings with credible sources.
• Commercial resources: Research associations and company reports usually cost money but give you data that’s specific to your industry/aim.
• Trade association reports: To see if there’s a trade association of interest, do a quick search online or use the Encyclopedia of Associations , the Directory of Associations , or the National Trade and Professional Associations Directory
• Industry Experts: Expert consultancy is an efficient way of getting information from someone who has ‘been there, done that.’ Also, consider ‘influencers.’
• Research associations & journals: Most research associations are independent and offer bespoke, specialized reports.
• Media coverage: TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines can often help uncover facts and relevant media stories related to your topic.
• Market research intelligence software: Platforms like Similarweb give you actionable insights into industry and competitors’ trends. With access to mobile app intelligence , you get a complete picture of the digital landscape.
• Government & non-government agencies: In the US, the biggest generator of data is the federal government. US Census Bureau , Congressional Research Service , US Government Publishing Office , US Small Business Administration , and the Department of Education . Most information from these sources is free.
• Local government sites: A reliable source to find data on population density or employment trends.
• Public library records: Access data via the Digital Public Library of America in the US or the National Archives in the UK.
• Competitor information: Sign-up for mailing lists, view comparison reports, and read online reviews.
• Educational institutions: Academic research papers and journals are well-researched. If you can find a relevant one, you’ll likely get solid data from credible sources.

How to choose the best type of desk research

With so many freely-available sources online for desk-based research; it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The best guidance I can offer is to keep a list of key questions you are trying to answer with this research, and consider:

• What are you hoping to learn from your research?
• Why is this data relevant?
• Is there an action you can take from this information?
• How up-to-date is the data you are using?

Always keep the questions you’re trying to answer front of mind. It’ll help you stay focused and keep your desk research on the right track. Time and money will usually determine the right type of desk research to use, but, even then, it’s important to stay focussed on where you spend your time vs. the return on that investment.

Inspiration: This article outlines some of the best market research questions to ask.

How to do desk research in five steps

Follow these steps to guide you through doing desktop research:

1. Clearly define your research topic Identify your topic and its purpose, then list any relevant research attributes.

2. Select appropriate resources Make a list of sources that’ll provide relevant information for your research topic.

3. Look for existing data Once you’ve collated your research sources, look for internal and external data relevant to your research topic. Remember to only use data from authentic sources.

4. Collate, compare & assemble Next, you’ll need to collate all the data you’ve obtained, remove any duplication, and bring it together into a usable format.

5. Data analysis The final step of doing desk research is to analyze the data. At this point, you should be able to see if your research questions have been answered. If any questions remain unanswered, go back to step 2, and look for alternative resources that will help you get clearer insights.

Desk-based research tools

Online resources are by far your most valuable asset for doing secondary research. However, software like Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence , Google Analytics (GA), and Google Search Console (GSC) can save you time and give you a more visually-appealing view of relevant data.

My list of go-to tools for desk research includes:

• Google Analytics & Search Console – your own site’s performance and visitor stats.
• Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence – uncover market, industry & competitor trends across web, mobile, and apps.
• Tableau – data visualization for presenting your findings.
• Competitor data – on rival’s websites, newsletters, and social media accounts.

Read: The best market research tools of 2023

Note that GA and GSC are free to use but limited in terms of what you can see outside your own site. With Similarweb, you can access virtually limitless industry-wide data.

Stop Guessing, Start Analyzing

Get actionable insights for desk research here

How Similarweb helps with desk research

Here are just a few examples of how Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence can help you with secondary research.

• Benchmarking yourself against your industry – Competitor benchmarking
• Understand how competitor websites and apps perform – Company research
• Get a full picture of your industry – Market research & industry analysis
• Understand how apps are impacting your market – App Intelligence
• Analyze consumer behavior – Audience analysis
• Understand the complete customer journey – Consumer journey tracking

Using research intelligence tools will save you time and money while removing bias from the data – ultimately giving you clarity and a complete view of the digital world relevant to your research topic.

Success Story: See how Airbnb uses Similarweb to reveal growth opportunities in new markets .

Desk research examples with Similarweb

A good example of desk research in action is looking into an industry to uncover market leaders, trends, relevant search trends, and an overview of a complete industry. Using the market analysis module in Similarweb, you can find out exactly what’s happening in your market, and make data-driven decisions that’ll help you increase market share , and drive faster, more sustainable business growth.

For this particular desk research example, I chose the airline industry.

Let’s dive in.

Industry Overview

See a snapshot of industry traffic and engagement metrics . This data is typically based on Similarweb’s index of the top 100 websites in a chosen vertical. You can easily create a custom industry , allowing you to do competitive benchmarking against specific companies in your market.

Industry Leaders

Quickly see who is winning in an industry using the Market quadrant analysis graph and industry leaders table. Analyze top-performing websites in your vertical, and dive into their traffic and engagement performance to view bounce rates, visit duration, monthly visits, month-on-month changes, unique visitors, pages/visits, and traffic share .

Industry Trends

Analyze trends in near real-time so you can take action when it matters most–not a quarter later. Create a personalized view of your industry for in-depth analysis and make informed decisions that will help you grow your market share.

Marketing Channels

Access valuable traffic metrics and insights for each marketing channel. See data for direct, social, display ads, paid search, referrals, emails, and organic traffic channels and evaluate performance for each. Uncover opportunities to grow your own traffic share, evaluate engagement and quality of traffic, and identify trends over time.

Search Trends (within an industry)

Discover trending topics and emerging search terms in any industry. View what’s trending, search volume, % change, volume trend, and traffic leaders for both branded and non-branded search in your sector. Use these insights to get an understanding of market demand, search intent, and audience interests within a specific category, brand, or product.

Demographics

Gain crucial insights into the audiences visiting your website, your competitors’ websites, and your industry as a whole. See gender and age distribution across web, mobile, or combined traffic channels, and compare your demographics with that of your rivals.

The market analysis element of Similarweb will help you answer some of your most important research questions, such as:

• How a specific industry grew over time
• Who the top and emerging players are in your industry
• Which products or services are trending and/or what are consumers searching for
• What demographics are relevant to you, and your competitors

The app intelligence module completes the picture and gives you a broad view of the digital landscape across your market. You can quickly see how apps are impacting your industry, and look at download, engagement, installs, ranking, and more.

Here, I’m sticking with the airline industry to establish whether or not android or iOS is the best fit for a new app. Immediately, I can see there are between 1-1.5M monthly active users on iOS vs. an equivalent of around 350,000k on Android.

Like what you see? Take a tour of Similarweb for yourself.

Discover industry insights for desk research here

Wrapping up

Good desk research helps you quickly uncover key information that can shape and steer successful market research projects. When done right, you’ll be able to answer questions and discover crucial data about your industry, competitors, and key trends to consider while building a strategy for growth.

Asking the right research questions from the onset and keeping these at the forefront of your mind throughout will save time and help direct your market analysis in the right direction.

Is desk-based research free?

Depending on the method used, desktop research can be done for free. If you require industry or government agency reports, these often carry a charge but are more likely to be free from bias when compared to commercially produced reports that (sometimes) receive sponsorship. 

Which businesses can utilize secondary desk research?

Desk-based research can uncover crucial insights into market trends, market sizing, and competitors. The information can be used by any size business to help guide strategic decision-making and help refine a product’s positioning.

Should you do secondary research before primary research?

Absolutely, yes. Secondary research should always come before primary or field research. The formative research phase helps pinpoint where more in-depth primary research is required. Desk research can also verify and support findings from field research but should not replace primary research–as they are each utilized under different circumstances.

Who does desk-based research?

Desk research can ‘technically’ be done by anyone, but it’s typically performed by a researcher, an analyst, or a marketing professional. Good market research has solid foundational data to drive critical business decisions. Experienced researchers and analysts are best-placed to spot opportunities, trends, and patterns when the stakes are this high.

So, while anybody can access secondary data free of charge, investing the necessary resources to do things right to get the most out of the process is essential.

Related Posts

From AI to Buy: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Retail

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Home Market Research

Desk Research: What it is, Tips & Examples

What is desk research?

Desk research is a type of research that is based on the material published in reports and similar documents that are available in public libraries, websites, data obtained from surveys already carried out, etc. Some organizations also store data that can be used for research purposes.

It is a research method that involves the use of existing data. These are collected and summarized to increase the overall effectiveness of the investigation.

Secondary research is much more cost-effective than primary research , as it uses existing data, unlike primary research, in which data is collected first-hand by organizations, companies, or may employ a third party to obtain the data in your name.

LEARN ABOUT: Data Management Framework

Desk research examples

Being a cost-effective method, desk research is a popular choice for businesses and organizations as not everyone can pay large sums of money to conduct research and collect data. That is why it’s also called “ documentary research “.

Here are some more common secondary research methods and examples:

1. Data available on the Internet: One of the most popular ways to collect data for desk research is through the Internet. The information is available and can be downloaded with just one click.

This data is practically free or you may have to pay a negligible amount for it. Websites have a lot of information that companies or organizations can use to meet their research needs. However, you need to consider a reliable website to collect information.

2. Government and non-government agencies: Data for secondary research can also be collected from some government and non-government agencies. There will always be valuable and relevant data that companies or organizations can use.

3. Public libraries: Public libraries are another good source to search for data by doing desk research. They have copies of important research that has been done before. They are a store of documents from which relevant information can be extracted.

The services offered at these public libraries vary. Most often, they have a huge collection of government publications with market statistics, a large collection of business directories, and newsletters.

4. Educational Institutions: The importance of collecting data from educational institutions for secondary research is often overlooked. However, more research is done in colleges and universities than in any other business sector.

The data collected by universities is mainly used for primary research. However, companies or organizations can go to educational institutions and request data.

5. Sources of business information: Newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations are a great source of data for desk research. These sources have first-hand information on economic developments, the political agenda, the market, demographic segmentation and similar topics.

Companies or organizations can request to obtain the most relevant data for their study. Not only do they have the opportunity to identify your potential customers, but they can also learn the ways to promote their products or services through these sources, as they have a broader scope.

Differences between primary research and Desk Research

How to do a desk research.

These are the steps to follow to conduct a desk investigation:

• Identify the research topic: Before you begin, identify the topic you need to research. Once done, make a list of the attributes of the research and its purpose.
• Identify research sources: Subsequently, explain the sources of information that will provide you with the most relevant data applicable to your research.
• Collect existing data: Once the sources of information collection have been narrowed, check to see if previous data is available that is closely related to the topic. They can be obtained from various sources, such as newspapers, public libraries, government and non-government agencies, etc.
• Combine and compare: Once the data is collected, combine and compare it so that the information is not duplicated and put it together in an accessible format. Make sure to collect data from authentic sources so you don’t get in the way of your investigation.
• Analyze data: Analyze the data that is collected and identify if all the questions have been answered. If not, repeat the process to dig deeper into practical ideas.
• Most of the information is secondary research and readily available. There are many sources from which the data you need can be collected and used, as opposed to primary research, where data must be collected from scratch.
• It is a less expensive and time-consuming process, as the required data is readily available and does not cost much if it is extracted from authentic sources.
• The data that is collected through secondary or desktop research gives organizations or companies an idea about the effectiveness of primary research. Thus, a hypothesis can be formed and the cost of conducting the primary research can be evaluated.
• Doing desk research is faster due to the availability of data. It can be completed in a few weeks, depending on the objective of the companies or the scale of the data required.

Disadvantages

• Although the data is readily available, the credibility and authenticity of the available information must be assessed.
• Not all secondary data resources offer the latest reports and statistics. Even when they are accurate, they may not be up to date.

Desk research is a very popular research method, because it uses existing and reliable data that can be easily obtained. This is a great benefit for businesses and organizations as it increases the effectiveness of the investigation.

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Marketing91

Desk Research: Definition, Importance and Advantages

June 12, 2023 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

Research is an integral part of the marketing of every business . The success of a business depends on the acceptability of the product . Research is used to understand the expectation of the target audience. The outcome of thorough research helps in developing a successful marketing plan .Research can be categorized into two broad categories, primary research and desk research or secondary research .

Read this article to learn the definition of desk research, what is desk research, the importance of desk research, reasons to conduct desk research, advantages of desk research, and steps to do desk research.

Table of Contents

Desk research can be defined as a type of market research where the information about the topic in research is available in printed form or published on the internet, in newspapers, magazines, and government reports is collected and analyzed.

What is desk research?

Desk research is a type of research that can be performed over a desk. In this type of research, a researcher finds, collects, and reviews the publicly available data about the research topic. In primary research, the researcher interacts with people and collects data firsthand using different primary research methods.

On the other hand, desk research is conducted by gathering and analyzing information available on public platforms such as internet forms, newspaper articles, magazines, market intelligence , government reports, databases, statistics, and data sets.

The desk research is also popularly known as secondary research, as in this research, the data for the analysis is not collected by involving participants. But the previously existed data is gathered and studied.  The researcher conducts research sitting behind his or her desk by collecting the previously existing data.

Many organizations prefer desk research because it helps to establish an understanding of the research topic at a very low-cost. In addition to this, the information collected from the desk research is verified by the public. Hence, the outcome of the research is reliable.

Moreover, desk research can be categorized into two categories: internal desk research and external desk research. Internal desk research is referred to as the analysis of internal reports, data sets, and organization statistics. At the same time, external desk research is applied to the study of information collected from the external sources.

Market research is an essential part of every business. A business needs to understand the product’s demand that they want to launch in the market. Research is the only method to learn about the market condition and the acceptability of the product.

Companies adopt two research methods to analyze the market condition, such as primary research and secondary research. However, conducting primary research is quite expensive and requires a lot of effort and resources.

Therefore, organizations opt for secondary research methods to learn about the field of research. Conducting desk research is a cost-effective method to establish an understanding of the area.

Advantages of desk research

Desk research is one of the essential market research that many organizations opt to learn about their investment. The following are the advantages of conducting desk research.

1. Inexpensive

The first benefit of conducting desk research is that it costs almost nothing. You need to have a desktop and internet connection to perform this type of research.

If you are new in the business world and want to start your business from scratch, then it is understood that you are low on budget to conduct primary research.

Therefore, secondary research is the best option for you to understand the market segment you want to enter and the demand for the product in the market.

2. Helpful in making well-informed decisions

Marketing plays an essential role in the success of every business. A company spends a considerable amount of money to market their product. A manager can make better decisions when they understand the field better.

The desk research allows managers to understand the demands and needs of consumers . Thus, they can create effective marketing plans for their products and services.

3. Helpful in finding new opportunities

Through desk research, a manager can learn about the business opportunities available in the market.

They can analyze the competition in the market and can position their product in such a way so that they can increase their market share .

4. It takes less time to conduct

Secondary research can be undertaken in comparatively less time than the primary research. With the help of technology and using public sources, the information can be collected in very little time.

5. Helpful in focusing the research

Many times, managers face the problem of having one focused research topic. In such a scenario, conducting primary research will be a waste of time and a waste of resources.

The companies can either hire experts in conducting secondary research or use the services of third-party organizations that help you in conducting the secondary research.

Disadvantages of desk research

1. Unreliability of data

Relying on the data collected through desk research is a little risky. The data that you are basing your research on can be outdated as government organizations don’t update their data regularly. Their statistics and database are updated once or twice a year.

2. Difficult to find specific data

Another disadvantage of desk research is that you can’t find accurate data for your research topic. Secondary research is useful to establish an understanding of the research topic, but reaching conclusions only based on the desk research outcome is not advisable.

3. No control over the participants and the methods of research

In secondary research, the data you collect or analyze is based on the research conducted by others. Therefore, as a researcher, you cannot control the research participants and the methods used by them.

Here is a video by Marketing91 on Desk Research.

Resources of desk research

The following are the sources that can be used to collect data for desk research.

1. Business libraries and databases

All large libraries have business sections where one can access the latest material in different fields of business. Many libraries also provide access to online business sources. Therefore, if you are an entrepreneur and want to do preliminary research for your business, libraries are the best source for you to conduct your desk research.

2. Local directories

Local directories are the best place to conduct desk research if you want to start a business locally and have information about your competitors.

Local directories can provide you information about your local competitors and the product and services.

3. Trade associations

The members of an industry form trade associations.

If you want to enter an industry, it will help you have connections in their trade association. Business associations provide statistics, reports, and data to their members.

4. Market research report

Market research reports contain information about a particular market segment. These reports contain information such as threats and opportunities in a specific market. Several organizations sell market research reports.

You can buy research reports to conduct desk research.

5. Newspapers and magazines

Newspapers and magazines are one of the cheapest and readily available sources. In all newspapers, there is a business section where they print business news and market.

Similarly, business magazines publish news about different industries. You can buy their latest copies and can access older copies from your local library.

Steps to conduct desk research

Carrying desk research requires skills and knowledge to scrutinize the right sources to collect data. Whether you want to write a personal story or research a business opportunity, desk research will help you do it effectively.

In this section,  you will learn about the steps you can follow to conduct effective desk research.

Step 1: Define the objective of your research

Conducting desk research will become a lot easier if you have a predefined objective for your research. If you are not sure about your research’s objective, you should list down all the questions you want to research.

Your research should be focused on finding the answers to all of these questions. Follow the logic of going from general research to reaching a precise research topic. Lastly, have a rough idea of how much information you want to collect so you will know when to move to the next step.

Step 2: Make a research plan

Now, this step might contradict your pre-notion about the desk research. Most people believe that desk research takes place without following a plan. But, trust me, having a research plan will make your research work a lot easy.

Choose a research method that you will use and the tool that you will use to collect and analyze your research data.

Step 3: Select a deadline

Having a deadline to conclude your research will make your research work fast and will save you from wasting your time procrastinating, and you will end up conducting your research in less time.

Step 4: Conduct research

Conducting desk research means collecting the data from reliable sources and analyzing them to reach conclusions. Ensure the reliability of the data source and analyze the information collected using tables and flow charts.

Step 5: Reach conclusions

Once you have collected enough information and have organized and analyzed it properly, then reaching conclusions will not be difficult for you.

Your whole effort to conduct research will be successful only if you understand the information entirely and draw conclusions from it without any confusion.

Desk research or secondary research is conducted by collecting and analyzing the data collected by other researchers. Using desk research, you can establish an understanding of your research field by spending fewer resources like time and money.

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Market research

Related posts:

• Research Ethics – Importance and Principles of Ethics in Research
• What is Research Design? Type of Research Designs
• How to Write Research Proposal? Research Proposal Format
• 7 Key Differences between Research Method and Research Methodology
• Qualitative Research: Meaning, and Features of Qualitative Research
• Descriptive Research – Characteristics, Methods, Examples, Advantages
• Operations Research – Types, Advantages, Disadvantages
• Primary Research – Meaning, Process and Advantages
• What is Survey Research? Objectives, Sampling Process, Types and Advantages
• What is the Importance of Qualitative Research to an Organization?

About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

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Blog General

Desk Research 101: Definition, Methods, and Examples

Parvathi vijayamohan.

2 March 2023

Table Of Contents

If you ever had to do a research study or a survey at some point, you would have started with desk research .

There’s another, more technical name for it – secondary research. To rewind a bit, there are two types of research: primary , where you go out and study things first-hand, and secondary , where you explore what others have done.

But what is desk research? How do you do it, and use it? This article will help you:

• Understand what is desk-based research
• Explore 3 examples of desk research
• Make note of 6 common desk research methods
• Uncover the advantages of desk research

What is desk research?

Desk research can be defined as a type of market/product research, where you collect data at your desk (metaphorically speaking) from existing sources to get initial ideas about your research topic.

Desk research or secondary research is an essential process from a business’s point of view. After all, secondary data sources are such an easy way to get information about their industry, trends, competitors, and customers.

Types of secondary data sources

#1. Internal secondary data: This consists of data from within the researcher’s company. Examples include:

• Company reports and presentations
• Case studies
• Podcasts, vlogs and blogs
• Press releases
• Websites and social media
• Company databases and data sets

#2. External secondary data: Researchers collect this from outside their respective firms. Examples include:

• Digital and print publications
• Domain-specific publications and periodicals
• Online research communities, like  ResearchGate
• Industry speeches and conference presentations
• Research papers

What are examples of desk research in action?

#1. testing product-audience match.

Let’s say you’re developing a fintech product. You want to do a concept testing study. To make sure you get it right, you’re interested in finding out your target audience’s attitudes about a topic in your domain. For e.g., Gen Z’s perceptions about money in the US.

With a quick Google search, you get news articles, reports, and research studies about Gen Z’s financial habits and attitudes. Also, infographics and videos provide plenty of quantitative data to draw on.

These steps are a solid starting point for framing your concept testing study. You can further reduce the time spent on survey design with a  Concept Testing Survey Template . Sign up to get free access to this and hundreds more templates.

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#2. Tracking the evolution of the Web

As we wade into the brave new world of  Web 5.0 , there are quite a few of us who still remember static websites, flash animations, and images sliced up into tables.

If you want to refresh your memory, you can hop on the  Wayback Machine . iI gives you access to over 20 years of web history, with over 635 billion web pages saved over time!

Curiosity aside, there are practical use cases for this web archive. SEO specialist Artur Bowsza explores this in his fantastic article  Internet Archeology with the Wayback Machine .

Imagine you’re investigating a recent drop in a website’s visibility. You know there were some recent changes in the website’s code, but couldn’t get any details. Or maybe you’re preparing a case study of your recent successful project, but the website has changed so much, and you never bothered to take a screenshot. Wouldn’t it be great to travel back in time and uncover the long-forgotten versions of the website – like an archaeologist, discovering secrets from the past but working in the digital world?

#3. Repairing a business reputation

As a brand, you hope that a crisis never happens. But if hell does break loose, having a crisis management strategy is essential.

If you want examples, just do a Google search. From Gamestop getting caught in a  Reddit stock trading frenzy  to Facebook being voted  The Worst Company of 2021 , we have seen plenty of brands come under fire in recent years.

Some in-depth desk research can help you nail your crisis communication. Reputation management expert Lida Citroen outlines this in her article 7 Ways to Recover After a Reputation Crisis .

Conduct a thoughtful and thorough perception sweep of the reputation hit’s after-effects. This includes assessing digital impact such as social media, online relationships and Google search results. The evaluation gives you a baseline. How serious is the situation? Sometimes the way we believe the situation to be is not reflected in the business impact of the damage.

6 popular methods of desk research

#1. the internet.

No surprise there. When was the last time you checked a book to answer the burning question of “is pineapple on pizza illegal?” (it should be).

However, choosing authentic and credible sources from an information overload can be tricky. To help you out, the Lydia M. Olson Library has a 6-point checklist to filter out low-quality sources. You can read them in detail here .

#2. Libraries

You have earned some serious street cred if your preferred source is a library. But, jokes apart, finding the correct information for your research topic in a library can be time-consuming.

However, depending on which library you visit, you will find a wealth of verifiable, quotable information in the form of newspapers, magazines, research journals, books, documents, and more.

#3. Governmental and non-governmental organizations

NGOs, and governmental agencies like the US Census Bureau, have valuable demographic data that businesses can use during desk research. This data is collected using survey tools like SurveySparrow .

You may have to pay a certain fee to download or access the information from these agencies. However, the data obtained will be reliable and trustworthy.

#4. Educational institutions

Colleges and universities conduct plenty of primary research studies every year. This makes them a treasure trove for desk researchers.

However, getting access to this data requires legwork. The procedures vary according to the institution; among other things, you will need to submit an application to the relevant authority and abide by a data use agreement.

#5. Company databases

For businesses, customer and employee data are focus areas all on their own. But after the pandemic, companies are using even more applications and tools for the operations and service sides.

This gives businesses access to vast amounts of information useful for desk research and beyond. For example, one interesting  use case  is making employee onboarding more effective with just basic employee data, like their hobbies or skills.

#6. Commercial information media

These include radio, newspapers, podcasts, YouTube, and TV stations. They are decent sources of first-hand info on political and economic developments, market research, public opinion and other trending subjects.

However, this is also a source that blurs the lines between advertising, information and entertainment. So as far as credibility is concerned, you are better off supporting this data with additional sources.

Why is desk research helpful?

Desk research helps with the following:

• Better domain understanding.  Before doing market research, running a usability test, or starting any user-centric project, you want to see what companies have done in the past (in related areas if not the same domain). Then, instead of learning everything from scratch, you can review their research, success, and mistakes and learn from that. 
• Quicker opportunity spotting.  How do you know if you’ve found something new? By reviewing what has gone before. By doing this, you can spot gaps in the data that match up with the problem you’re trying to solve.
• More money saved . Thanks to the internet, most of the data you need is at your fingertips, and they are cheaper to compile than field data. With a few (search and mental) filters, you can quickly find credible sources with factual information.
• More time saved . You have less than 15 minutes with your research participant. Two minutes if you’re doing an online survey. Do you really want to waste that time asking questions that have already been answered elsewhere? Lack of preparation can also hurt your credibility.
• Better context.  Desk research helps to provide focus and a framework for primary research. By using desk research, companies can also get the insight to make better decisions about their customers and employees.
• More meaningful data.  Desk research is the yin to the yang of field research – they are both required for a meaningful study. That’s why desk research serves as a starting point for every kind of study.

This brings us to the last question.

How do you do desk research?

Good question! In her blog post , Lorène Fauvelle covers the desk research process in detail.

Y ou can also follow our 4-step guide below:

• First,  start with a general topic l ike “handmade organic soaps”. Read through existing literature about handmade soaps to see if there is a gap in the literature that your study can fill.
• Once you find that gap, it’s time to  specify your research topic . So in the example above, you can specify it like this: “What is the global market size for handmade organic soaps”?
• Identify the relevant secondary data for desk research. This only applies if there is past data that could be useful for your research.
• Review the secondary data  according to:
• The aim of the previous study
• The author/sponsors of the study
• The methodology of the study
• The time of the research

Note: One more thing about desk research…

Beware of dismissing research just because it was done a few years ago. People new to research often make the mistake of viewing research reports like so many yogurts in a fridge where the sell-by dates have expired. Just because it was done a couple of years ago, don’t think it’s no longer relevant. The best research tends to focus on human behaviour, and that tends to change very slowly.

• Dr David Travis, Desk Research: The What, Why and How

Wrapping up

That’s all folks! We hope this blog was helpful for you.

How have you used desk research for your work? Let us know in the comments below.

Growth Marketer at SurveySparrow

Fledgling growth marketer. Cloud watcher. Aunty to a naughty beagle.

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How to do desk research for tech products

In this article, we will walk you through the process of conducting desk research step-by-step. You'll learn how to find reliable sources of information and analyze them to ensure you can confidently conduct your own desk research.

This is the second in a series of blog posts designed to help startup founders better understand and plan the products they build. If you wish to learn more about market research , read our previous post. 

Desk research is a method that can be utilized to gather information about literally anything, but we'll focus on employing secondary research techniques for designing the UX of your product.

Secondary research is an excellent method to take your first steps with market analysis.

However, if you feel you need professional guidance, and are looking for a desk research company, be sure to check out our UX research services. Our specialist can conduct secondary research, as well as other types of research, tailored to your business:

TABLE OF CONTENT

What is desk research?

Types of desk research

Goals of desk research

Who does desk research involve?

Advantages and disadvantages of conducting desk research, comparison of primary and secondary research, sources of information, where to collect data.

Research papers and statistics

HOW TO DO DESK RESEARCH?

💡 Desk research plan & example: MyVet

One more thing before we begin: if you want to learn more about the entire process of building digital products, not just secondary research methods, be sure to read our free ebook How to start a startup .

What is desk research? Desk research is a market research method . You can also call it secondary or documentary research. It involves collecting and analyzing information about a subject gathered from various sources such as the Internet, newspapers, magazines, governmental reports, and others.

In contrast to primary research, where you collect data yourself, desk research focuses on using existing data (secondary data that someone has already researched before) .

Desk research is a powerful tool that can help us understand significant market trends, identify key competitors, and learn about customer buying habits. Secondary research can also help identify potential opportunities and risks when entering a new product category. Finally, it's a great method of user research, when you need to get initial, basic information about your potential customers.

When conducting documentary research, you want to analyze:

• available statistics and reports—to get an overview of patterns and trends;
• forum threads and users' comments—to understand customer's paint points and opinions;
• social media content/influencer content—to, again, observe trends and popularity of specific topics.

Secondary research methods (types)

This research method can be categorized into two main types: internal desk research and external desk research.

Internal desk research. Before you look elsewhere, the best practice is to check the information already available within your organization . Internal desk research uses internal reports, data sets, and statistics gathered by your organization. All data that you have collected up to this point can be used to conclude what works and what needs to be changed to ensure your prospect's satisfaction.

External research , on the other hand, refers to the study of information obtained from external sources (not by your organization/company).

Purpose of desk research

The goal of desk research is to provide information that could support and guide decision-making. But to be more precise, you carry out desk research to:

recognize (at least on an introductory level) your users' needs ;

gain clarity of the business context of your project;

better understand the problem the project (app, software) should solve ;

get an idea of the terminology and language your users use .

Desk research isn't limited to specific roles, but rather involves individuals across various domains who need to gather information efficiently . Here are some examples for business:

• Business (startup) founders:  Conducting secondary research helps validate ideas,  understand market size,  and analyze competitors before investing in primary research.
• Market researchers:  Leveraging existing data to gain preliminary insights before conducting surveys or focus groups.
• Product managers:  Gathering information about user needs,  competitor offerings,  and industry trends to inform product development.
• Marketing teams:  Analyzing market data to identify target audiences,  understand customer preferences,  and develop effective marketing campaigns.

Advantages of desk research

Secondary research is a cost-effective method of collecting data. You can analyze information that would not usually be accessible due to the prohibitive cost of conducting quantitative surveys on a nationwide population or lack of access to an audience. ;

Desk research helps better understand your business context and competition ;

You're able to discover opportunities for product development and optimization;

By combining relevant data from different sources, you can figure out what information is already known. Thus, you can discover new phenomena that previous research teams did not find on their own and focus solely on them;

You can familiarize yourself with the unofficial and official terminology used for product topics . This can facilitate decision-making at the structural design and labeling stages;

If user-generated content is analyzed, you can get a better idea of the language and vocabulary they use , but also of their needs;

Suppose the user content is related to an existing product (these are, for example, opinions about the product on review sites). In that case, desk research can help you gain a rich source of inspiration for its improvement or development by identifying usability problems and discovering opportunities for product expansion.

Disadvantages of desk research

Desk research, also known as secondary research, is the process of gathering existing data rather than collecting it firsthand. While this can be a quick and easy way to obtain relevant information about your research topic, there are some potential disadvantages.

First, the data you find might be unreliable, irrelevant, or outdated . This is especially true if you're using freely available sources on the Internet.

Second, finding specific data that answers your questions might be challenging, as the statistics, reports, etc. were created to suit somebody else's needs .

Finally, desk research is based on sources that are someone else's interpretation of the data. This type of research often relies on existing theories and assumptions that may not always be applicable in a given situation . The outcomes might be biased as a result.

You can collect information through primary or secondary research. Let's compare these two methods.

To properly conduct research, it is essential to find reliable and up-to-date sources of information. Search engines can be a good starting point, but it is also crucial to check the credibility of the sources found .

Educational institutions, government organizations, and public libraries are good data sources for your research. National statistics can be found on the websites of governments or statistical agencies. Websites devoted to specific topics can also provide relevant data.

blog posts, books, journals, and articles;

statistics;

previous research reports, market research reports, industry reports;

social media, discussion forums, comments, and reviews;

socialblade.com , Google Trends , and other analytical tools.

Research papers, market studies, and statistics

For research papers and articles, go to:

Google Scholar: a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature

Google Scholar is a free website engine that indexes scholarly literature.

For market studies, go to:

Forrester: helps organizations grow through customer obsession

Forrester is a research and advisory company that offers services focused on customer obsession, including research, consulting, and events.

Gartner: d elivering actionable, objective insight to executives and their teams

Gartner is an analytical and research company specializing in the strategic use of technology and technology management. The tool you might be particularly interested in is Insights —a collection of articles, guides, podcasts, Q&A, and webinars. After filling in the contact information blank, you can download all the content for free

For statistics, go to:

Eurostat: statistical office of the European Union

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union. Eurostat encourages  free  re-use of its data for non-commercial and commercial purposes. It allows users to re-use all statistical data, metadata, web pages, other dissemination tools, official publications, and other documents published on its website with minimal restrictions.

World Bank Open Data: World Bank   datasets

World Bank gathers international data based on data generated by national statistical systems and supports a number of programs to collect transnational data. It's a vast source of relevant data containing not only global development data but also international debt statistics, demographic data, and living standards measurement studies.

All of the data found on this site are free of charge with some minimal restrictions.

Our World in Data: r esearch and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems

Our World in Data is yet another free-of-charge data collection. The statistics here are presented in the form of articles with interactive diagrams. Thanks to that, the data is easy to comprehend and navigate through.

OECD Stats: data from across OECD’s many databases

OECD Stats includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies and is free of charge. 

Statista: s tatistics portal for market data, market research and market studies

Statista calls itself a leading provider of market and consumer data. Indeed, their data collection is quite impressive. It contains over 1 million statistics and covers over 80,000 topics from 170 industries and 150 countries. 

However, you can access only 7% of the English database with a free account.

Of course, these are not all statistical data sources out there. Go check your local databases. For example, for the UK that would be Office For National Statistics.

How to conduct secondary research

It's time to see desk research in action. Here's a desk research methodology - the 6 steps you can guide you through the process.

• Define your goals: To carry out desk research, you must first define your research problem. What do you want to achieve with desk research? What issues do you want to solve? What do you want to find out? What are your main concerns?
• Craft a research plan:   Outline your search terms,   target sources,   and timeline.   Structure ensures efficiency and avoids information overload.
• Seek reliable sources:   Prioritize credible and unbiased data that matches your problem/question. The above-mentioned sources for desk research can make a great starting point.
• Gather Your Information:   Dive into your chosen sources,   taking detailed notes and organizing findings as you go.   Utilize spreadsheets or mind maps for effective data management.
• Analyze and Interpret:   Don't just summarize your research findings!   Identify patterns,   draw conclusions,   and assess the implications for your startup.   Connect the dots and form actionable insights. People the to research often make the mistakes of only collecting the data that confirms their preconceived notions. Don't fall prey to confirmation bias -  look for information that can contradict the initial assumptions. 

Desk research in action. Secondary research example

To better understand what a secondary research process may look like, let's take a look at an example of desk research for a hypothetical app MyVet.

MyVet is intended to be an innovative application that allows direct contact between pet owners and veterinarians (sending messages, scheduling appointments, making payments, buying pet food, and consulting through a photo). 

The project is in the early stages of developing a product strategy, and the team is still considering the opportunities and advantages of its product. 

Primary concern: are vets and clients ready to communicate this way?

• To verify the attitude of veterinarians and clients, the creators reached for data from the report   [hypothetical report title] and the article   [hypothetical article title] . Through this, they learned that both veterinarians and clients are willing to use such solutions. They also found out that clients would like the app to include access to their pets' health logs.
• MyVet is a new project, but related solutions already exist. The research team decided to analyze customer feedback from similar apps on the App Store and Google Play . They were particularly interested in consultations through a photo. One of the most frequently raised issues was the problem of bugs occurring when taking pictures in the app. Users also lacked the ability to save photos and videos to the phone's memory.

DOCUMENT ANALYSIS

A substantial advantage of the app is access to your pet's health log. So the research team collected ten such paper-based pet health logs. Thanks to such analysis, the team learned what information such logs consist of and thus was able to design default settings and auto prompts.

Final thoughts

Desk (market) research is a great way to get an overview of your industry and the attitudes of your target market. It can help you verify the information and understand your competition.

However, it's important to remember that desk research is only a starting point on your journey to creating a product people will love . But fear not! After thorough desk research, you are already well on your way to success!

Now is the time to extend your knowledge by conducting a competitor analysis to see how you stack up against the competition. The next step will be gathering all of your knowledge in a clear and concise way by using Lean Canvas.

Article author

Ewelina Lech

Seasoned researcher with a focus on fintech, digital health, AI, and product development. Always striving to provide insightful and accessible writing, with valuable industry insights and trends for professionals and enthusiasts alike.

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Desk research: the what, why and how

The “where” (at your desk) and the “when” (at the beginning of your project) are easy questions to answer. But what is it, why do you need to to do it, and how should you go about doing desk research to make sure it adds value to your project? —  David Travis , Jan 4, 2016

By David Travis Jan 4, 2016 / strategy

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What is desk research?

Desk research is another name for secondary research. Broadly speaking, there are two types of research activity: primary research (where you go out and discover stuff yourself); and secondary research (where you review what other people have done). Desk research is not about collecting data. Instead, your role as a user researcher carrying out desk research is to review previous research findings to gain a broad understanding of the field.

Why do desk research?

Before carrying out a field visit, developing a prototype, running a usability test, or embarking on any project that you want to be user centred, it makes sense to see what people have done in the past that relates to the product’s domain. Although it’s unlikely that anyone has carried out the exact research activity you’re planning, someone has almost certainly tried to answer related questions. Reviewing this research is the quickest and cheapest way to understand the domain.

Carrying out desk research is a critical first step, for at least three reasons:

• If you don’t know what has gone before, you won’t know when you’ve discovered something new.
• You’ll sound credible when you get face-to-face with users and stakeholders. If you’ve not done this “due diligence”, you’ll ask dumb or irrelevant questions and may find your participants cut your sessions short.
• Failing to do preparatory research is disrespectful of your participants’ time. You may get less than an hour with a user of your system. Do you really want to waste half that time understanding the domain issues that you could have covered elsewhere?

How do you approach desk research?

At this point, I’ve had many user researchers tell me that they’re working on a bleeding edge design project so there isn’t any desk research to do. There’s a common misconception that no research exists.

In my experience, there is almost always something you can build upon. Here’s an approach I take to go about finding it. It helps me stay focussed but also makes sure that I remember to check all the possible nooks and crannies where relevant research findings may be hiding.

A Venn diagram showing users, goals and environments. Where these three overlap is the sweet spot for user research.

The Venn diagram describes the context of use: your users, their goals and the environments where the action occurs. The best kind of research is where all three of these dimensions overlap: field visits that focus on your users trying to achieve their goals in context. This kind of research is so specific and relevant to your project that it may be hard to find, so don’t get discouraged if you can’t turn anything up in this area.

This set of Venn diagrams shows that research into the overlap between users and goals, environments and goals and users and envrionments can also yield useful insights.

But there is potentially useful research in the other areas of overlap on our Venn diagram. This falls into three broad areas:

• Research about your users and their goals, but that was not carried out in context. This kind of research will take the form of surveys, customer interviews and focus groups.
• Research that addresses the goals your system will support and the environment it will be used in, but doesn’t tell us much about users. Examples include call centre or web analytics.
• Research that uncovers information about your users in their environment, but that may not address the goals that your system will support. This will take the form of field research by teams who are designing a product for the same kinds of user but to meet different needs.

The most likely place you’ll find this kind of research is within your own organisation. But you need to be prepared to dig. This is because research findings, especially on agile projects, are often treated as throw-away by-products that apply to a specific project. The findings aren’t shared outside the design team but typically make a fleeting appearance on a research wall or end up buried in someone’s email inbox. Even when research findings are written down, and even when the report is archived somewhere, people typically don’t know how to go about finding it. Organisations are generally poor at creating a shared repository of knowledge and rarely teach staff how to use the intranet or where past reports might be located. The result of these obstacles is that companies waste time and money either doing research that already exists or asking the wrong research questions.

So within your organisation, you should:

• Talk to your stakeholders. Get to know the product owner and understand their goals, vision and concerns.
• Examine call centre analytics or web analytics (if there is an existing service).
• Talk to front line, customer facing people who currently interact with users.

In almost every project, you'll find some research that exists into users, goals and environments. This may not be directly relevant to your specific research questions but it will help you become knowledgeable about the domain.

Once you’ve covered the areas of overlap, your next step is to look for more generic information about your users, the environment in which they’ll use the system, and the kinds of goals your system will support.

• What research has been done with your users, even if it’s not directly relevant to their goals when using your system?
• What research has been done on the kind of goals your system will support, even if the research has been done with a different user group?
• What research exists on the kinds of environment where you expect your system to be used (environment means hardware, software and the physical and social environments in which your system will be used).

In this step, you’ll find it useful to:

• Review existing research done by Government organisations.'In the UK, the Office for National Statistics has a wealth of information about citizens that may be useful to understand your users, such as demographics about Internet users , consumer trends and facts about online retail sales in the UK
• Review research carried out by relevant charities. For example, if you’re developing a new kind of tool to help diabetics measure their sugar levels, you should bookmark the research done by Diabetes UK . Web sites like Charity Choice allow you to browse through and locate hundreds of different charitable organisations so you’re bound to find at least one that’s relevant.
• Search Google Scholar to find relevant research carried out by universities. Although you may struggle to appreciate the nuances of certain academic arguments, you could always use this route to find the researcher’s contact details and give them a call.
• If your system will be used in a work context, study interviews at careers web sites. For example, The Guardian's careers section has interviews with people working as tattoo artists , forensic scientists , and as a royal footman so the chances are that you'll be able to get some context for whatever job title your system is aimed at. You should also check the Guardian's " What I'm Really Thinking " series.

Judging the quality of the research you find

Judging the quality of research is a whole article in itself. Fortunately, Philip Hodgson’s guidelines for reviewing consumer research reports has it covered.

There’s just one thing I’d add to Philip’s guidelines. Beware of dismissing research just because it was done a few years ago. People new to research often make the mistake of viewing research reports like so many yogurts in a fridge where the sell-by dates have expired. Just because it was done a couple of years ago, don’t think it’s no longer relevant. The best research tends to focus on human behaviour, and that tends to change very slowly.

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About the author

Dr. David Travis ( @userfocus ) has been carrying out ethnographic field research and running product usability tests since 1989. He has published three books on user experience including Think Like a UX Researcher . If you like his articles, you might enjoy his free online user experience course .

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• Guidelines for reviewing consumer research reports
• Is Consumer Research Losing Its Focus?
• What user researchers can learn from Sherlock Holmes
• You have 19 days to define your research problem
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Disadvantages/Limitations Of Desk Research

Research Methods in Business

Disadvantages/Limitations Of Desk Research:

(1) May not be exactly as per needs: The published data may not be always reliable and exactly as per the needs of survey work undertaken. The researcher has to make proper scrutiny before using published data.

(2) Needs modification : Secondary data need suitable modification before actual use for research purpose. This is necessary in order to adjust data as per the need of the research work undertaken.

(3) Testing required: Published data need proper testing through field investigation for verification of validity and reliability.

(4) Too much dependence undesirable : Too much dependence on published data is undesirable and even dangerous. The conclusions drawn from such data may not be dependable. Desk research is not always dependable.

(5) Secondary method: Desk research is a secondary method of MR. The data used in the desk research are secondary and may not be exactly as per the need of research study.

(6) Lacks practical-orientation: Desk research is like library research work and lacks practical-orientation.

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Desk research: how to conduct secondary research efficiently.

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If you’re already familiar with UX Design, you know how essential research is to get to know the users of a product and understand their needs.

Basically, there are two types of research: primary (where you collect information yourself by surveys, interviews, observations, etc.) and secondary (searching for data compiled from previous findings). Desk Research falls into the second category.

Keep reading to know the best practices and a step-by-step to research successfully from your own desk!

What is Desk Research?

Desk Research is a method that explores data from existing documents and previous research — secondary data — to gather information over a particular topic.

It can provide solid arguments and help you elaborate a line of thought or fight for your ideas. And to do this, Desk Research relies on data already collected from other people.

Therefore, before spending time and money on field visits, prototypes, or usability tests, it’s wise to see what the world already knows that could be relevant for you and your team.

Why should you have a Desk Research?

Desk Research should be used as a research method before starting any Product Design project. It’s always constructive to see what previous studies and experts say about a particular topic, especially if you can take advantage of the information already out there.

Secondary research has the objective of any investigation: to provide information that could support and guide decision-making.

So in terms of objectives , using Desk Research is not that different from Primary Research.

Primary and Secondary Research

Primary and Secondary Research share the same object of study but are different in their process.

Primary research is first-hand research created and tailored to meet specific needs. The source of this kind of research is the individuals or organization behind the investigation.

Additionally, primary research uses raw data, which needs to be filtered and organized in order to be analyzed and reported.

On the other hand, secondary research collects data from previous research, so it doesn’t belong to anyone.

Needless to say, primary research demands more time and money, while secondary research is cheaper and faster to gather results.

Desk Research: where to look?

Since Desk Research relies on other people’s findings, pay close attention to the sources and always run check facts.

There are all kinds of information online so we need to be diligent to filter good quality material.

Also, the internet is not the only possible source of information to carry out Desk Research. You may want to check:

• Existing products in the market;
• Your own organization records;
• Academic records;
• Government organizations;
• Relevant NGO’S.

Products in the market

An insightful resource is observing products that are already on the market.

Furthermore, evaluate the products that your own company has already launched.

Look at the concepts, interactions, and experiences these products provide.

Company records

Go through research and analysis your own company has conducted in the past.

This type of information is extremely valuable to understand ideas, opportunities, and difficulties the company has faced in the past and that can serve as a starting point for your own proposal.

Investigate further, look at the people in charge of these data, and if possible, try to talk to them directly and exchange knowledge about what they have found out, and what you intend to do.

Most of the time, internal research helps to clarify essential points, due to the fact they were applied in the same context, in the same market segment.

External Sources

External research sources are perhaps the most common and widely known. However, as we already mentioned, it’s important to understand which sources are reliable.

With that in mind, we compiled a few aspects for your consideration:

Data available from the Web

Internet is the most popular and accessible source of information there is. With just one click you can download any data or research you want.

Despite much information being available for free, that are company sites that sell information and reports.

If you’re digging the internet for free content, check reliable websites with known expertise in the field.

For example, in the case of research and data about usability, it’s common to rely on data from the Nielsen Norman Group . The consulting firm is an expert on UX, has authority and reputation in the market.

In times when the internet rules the era of information, libraries end up being underestimated. But they can be excellent sources for desk research.

Of course, recent studies will most likely be found online but there may be old interesting research published only on paper. So, apart from books, beware to check articles, papers, and research from a wide range of authors.

Don’t dismiss studies that are not recent. Even if research was carried out a couple of years ago, it can still be extremely relevant and serve to support your ideas, provide you answers, questions, or insights.

Human behavior, for example, changes very slowly, so studies that focus on that, won’t lose its “expiration date” so soon.

Academic Records

In addition to using university libraries, you can search for more specific research conducted by students or professors at the institutions.

As a general rule, educational institutions conduct a variety of primary research that can be requested and used as Desk Research by companies.

Desk Research can also rely on newspapers, magazines, and even news transmitted on TV or radio.

However, it is always important to be diligent when using this type of information because it is generally superficial and informational for the public.

Relying solely on media data can bring biased and shallow information. Nevertheless, it can be a good start for your Desk Research.

A step-by-step to Desk Research

It’s wise to consider a couple of measures to ensure the quality and efficiency of your Desk Research.

So we’ll describe a step-by-step to help you in your endeavor.

Of course, as you gain experience with this research method, you can adapt each step to make it more coherent to the way you work. But be sure to go through them.

1) Define your goal

Before starting the research, identify its purpose: What do you want to know? Which question do you need to answer?

Without a pre-determined objective, you won’t be a good judge whether the information you’re coming across is relevant or not for your project.

Establishing objectives is all about setting a clear path to the questions you want to answer; this will ground you and help you stay focused, so you don’t end up wasting precious time.

Your research objectives can revolve around:

• a number: like seeking to find five articles from different sources or collecting information from 20 user interviews;
• an assumption: here, your goal is to find arguments and information that support your hypothesis. However, make sure to also look for information that may disprove your statement.

2) Map your sources

Will you only use the internet? Or will you also go to public libraries? Are you going to talk to people in your company too?

Mapping the sources you intend to use saves time and prevents you from losing focus. At this stage, identify which sources are more likely to bring you the best results.

Remember to have a plan B, too. For example, if you can’t find all the information on websites, find out what the next trusted source you should be using.

3) Set a deadline

Working with deadlines is another strategy to maintain focus during research.

Determine whether you will invest hours, days, or a few weeks to carry out your Desk Research.

However, keep in mind that we tend to use up all the time assigned to us. So keep it a tight schedule and propose realistic deadlines to help your productivity and your research efficiency.

4) Hands-on

It’s time to carry out your research, keeping in mind: your objective, the deadline, and reliable sources.

Use whichever method you think is best to identify and gather the necessary information: summarizing, filing, highlighting, or copying.

For instance, you can put all your findings on an online whiteboard (like miro.com ).

Remember to seek different views on the same problem. Don’t fall into so-called confirmation bias, where you only collect data that confirms your assumption.

Look for information that may contradict the initial ideas to bring other perspectives that will be essential upon data analysis.

5) Analyze data

A crucial step of Desk Research is analyzing the data collected. First, carefully read the information and review all the findings. Then, go deeper into your study: compare the results of different sources and define the importance of each one.

Next, check if your research answered the questions and met the initially proposed objective.

If not, redo the research or check if the objective is coherent or needs to be changed.

In this step, you should also formalize the information in a way it’s presentable to others; you can write a report or organize your findings into a presentation.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Desk Research

• Secondary Research is cheaper than Primary Research. Thus, if your company does not have the budget to conduct interviews and do field observations, desk research is a good solution;
• Desk Research also has a time advantage. Compared to primary Research, secondary Research is much faster to conduct;
• The wide availability of information makes Desk Research easier to execute.

Disadvantages

• The challenge of finding reliable sources. If the research is done over the internet, it is necessary to be very careful with websites and articles you base upon;
• It’s not always possible to find reports and research that is up-to-date and include the most recent information;
• Because it is faster and cheaper, Desk Research can create the false impression that it is the best method to use. However, it is essential to understand that primary research is also relevant and has more focus and objectivity to meet the company’s needs.

Every method, or tool, has its pros and cons. Therefore, you need to assess where you are to decide if Desk Research is the right resource for your project. And, of course, it can always – and should – serve as a starting point for Primary Research.

• The Beginner’s Guide to Desk Research
• Desk research: the what, why and how
• How to use desk research to kick-start your design process
• Secondary Research- Definition, Methods and Examples.
• Secondary Research

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Data sourcing: pros and cons of desk research

Ultimately, however, data is always key, which will be my focus here. This post will attempt to define data, its purpose, whether or not it can be classified using specific criteria, and whether data comes solely from research.

What is data?

First, what is ‘data’? There are many definitions available and, as usual, it is difficult to select one that is perfect, comprehensive, and precise. [1] . In a broad sense, data is everything that is or can be processed to obtain information. It can be man-made content but also readings of machinery indicators or sensors.

First of all, data should not be confused with information. Data is usually unordered and unprocessed, and most often refers to the past. Data may be a medium for information after it is processed, analysed, and structured. [2] .Then it becomes building blocks of specific messages, such as a recommendation to increase or decrease prices based on the current market circumstances. Hence, data per se is of no value to a researcher, academic, or manager ; it is only once it has been processed that analyses thereof provides information that can be useful.

Without going into the depths of knowledge management and the theory of information, the preparation of data and extraction of information is the foundation of the knowledge structure hierarchy, which is often presented as the DIKW pyramid (Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom).

What is data for?

Analysed data yields information that can be used in effective, informed decision making. Data collection and analysis is the key element of research that makes it possible to answer research questions, hence driving science. In business, it is mostly about making decisions to grow the business, win new customers, improve product quality, or offer new products and services with the ultimate goal of maximising profit. Data on the social, economic, or cultural situation allows public administrations or NGOs to carry out diagnosis and implement measures to improve the life of the general public.

Data classification

Data can be secondary and primary. Secondary data is available to the researcher without his or her intervention. It is most often produced, for example, by other researchers or as a result of collection and documentation of public life. [3]. Secondary data can be further divided by form (raw data, processed data), source (private, public data), objectivity (objective, subjective), etc. [4]  Secondary data is often the first step towards an insight into the scale of the phenomenon of interest.

The other data category is primary data produced by the researcher using various research techniques such as surveys, experiments, in-depth interviews, or focus groups. The process of primary data collection, the research process will be discussed in future posts.

Secondary data

Various repositories, libraries, databases, and the internet offer a large quantity of research-compatible data. The digital revolution and the wide-spread use of the internet has resulted in the generation of vast quantities of data. You generate data by commenting on a post, sharing your thoughts on social media, scoring a seller after purchase, and even by merely visiting a website. You generate some of them knowingly, but others are collected by various algorithms and loggers on websites, or in mobile applications. Remember that secondary data is available not only as a ‘ready-made’ .sav or .xls file but also (mostly) as online data that needs to be downloaded by the researcher (for example from websites) and saved in an analysis-compatible file format.

Secondary data may include:

• Public statistics (published by such institutions as the Central Statistical Office, Eurostat, OECD, etc.);
• Internal data of companies and institutions (sales volume, website guests, number of requests made, etc.);
• Videos, pictures, audio files (digital and analogue)
• Blog posts, comments, even whole websites or portals;
• Books, newspapers, magazines, etc.;
• Social media content;
• Research results (reports, documents, datasets), including polls, research experiments, focus group interviews, etc.

Data can also result from human activity such as films, books, or research reports that can have a specific message. Such materials convey specific content to the recipient, but for a researcher, it is data for analysis. An example can be movies with a specific theme from a certain period (such as superhero movies, the transformation of the gangster films in the 1990s, or Reagan-era patriotic cinema), which can be analysed in terms of their content and structure.

Pros and cons of secondary data

Let us ponder on the advantages and disadvantages of working with secondary data. As I mentioned before, access to the internet has made data acquisition relatively easy without visits to libraries or archives (it is still often necessary in the case of historical data). Desk research is often the first step towards the determination of the scale of the phenomenon of interest in social or marketing research. Below there is a list of primary issues that need to be taken into consideration when selecting secondary data for analysis.

Disadvantages:

• Reliability of the data: one of the biggest disadvantages of secondary data. It is often difficult to ascertain that the data has not been tampered with or altered, and is truthful. Data on governmental websites can be considered reliable
• Copyright and restricted use of secondary data;
• Fragmentation: secondary data does not always represent a continuous time interval of interest to the researcher, or may be missing some factual aspects. Secondary data is often scattered (in terms of sources), which makes them incomparable or may not be labelled adequately (the thematic field);
• Data validity: data may be outdated (often in the case of social research data published as datasets after some time);
• Technical challenges of data acquisition: not every researcher has the skills necessary for efficient acquisition of data from websites and data processing. Secondary data often requires long processing before relevant information can be extracted.

Advantages:

• It is usually cheaper to acquire secondary data compared to primary data.
• Data availability:easy access to the internet has made a lot of data available online;
• No influence of the researcher on the data acquisition process (so-called researcher bias);
• Analyses can be conducted for complete datasets, if available (for example, all issues of a magazine, often in a digital format).

To sum up, secondary data often helps the researcher gain at a relatively low cost the initial insight into the subject matter, discover the approach of other researchers, and the state of the phenomenon in the past. . The internet has made it easier to access various types of data so that the researcher does not need to burn the midnight oil over archives or traditional sources as they are often available in a digital form. When using secondary data, you need to pay attention to its reliability and validity. The researcher often needs to assess whether the available research material can be used for their purpose before any analysis takes place as the data may be copyrighted. In conclusion, you need to remember that we all generate data. The internet and technological advances has made it easier to find, process, and acquire data for all manner of research purposes. This vast amount of data has resulted in the notion of Big Data referring to large, variable, and diverse datasets that can be used to obtain useful information. It would not be possible to process large datasets without dedicated software (such as PS CLEMENTINE PRO ), which streamlines analyses of large volumes of data.

As I mentioned above, data can be divided into secondary data, which existed before and the form of which cannot be changed by the analyst, and primary data which is acquired as part of the research process. I will look deeper into the data acquisition process in a future article.

[1] If you are interested in definitions, check out a paper by Mariusz Grabowski and Agnieszka Zając Data, information, knowledge – attempted definition [in Polish, Dane, informacja, wiedza – próba definicji ].

[2] https://mfiles.pl/pl/index.php/Dane

[3] Sułek A., Ogród metodologii socjologicznej [ A Garden of Sociological Methodology ]. Warsaw, 2002.

[4] If you are interested in data classification, check out Analiza danych zastanych [ Desk Research ] edited by Marta Makowska.

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of Desk Research?

Desk research is a common and popular method of collecting secondary data from internal and external sources. It is called Desk Research because the information is readily available at the desk or table of the researcher and there is no need to crate data. Desk research is the first step in the data collection process. It is a natural and logical choice of all researchers as the data are secured easily and at low cost. Desk research is used to identify business opportunities, develop alternatives and make hypothesis. The data collected from desk research is mostly published data (outside the firm) and generated inside the firm. Such data are known as secondary data.

Advantages of Desk Research

• Economical: It is the most economical method of conducting research. This is because the information is readily available and the researcher has to go to library and just collect it.
• Time Saving: Desk research saves time and resources. There is no need to create data, so research can be commenced and completed in stipulated time limit.
• Reliable and Valid: The data collected is more reliable and less biased.
• Suitability: Desk research is suitable and convenient to small and big, profit and non-profit making organisation. It dose not require the services of professionals of skilled personnel.
• Problem Definition: Desk research helps to understand the problem in better way and assist in deciding primary data needs.

Disadvantages of Desk Research

• Secondary data are not available in ready form to use. It needs modification and evaluation before its use.
• Data collected is subject to reliability and relevancy.
• This method is not useful to collect qualitative data like consumer behaviour, attitude, preference etc.

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• Feb 1, 2019

Desk Research - a Vital Part of an Effective Market Research Strategy

Updated: Oct 30, 2023

In this article, we take a look at desk research ( a.k.a. secondary research ) and why it can be a valuable part of an effective market research strategy. We also give practical pointers to help you get the most from this approach.

As a quick recap, there are two types of market research:

Primary research: the gathering of fresh data, through unique research projects.

Secondary research is the analysis of information from a wide range of existing sources such as published reports, company information etc.

Primary research can be costly and time consuming and whilst it does have an important role to play, may not always be necessary. Often information is already available that can provide key insights and help determine where primary research should be focused for greatest impact.

The analysis of existing information through secondary research has a number of benefits:

It provides fast, credible background insights

Far less expensive to implement than primary research

Adds context and depth to primary research findings

Increases the focus and ROI of primary research

Useful information sources

The information available to researchers is located across a whole range of resources and includes both free and paid subscription sources. Depending on your industry or purpose, sources can include:

Government statistics and published reports

Industry commentary by the leading consultancy firms

Published company information such as annual reports, accounts and SEC filings

Research and reports by professional and industry bodies

Public and paid for market research reports, databases and industry statistics

Articles, opinion pieces and blogs

Public presentations

The British Library and similar places give access to hard-to-find information and sources that would otherwise require a paid subscription to access.

General internet search

Finding information is only part of the challenge. A disciplined approach is needed to evaluate and prioritise information sources before they are used, in particular:

Date of publication : This is particularly relevant in fast moving markets where up to date information is critical.

Source : The credibility of the author is a key factor in assessing potential sources. In general, published reports have more authority than opinion pieces.

Consistency : Where possible, multiple information sources should be used to see if similar findings emerge. There have been many cases where the ‘lone voice’ has been proved to be the correct one, but generally this should be viewed with a degree of caution or an aspect to investigate further.

Limitations

Whilst desk research is a very useful tool, it does have its limitations, in particular:

Desk research is limited to what is available and may therefore, only provide partial answers, either in terms of the precision or the timeliness of information.

Information availability and quality can vary considerably by industry and geography.

Information can be hard to find and often require a lot of effort before a ‘gold nugget’ is found.

Public information, so we need to be aware of any potential bias.

In many cases, a hybrid approach works extremely well, pairing desk research with a small number of interviews with industry experts. This is a cost-effective solution to capitalise on the benefits of desk research as well as delivering specific insights.

Find out more

Our experienced team of desk researchers have a proven track record of delivering high quality, actionable information for UK and international markets.

For more information about our full range of research services please visit our website. Alternatively, please get in touch and we will be happy to help.

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We appreciate you taking the time out to read our blog. We hope that it proves useful in making your market research budget go that much further.

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Digital marketing articles for smbs, the limitations of online desk research.

Online desk research involves systematic identification, collection, analysis and documentation of data in order to assist the businesses to identify and solve the problems in decision making. Online desk research can provide precise market information with statistics in a cost and time effective manner.

Online secondary research gathers data that already exists in the Internet from reliable sources. Some of these sources include internal sources of the business, government publications, websites of non-profit organizations such as industry bodies, freely accessible data on the Internet, some professional newspapers and magazines, and annual reports of companies filed with SEC. Though it looks all is fine, there are some limitations of online desk research.

Outdated Data: Search engines return thousands of links when searched for any data. Along with valid results, a considerable percentage of the data found in the web pages is outdated. Data published on Internet can become outdated very quickly due to the pace of change within in industry. Most of the information will be outdated and useless in no time. The data collected through secondary research may not exactly tell current happenings but can be effectively used in time-series analysis i.e. to identify historical patterns and trend cycles to forecast the future developments.

Limited Useful Data: One can spend hours searching for specific details as useful data on Internet is limited. Sometimes publishers are reluctant to give away the complete details freely online, so data availability is generally restricted and incomplete. In some occasions, all the required data may not be available from the same or one source. Data has to be carefully searched, identified and arranged to get the complete picture. Any missing piece of data has to be replaced with similar data from other qualified sources.

Inaccurate Data: The overall quality of the Market Research is directly related to the accuracy of information sources used to collect data. There are many websites and blogs that provide information on the Internet, but a market researcher cannot consider them as reliable information sources as they generally provide incorrect information. A researcher first identifies reliable sources related to the topic, then analyzes and crosschecks the same data from various sources to validate its accuracy.

Though the information available on Internet is free of cost, it requires lot of effort, patience, extreme care and skill to dig out useful information. To overcome these limitations, the professional Internet Market researchers use various Internet tools and search engine techniques that enable to find the qualified data and utilize it for research.

Let’s start a new project together

What is the advantage of desk research, written by: paul stallard.

Desk research falls under the same category as (and in many ways is a synonymic term for) secondary research. This means that you are looking at statistics and figures that are already publicly available and analysing them. Not only does this provide you with a broad understanding of the field, but it also prevents you from tripping over yourself in an attempt to try something new that has already been covered. This can be useful as it gives you a foundation for what you are doing but it also means that you are not wasting time and resources reinventing the wheel.

It is always important to enter a project by planning and preparing for your findings, and desk research is a key way to get one step ahead. Not only do you not want to waste your participants time in making them complete surveys related to current research, but it is also far most cost-effective to use current projects for influence and guidance.

Desk research is usually conducted with a strong PR focus, as if you are looking to use the research for a press release or viewpoint, it will be far more effective if your research is new and never-before seen. You can also diagnose what has worked in the media before and tailor your survey to provide something unique that generates new interest and engagement.

It is always important to enter a project by planning and preparing for your findings, and desk research is a key way to get one step ahead

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Home » Limitations in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Limitations in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Limitations in Research

Limitations in research refer to the factors that may affect the results, conclusions , and generalizability of a study. These limitations can arise from various sources, such as the design of the study, the sampling methods used, the measurement tools employed, and the limitations of the data analysis techniques.

Types of Limitations in Research

Types of Limitations in Research are as follows:

Sample Size Limitations

This refers to the size of the group of people or subjects that are being studied. If the sample size is too small, then the results may not be representative of the population being studied. This can lead to a lack of generalizability of the results.

Time Limitations

Time limitations can be a constraint on the research process . This could mean that the study is unable to be conducted for a long enough period of time to observe the long-term effects of an intervention, or to collect enough data to draw accurate conclusions.

Selection Bias

This refers to a type of bias that can occur when the selection of participants in a study is not random. This can lead to a biased sample that is not representative of the population being studied.

Confounding Variables

Confounding variables are factors that can influence the outcome of a study, but are not being measured or controlled for. These can lead to inaccurate conclusions or a lack of clarity in the results.

Measurement Error

This refers to inaccuracies in the measurement of variables, such as using a faulty instrument or scale. This can lead to inaccurate results or a lack of validity in the study.

Ethical Limitations

Ethical limitations refer to the ethical constraints placed on research studies. For example, certain studies may not be allowed to be conducted due to ethical concerns, such as studies that involve harm to participants.

Examples of Limitations in Research

Some Examples of Limitations in Research are as follows:

Research Title: “The Effectiveness of Machine Learning Algorithms in Predicting Customer Behavior”

Limitations:

• The study only considered a limited number of machine learning algorithms and did not explore the effectiveness of other algorithms.
• The study used a specific dataset, which may not be representative of all customer behaviors or demographics.
• The study did not consider the potential ethical implications of using machine learning algorithms in predicting customer behavior.

Research Title: “The Impact of Online Learning on Student Performance in Computer Science Courses”

• The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have affected the results due to the unique circumstances of remote learning.
• The study only included students from a single university, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other institutions.
• The study did not consider the impact of individual differences, such as prior knowledge or motivation, on student performance in online learning environments.

Research Title: “The Effect of Gamification on User Engagement in Mobile Health Applications”

• The study only tested a specific gamification strategy and did not explore the effectiveness of other gamification techniques.
• The study relied on self-reported measures of user engagement, which may be subject to social desirability bias or measurement errors.
• The study only included a specific demographic group (e.g., young adults) and may not be generalizable to other populations with different preferences or needs.

How to Write Limitations in Research

When writing about the limitations of a research study, it is important to be honest and clear about the potential weaknesses of your work. Here are some tips for writing about limitations in research:

• Identify the limitations: Start by identifying the potential limitations of your research. These may include sample size, selection bias, measurement error, or other issues that could affect the validity and reliability of your findings.
• Be honest and objective: When describing the limitations of your research, be honest and objective. Do not try to minimize or downplay the limitations, but also do not exaggerate them. Be clear and concise in your description of the limitations.
• Provide context: It is important to provide context for the limitations of your research. For example, if your sample size was small, explain why this was the case and how it may have affected your results. Providing context can help readers understand the limitations in a broader context.
• Discuss implications : Discuss the implications of the limitations for your research findings. For example, if there was a selection bias in your sample, explain how this may have affected the generalizability of your findings. This can help readers understand the limitations in terms of their impact on the overall validity of your research.
• Provide suggestions for future research : Finally, provide suggestions for future research that can address the limitations of your study. This can help readers understand how your research fits into the broader field and can provide a roadmap for future studies.

Purpose of Limitations in Research

There are several purposes of limitations in research. Here are some of the most important ones:

• To acknowledge the boundaries of the study : Limitations help to define the scope of the research project and set realistic expectations for the findings. They can help to clarify what the study is not intended to address.
• To identify potential sources of bias: Limitations can help researchers identify potential sources of bias in their research design, data collection, or analysis. This can help to improve the validity and reliability of the findings.
• To provide opportunities for future research: Limitations can highlight areas for future research and suggest avenues for further exploration. This can help to advance knowledge in a particular field.
• To demonstrate transparency and accountability: By acknowledging the limitations of their research, researchers can demonstrate transparency and accountability to their readers, peers, and funders. This can help to build trust and credibility in the research community.
• To encourage critical thinking: Limitations can encourage readers to critically evaluate the study’s findings and consider alternative explanations or interpretations. This can help to promote a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the topic under investigation.

When to Write Limitations in Research

Limitations should be included in research when they help to provide a more complete understanding of the study’s results and implications. A limitation is any factor that could potentially impact the accuracy, reliability, or generalizability of the study’s findings.

It is important to identify and discuss limitations in research because doing so helps to ensure that the results are interpreted appropriately and that any conclusions drawn are supported by the available evidence. Limitations can also suggest areas for future research, highlight potential biases or confounding factors that may have affected the results, and provide context for the study’s findings.

Generally, limitations should be discussed in the conclusion section of a research paper or thesis, although they may also be mentioned in other sections, such as the introduction or methods. The specific limitations that are discussed will depend on the nature of the study, the research question being investigated, and the data that was collected.

Examples of limitations that might be discussed in research include sample size limitations, data collection methods, the validity and reliability of measures used, and potential biases or confounding factors that could have affected the results. It is important to note that limitations should not be used as a justification for poor research design or methodology, but rather as a way to enhance the understanding and interpretation of the study’s findings.

Importance of Limitations in Research

Here are some reasons why limitations are important in research:

• Enhances the credibility of research: Limitations highlight the potential weaknesses and threats to validity, which helps readers to understand the scope and boundaries of the study. This improves the credibility of research by acknowledging its limitations and providing a clear picture of what can and cannot be concluded from the study.
• Facilitates replication: By highlighting the limitations, researchers can provide detailed information about the study’s methodology, data collection, and analysis. This information helps other researchers to replicate the study and test the validity of the findings, which enhances the reliability of research.
• Guides future research : Limitations provide insights into areas for future research by identifying gaps or areas that require further investigation. This can help researchers to design more comprehensive and effective studies that build on existing knowledge.
• Provides a balanced view: Limitations help to provide a balanced view of the research by highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. This ensures that readers have a clear understanding of the study’s limitations and can make informed decisions about the generalizability and applicability of the findings.

Advantages of Limitations in Research

Here are some potential advantages of limitations in research:

• Focus : Limitations can help researchers focus their study on a specific area or population, which can make the research more relevant and useful.
• Realism : Limitations can make a study more realistic by reflecting the practical constraints and challenges of conducting research in the real world.
• Innovation : Limitations can spur researchers to be more innovative and creative in their research design and methodology, as they search for ways to work around the limitations.
• Rigor : Limitations can actually increase the rigor and credibility of a study, as researchers are forced to carefully consider the potential sources of bias and error, and address them to the best of their abilities.
• Generalizability : Limitations can actually improve the generalizability of a study by ensuring that it is not overly focused on a specific sample or situation, and that the results can be applied more broadly.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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21 Research Limitations Examples

Research limitations refer to the potential weaknesses inherent in a study. All studies have limitations of some sort, meaning declaring limitations doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing, so long as your declaration of limitations is well thought-out and explained.

Rarely is a study perfect. Researchers have to make trade-offs when developing their studies, which are often based upon practical considerations such as time and monetary constraints, weighing the breadth of participants against the depth of insight, and choosing one methodology or another.

In research, studies can have limitations such as limited scope, researcher subjectivity, and lack of available research tools.

Acknowledging the limitations of your study should be seen as a strength. It demonstrates your willingness for transparency, humility, and submission to the scientific method and can bolster the integrity of the study. It can also inform future research direction.

Typically, scholars will explore the limitations of their study in either their methodology section, their conclusion section, or both.

Research Limitations Examples

Qualitative and quantitative research offer different perspectives and methods in exploring phenomena, each with its own strengths and limitations. So, I’ve split the limitations examples sections into qualitative and quantitative below.

Qualitative Research Limitations

Qualitative research seeks to understand phenomena in-depth and in context. It focuses on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.

It’s often used to explore new or complex issues, and it provides rich, detailed insights into participants’ experiences, behaviors, and attitudes. However, these strengths also create certain limitations, as explained below.

1. Subjectivity

Qualitative research often requires the researcher to interpret subjective data. One researcher may examine a text and identify different themes or concepts as more dominant than others.

Close qualitative readings of texts are necessarily subjective – and while this may be a limitation, qualitative researchers argue this is the best way to deeply understand everything in context.

Suggested Solution and Response: To minimize subjectivity bias, you could consider cross-checking your own readings of themes and data against other scholars’ readings and interpretations. This may involve giving the raw data to a supervisor or colleague and asking them to code the data separately, then coming together to compare and contrast results.

2. Researcher Bias

The concept of researcher bias is related to, but slightly different from, subjectivity.

Researcher bias refers to the perspectives and opinions you bring with you when doing your research.

For example, a researcher who is explicitly of a certain philosophical or political persuasion may bring that persuasion to bear when interpreting data.

In many scholarly traditions, we will attempt to minimize researcher bias through the utilization of clear procedures that are set out in advance or through the use of statistical analysis tools.

However, in other traditions, such as in postmodern feminist research , declaration of bias is expected, and acknowledgment of bias is seen as a positive because, in those traditions, it is believed that bias cannot be eliminated from research, so instead, it is a matter of integrity to present it upfront.

Suggested Solution and Response: Acknowledge the potential for researcher bias and, depending on your theoretical framework , accept this, or identify procedures you have taken to seek a closer approximation to objectivity in your coding and analysis.

3. Generalizability

If you’re struggling to find a limitation to discuss in your own qualitative research study, then this one is for you: all qualitative research, of all persuasions and perspectives, cannot be generalized.

This is a core feature that sets qualitative data and quantitative data apart.

The point of qualitative data is to select case studies and similarly small corpora and dig deep through in-depth analysis and thick description of data.

Often, this will also mean that you have a non-randomized sample size.

While this is a positive – you’re going to get some really deep, contextualized, interesting insights – it also means that the findings may not be generalizable to a larger population that may not be representative of the small group of people in your study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that take a quantitative approach to the question.

4. The Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect refers to the phenomenon where research participants change their ‘observed behavior’ when they’re aware that they are being observed.

This effect was first identified by Elton Mayo who conducted studies of the effects of various factors ton workers’ productivity. He noticed that no matter what he did – turning up the lights, turning down the lights, etc. – there was an increase in worker outputs compared to prior to the study taking place.

Mayo realized that the mere act of observing the workers made them work harder – his observation was what was changing behavior.

So, if you’re looking for a potential limitation to name for your observational research study , highlight the possible impact of the Hawthorne effect (and how you could reduce your footprint or visibility in order to decrease its likelihood).

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight ways you have attempted to reduce your footprint while in the field, and guarantee anonymity to your research participants.

5. Replicability

Quantitative research has a great benefit in that the studies are replicable – a researcher can get a similar sample size, duplicate the variables, and re-test a study. But you can’t do that in qualitative research.

Qualitative research relies heavily on context – a specific case study or specific variables that make a certain instance worthy of analysis. As a result, it’s often difficult to re-enter the same setting with the same variables and repeat the study.

Furthermore, the individual researcher’s interpretation is more influential in qualitative research, meaning even if a new researcher enters an environment and makes observations, their observations may be different because subjectivity comes into play much more. This doesn’t make the research bad necessarily (great insights can be made in qualitative research), but it certainly does demonstrate a weakness of qualitative research.

6. Limited Scope

“Limited scope” is perhaps one of the most common limitations listed by researchers – and while this is often a catch-all way of saying, “well, I’m not studying that in this study”, it’s also a valid point.

No study can explore everything related to a topic. At some point, we have to make decisions about what’s included in the study and what is excluded from the study.

So, you could say that a limitation of your study is that it doesn’t look at an extra variable or concept that’s certainly worthy of study but will have to be explored in your next project because this project has a clearly and narrowly defined goal.

Suggested Solution and Response: Be clear about what’s in and out of the study when writing your research question.

7. Time Constraints

This is also a catch-all claim you can make about your research project: that you would have included more people in the study, looked at more variables, and so on. But you’ve got to submit this thing by the end of next semester! You’ve got time constraints.

And time constraints are a recognized reality in all research.

But this means you’ll need to explain how time has limited your decisions. As with “limited scope”, this may mean that you had to study a smaller group of subjects, limit the amount of time you spent in the field, and so forth.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will build on your current work, possibly as a PhD project.

8. Resource Intensiveness

Qualitative research can be expensive due to the cost of transcription, the involvement of trained researchers, and potential travel for interviews or observations.

So, resource intensiveness is similar to the time constraints concept. If you don’t have the funds, you have to make decisions about which tools to use, which statistical software to employ, and how many research assistants you can dedicate to the study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will gain more funding on the back of this ‘ exploratory study ‘.

9. Coding Difficulties

Data analysis in qualitative research often involves coding, which can be subjective and complex, especially when dealing with ambiguous or contradicting data.

After naming this as a limitation in your research, it’s important to explain how you’ve attempted to address this. Some ways to ‘limit the limitation’ include:

• Triangulation: Have 2 other researchers code the data as well and cross-check your results with theirs to identify outliers that may need to be re-examined, debated with the other researchers, or removed altogether.
• Procedure: Use a clear coding procedure to demonstrate reliability in your coding process. I personally use the thematic network analysis method outlined in this academic article by Attride-Stirling (2001).

Suggested Solution and Response: Triangulate your coding findings with colleagues, and follow a thematic network analysis procedure.

10. Risk of Non-Responsiveness

There is always a risk in research that research participants will be unwilling or uncomfortable sharing their genuine thoughts and feelings in the study.

This is particularly true when you’re conducting research on sensitive topics, politicized topics, or topics where the participant is expressing vulnerability .

This is similar to the Hawthorne effect (aka participant bias), where participants change their behaviors in your presence; but it goes a step further, where participants actively hide their true thoughts and feelings from you.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be non-responsiveness from some participants.

11. Risk of Attrition

Attrition refers to the process of losing research participants throughout the study.

This occurs most commonly in longitudinal studies , where a researcher must return to conduct their analysis over spaced periods of time, often over a period of years.

Things happen to people over time – they move overseas, their life experiences change, they get sick, change their minds, and even die. The more time that passes, the greater the risk of attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be attrition over time.

12. Difficulty in Maintaining Confidentiality and Anonymity

Given the detailed nature of qualitative data , ensuring participant anonymity can be challenging.

If you have a sensitive topic in a specific case study, even anonymizing research participants sometimes isn’t enough. People might be able to induce who you’re talking about.

Sometimes, this will mean you have to exclude some interesting data that you collected from your final report. Confidentiality and anonymity come before your findings in research ethics – and this is a necessary limiting factor.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight the efforts you have taken to anonymize data, and accept that confidentiality and accountability place extremely important constraints on academic research.

13. Difficulty in Finding Research Participants

A study that looks at a very specific phenomenon or even a specific set of cases within a phenomenon means that the pool of potential research participants can be very low.

Compile on top of this the fact that many people you approach may choose not to participate, and you could end up with a very small corpus of subjects to explore. This may limit your ability to make complete findings, even in a quantitative sense.

You may need to therefore limit your research question and objectives to something more realistic.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that this is going to limit the study’s generalizability significantly.

14. Ethical Limitations

Ethical limitations refer to the things you cannot do based on ethical concerns identified either by yourself or your institution’s ethics review board.

This might include threats to the physical or psychological well-being of your research subjects, the potential of releasing data that could harm a person’s reputation, and so on.

Furthermore, even if your study follows all expected standards of ethics, you still, as an ethical researcher, need to allow a research participant to pull out at any point in time, after which you cannot use their data, which demonstrates an overlap between ethical constraints and participant attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that these ethical limitations are inevitable but important to sustain the integrity of the research.

For more on Qualitative Research, Explore my Qualitative Research Guide

Quantitative Research Limitations

Quantitative research focuses on quantifiable data and statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. It’s often used to test hypotheses, assess relationships and causality, and generalize findings across larger populations.

Quantitative research is widely respected for its ability to provide reliable, measurable, and generalizable data (if done well!). Its structured methodology has strengths over qualitative research, such as the fact it allows for replication of the study, which underpins the validity of the research.

However, this approach is not without it limitations, explained below.

1. Over-Simplification

Quantitative research is powerful because it allows you to measure and analyze data in a systematic and standardized way. However, one of its limitations is that it can sometimes simplify complex phenomena or situations.

In other words, it might miss the subtleties or nuances of the research subject.

For example, if you’re studying why people choose a particular diet, a quantitative study might identify factors like age, income, or health status. But it might miss other aspects, such as cultural influences or personal beliefs, that can also significantly impact dietary choices.

When writing about this limitation, you can say that your quantitative approach, while providing precise measurements and comparisons, may not capture the full complexity of your subjects of study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest a follow-up case study using the same research participants in order to gain additional context and depth.

2. Lack of Context

Another potential issue with quantitative research is that it often focuses on numbers and statistics at the expense of context or qualitative information.

Let’s say you’re studying the effect of classroom size on student performance. You might find that students in smaller classes generally perform better. However, this doesn’t take into account other variables, like teaching style , student motivation, or family support.

When describing this limitation, you might say, “Although our research provides important insights into the relationship between class size and student performance, it does not incorporate the impact of other potentially influential variables. Future research could benefit from a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights.”

3. Applicability to Real-World Settings

Oftentimes, experimental research takes place in controlled environments to limit the influence of outside factors.

This control is great for isolation and understanding the specific phenomenon but can limit the applicability or “external validity” of the research to real-world settings.

For example, if you conduct a lab experiment to see how sleep deprivation impacts cognitive performance, the sterile, controlled lab environment might not reflect real-world conditions where people are dealing with multiple stressors.

Therefore, when explaining the limitations of your quantitative study in your methodology section, you could state:

“While our findings provide valuable information about [topic], the controlled conditions of the experiment may not accurately represent real-world scenarios where extraneous variables will exist. As such, the direct applicability of our results to broader contexts may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will engage in real-world observational research, such as ethnographic research.

4. Limited Flexibility

Once a quantitative study is underway, it can be challenging to make changes to it. This is because, unlike in grounded research, you’re putting in place your study in advance, and you can’t make changes part-way through.

Your study design, data collection methods, and analysis techniques need to be decided upon before you start collecting data.

For example, if you are conducting a survey on the impact of social media on teenage mental health, and halfway through, you realize that you should have included a question about their screen time, it’s generally too late to add it.

When discussing this limitation, you could write something like, “The structured nature of our quantitative approach allows for consistent data collection and analysis but also limits our flexibility to adapt and modify the research process in response to emerging insights and ideas.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use mixed-methods or qualitative research methods to gain additional depth of insight.

5. Risk of Survey Error

Surveys are a common tool in quantitative research, but they carry risks of error.

There can be measurement errors (if a question is misunderstood), coverage errors (if some groups aren’t adequately represented), non-response errors (if certain people don’t respond), and sampling errors (if your sample isn’t representative of the population).

For instance, if you’re surveying college students about their study habits , but only daytime students respond because you conduct the survey during the day, your results will be skewed.

In discussing this limitation, you might say, “Despite our best efforts to develop a comprehensive survey, there remains a risk of survey error, including measurement, coverage, non-response, and sampling errors. These could potentially impact the reliability and generalizability of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use other survey tools to compare and contrast results.

6. Limited Ability to Probe Answers

With quantitative research, you typically can’t ask follow-up questions or delve deeper into participants’ responses like you could in a qualitative interview.

For instance, imagine you are surveying 500 students about study habits in a questionnaire. A respondent might indicate that they study for two hours each night. You might want to follow up by asking them to elaborate on what those study sessions involve or how effective they feel their habits are.

However, quantitative research generally disallows this in the way a qualitative semi-structured interview could.

When discussing this limitation, you might write, “Given the structured nature of our survey, our ability to probe deeper into individual responses is limited. This means we may not fully understand the context or reasoning behind the responses, potentially limiting the depth of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that engage in mixed-method or qualitative methodologies to address the issue from another angle.

7. Reliance on Instruments for Data Collection

In quantitative research, the collection of data heavily relies on instruments like questionnaires, surveys, or machines.

The limitation here is that the data you get is only as good as the instrument you’re using. If the instrument isn’t designed or calibrated well, your data can be flawed.

For instance, if you’re using a questionnaire to study customer satisfaction and the questions are vague, confusing, or biased, the responses may not accurately reflect the customers’ true feelings.

When discussing this limitation, you could say, “Our study depends on the use of questionnaires for data collection. Although we have put significant effort into designing and testing the instrument, it’s possible that inaccuracies or misunderstandings could potentially affect the validity of the data collected.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use different instruments but examine the same variables to triangulate results.

8. Time and Resource Constraints (Specific to Quantitative Research)

Quantitative research can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially when dealing with large samples.

It often involves systematic sampling, rigorous design, and sometimes complex statistical analysis.

If resources and time are limited, it can restrict the scale of your research, the techniques you can employ, or the extent of your data analysis.

For example, you may want to conduct a nationwide survey on public opinion about a certain policy. However, due to limited resources, you might only be able to survey people in one city.

When writing about this limitation, you could say, “Given the scope of our research and the resources available, we are limited to conducting our survey within one city, which may not fully represent the nationwide public opinion. Hence, the generalizability of the results may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will have more funding or longer timeframes.

How to Discuss Your Research Limitations

1. in your research proposal and methodology section.

In the research proposal, which will become the methodology section of your dissertation, I would recommend taking the four following steps, in order:

• Be Explicit about your Scope – If you limit the scope of your study in your research question, aims, and objectives, then you can set yourself up well later in the methodology to say that certain questions are “outside the scope of the study.” For example, you may identify the fact that the study doesn’t address a certain variable, but you can follow up by stating that the research question is specifically focused on the variable that you are examining, so this limitation would need to be looked at in future studies.
• Acknowledge the Limitation – Acknowledging the limitations of your study demonstrates reflexivity and humility and can make your research more reliable and valid. It also pre-empts questions the people grading your paper may have, so instead of them down-grading you for your limitations; they will congratulate you on explaining the limitations and how you have addressed them!
• Explain your Decisions – You may have chosen your approach (despite its limitations) for a very specific reason. This might be because your approach remains, on balance, the best one to answer your research question. Or, it might be because of time and monetary constraints that are outside of your control.
• Highlight the Strengths of your Approach – Conclude your limitations section by strongly demonstrating that, despite limitations, you’ve worked hard to minimize the effects of the limitations and that you have chosen your specific approach and methodology because it’s also got some terrific strengths. Name the strengths.

Overall, you’ll want to acknowledge your own limitations but also explain that the limitations don’t detract from the value of your study as it stands.

2. In the Conclusion Section or Chapter

In the conclusion of your study, it is generally expected that you return to a discussion of the study’s limitations. Here, I recommend the following steps:

• Acknowledge issues faced – After completing your study, you will be increasingly aware of issues you may have faced that, if you re-did the study, you may have addressed earlier in order to avoid those issues. Acknowledge these issues as limitations, and frame them as recommendations for subsequent studies.
• Suggest further research – Scholarly research aims to fill gaps in the current literature and knowledge. Having established your expertise through your study, suggest lines of inquiry for future researchers. You could state that your study had certain limitations, and “future studies” can address those limitations.
• Suggest a mixed methods approach – Qualitative and quantitative research each have pros and cons. So, note those ‘cons’ of your approach, then say the next study should approach the topic using the opposite methodology or could approach it using a mixed-methods approach that could achieve the benefits of quantitative studies with the nuanced insights of associated qualitative insights as part of an in-study case-study.

Overall, be clear about both your limitations and how those limitations can inform future studies.

In sum, each type of research method has its own strengths and limitations. Qualitative research excels in exploring depth, context, and complexity, while quantitative research excels in examining breadth, generalizability, and quantifiable measures. Despite their individual limitations, each method contributes unique and valuable insights, and researchers often use them together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative research , 1 (3), 385-405. ( Source )

Atkinson, P., Delamont, S., Cernat, A., Sakshaug, J., & Williams, R. A. (2021).  SAGE research methods foundations . London: Sage Publications.

Clark, T., Foster, L., Bryman, A., & Sloan, L. (2021).  Bryman’s social research methods . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Köhler, T., Smith, A., & Bhakoo, V. (2022). Templates in qualitative research methods: Origins, limitations, and new directions.  Organizational Research Methods ,  25 (2), 183-210. ( Source )

Lenger, A. (2019). The rejection of qualitative research methods in economics.  Journal of Economic Issues ,  53 (4), 946-965. ( Source )

Taherdoost, H. (2022). What are different research approaches? Comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research, their applications, types, and limitations.  Journal of Management Science & Engineering Research ,  5 (1), 53-63. ( Source )

Walliman, N. (2021).  Research methods: The basics . New York: Routledge.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
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How to present limitations in research

Last updated

30 January 2024

Reviewed by

Limitations don’t invalidate or diminish your results, but it’s best to acknowledge them. This will enable you to address any questions your study failed to answer because of them.

In this guide, learn how to recognize, present, and overcome limitations in research.

• What is a research limitation?

Research limitations are weaknesses in your research design or execution that may have impacted outcomes and conclusions. Uncovering limitations doesn’t necessarily indicate poor research design—it just means you encountered challenges you couldn’t have anticipated that limited your research efforts.

Does basic research have limitations?

Basic research aims to provide more information about your research topic. It requires the same standard research methodology and data collection efforts as any other research type, and it can also have limitations.

• Common research limitations

Researchers encounter common limitations when embarking on a study. Limitations can occur in relation to the methods you apply or the research process you design. They could also be connected to you as the researcher.

Methodology limitations

Not having access to data or reliable information can impact the methods used to facilitate your research. A lack of data or reliability may limit the parameters of your study area and the extent of your exploration.

Your sample size may also be affected because you won’t have any direction on how big or small it should be and who or what you should include. Having too few participants won’t adequately represent the population or groups of people needed to draw meaningful conclusions.

Research process limitations

The study’s design can impose constraints on the process. For example, as you’re conducting the research, issues may arise that don’t conform to the data collection methodology you developed. You may not realize until well into the process that you should have incorporated more specific questions or comprehensive experiments to generate the data you need to have confidence in your results.

Constraints on resources can also have an impact. Being limited on participants or participation incentives may limit your sample sizes. Insufficient tools, equipment, and materials to conduct a thorough study may also be a factor.

Common researcher limitations

Here are some of the common researcher limitations you may encounter:

Time: some research areas require multi-year longitudinal approaches, but you might not be able to dedicate that much time. Imagine you want to measure how much memory a person loses as they age. This may involve conducting multiple tests on a sample of participants over 20–30 years, which may be impossible.

Bias: researchers can consciously or unconsciously apply bias to their research. Biases can contribute to relying on research sources and methodologies that will only support your beliefs about the research you’re embarking on. You might also omit relevant issues or participants from the scope of your study because of your biases.

Limited access to data : you may need to pay to access specific databases or journals that would be helpful to your research process. You might also need to gain information from certain people or organizations but have limited access to them. These cases require readjusting your process and explaining why your findings are still reliable.

• Why is it important to identify limitations?

Identifying limitations adds credibility to research and provides a deeper understanding of how you arrived at your conclusions.

Constraints may have prevented you from collecting specific data or information you hoped would prove or disprove your hypothesis or provide a more comprehensive understanding of your research topic.

However, identifying the limitations contributing to your conclusions can inspire further research efforts that help gather more substantial information and data.

• Where to put limitations in a research paper

A research paper is broken up into different sections that appear in the following order:

Introduction

Methodology

The discussion portion of your paper explores your findings and puts them in the context of the overall research. Either place research limitations at the beginning of the discussion section before the analysis of your findings or at the end of the section to indicate that further research needs to be pursued.

What not to include in the limitations section

Evidence that doesn’t support your hypothesis is not a limitation, so you shouldn’t include it in the limitation section. Don’t just list limitations and their degree of severity without further explanation.

• How to present limitations

You’ll want to present the limitations of your study in a way that doesn’t diminish the validity of your research and leave the reader wondering if your results and conclusions have been compromised.

Include only the limitations that directly relate to and impact how you addressed your research questions. Following a specific format enables the reader to develop an understanding of the weaknesses within the context of your findings without doubting the quality and integrity of your research.

Identify the limitations specific to your study

You don’t have to identify every possible limitation that might have occurred during your research process. Only identify those that may have influenced the quality of your findings and your ability to answer your research question.

Explain study limitations in detail

This explanation should be the most significant portion of your limitation section.

Link each limitation with an interpretation and appraisal of their impact on the study. You’ll have to evaluate and explain whether the error, method, or validity issues influenced the study’s outcome and how.

Propose a direction for future studies and present alternatives

In this section, suggest how researchers can avoid the pitfalls you experienced during your research process.

If an issue with methodology was a limitation, propose alternate methods that may help with a smoother and more conclusive research project. Discuss the pros and cons of your alternate recommendation.

Describe steps taken to minimize each limitation

You probably took steps to try to address or mitigate limitations when you noticed them throughout the course of your research project. Describe these steps in the limitation section.

• Limitation example

“Approaches like stem cell transplantation and vaccination in AD [Alzheimer’s disease] work on a cellular or molecular level in the laboratory. However, translation into clinical settings will remain a challenge for the next decade.”

The authors are saying that even though these methods showed promise in helping people with memory loss when conducted in the lab (in other words, using animal studies), more studies are needed. These may be controlled clinical trials, for example. 

However, the short life span of stem cells outside the lab and the vaccination’s severe inflammatory side effects are limitations. Researchers won’t be able to conduct clinical trials until these issues are overcome.

• How to overcome limitations in research

You’ve already started on the road to overcoming limitations in research by acknowledging that they exist. However, you need to ensure readers don’t mistake weaknesses for errors within your research design.

To do this, you’ll need to justify and explain your rationale for the methods, research design, and analysis tools you chose and how you noticed they may have presented limitations.

Your readers need to know that even when limitations presented themselves, you followed best practices and the ethical standards of your field. You didn’t violate any rules and regulations during your research process.

You’ll also want to reinforce the validity of your conclusions and results with multiple sources, methods, and perspectives. This prevents readers from assuming your findings were derived from a single or biased source.

• Learning and improving starts with limitations in research

Dealing with limitations with transparency and integrity helps identify areas for future improvements and developments. It’s a learning process, providing valuable insights into how you can improve methodologies, expand sample sizes, or explore alternate approaches to further support the validity of your findings.

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