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How To Find A Research Gap, Quickly

A step-by-step guide for new researchers

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Reviewer: Eunice Rautenbach (DTech) | April 2023

If you’ve got a dissertation, thesis or research project coming up, one of the first (and most important) things you’ll need to do is find a suitable research gap . In this post, we’ll share a straightforward process to help you uncover high-quality, original research gaps in a very time-efficient manner.

Overview: Finding Research Gaps

  • What exactly is a research gap?
  • Research gap vs research topic
  • How to find potential research gaps
  • How to evaluate research gaps (and topics)
  • Key takeaways

What is a research gap?

As a starting point, it’s useful to first define what we mean by research gap, to ensure we’re all on the same page. The term “research gap” gets thrown around quite loosely by students and academics alike, so let’s clear that up.

Simply put, a research gap is any space where there’s a lack of solid, agreed-upon research regarding a specific topic, issue or phenomenon. In other words, there’s a lack of established knowledge and, consequently, a need for further research.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example to illustrate a research gap.

Within the existing research regarding factors affect job satisfaction , there may be a wealth of established and agreed-upon empirical work within a US and UK context , but very little research within Eastern nations such as Japan or Korea . Given that these nations have distinctly different national cultures and workforce compositions compared to the West, it’s plausible that the factors that contribute toward job satisfaction may also be different. Therefore, a research gap emerges for studies that explore this matter.

This example is purely hypothetical (and there’s probably plenty of research covering this already), but it illustrates the core point that a research gap reflects a lack of firmly established knowledge regarding a specific matter . Given this lack, an opportunity exists for researchers (like you) to go on and fill the gap.

So, it’s the same as a research topic?

Not quite – but they are connected. A research gap refers to an area where there’s a lack of settled research , whereas a research topic outlines the focus of a specific study . Despite being different things, these two are related because research gaps are the birthplace of research topics. In other words, by identifying a clear research gap, you have a foundation from which you can build a research topic for your specific study. Your study is unlikely to resolve the entire research gap on it’s own, but it will contribute towards it .

If you’d like to learn more, we’ve got a comprehensive post that covers research gaps (including the different types of research gaps), as well as an explainer video below.

How to find a research gap

Now that we’ve defined what a research gap is, it’s time to get down to the process of finding potential research gaps that you can use as a basis for potential research topics. Importantly, it’s worth noting that this is just one way (of many) to find a research gap (and consequently a topic). We’re not proposing that it’s the only way or best way, but it’s certainly a relatively quick way to identify opportunities.

Step 1: Identify your broad area of interest

The very first step to finding a research gap is to decide on your general area of interest . For example, if you were undertaking a dissertation as part of an MBA degree, you may decide that you’re interested in corporate reputation, HR strategy, or leadership styles. As you can see, these are broad categories – there’s no need to get super specific just yet. Of course, if there is something very specific that you’re interested in, that’s great – but don’t feel pressured to narrow it down too much right now.

Equally important is to make sure that this area of interest is allowed by your university or whichever institution you’ll be proposing your research to. This might sound dead obvious, but you’ll be surprised how many times we’ve seen students run down a path with great excitement, only to later learn that their university wants a very specific area of focus in terms of topic (and their area of interest doesn’t qualify).

Free Webinar: How To Find A Dissertation Research Topic

Step 2: Do an initial literature scan

Once you’ve pinned down your broad area (or areas) of interest, the next step is to head over to Google Scholar to undertake an initial literature scan . If you’re not familiar with this tool, Google Scholar is a great starting point for finding academic literature on pretty much any topic, as it uses Google’s powerful search capabilities to hunt down relevant academic literature. It’s certainly not the be-all and end-all of literature search tools, but it’s a useful starting point .

Within Google Scholar, you’ll want to do a few searches using keywords that are relevant to your area of interest. Sticking with our earlier example, we could use the key phrase “job satisfaction”, or we may want to get a little more specific – perhaps “job satisfaction for millennials” or “job satisfaction in Japan”.

It’s always a good idea to play around with as many keywords/phrases as you can think up.  Take an iterative approach here and see which keywords yield the most relevant results for you. Keep each search open in a new tab, as this will help keep things organised for the next steps.

Once you’ve searched for a few different keywords/phrases, you’ll need to do some refining for each of the searches you undertook. Specifically, you’ll need to filter the results down to the most recent papers . You can do this by selecting the time period in the top left corner (see the example below).

using google scholar to find a research gap

Filtering to the current year is typically a good choice (especially for fast-moving research areas), but in some cases, you may need to filter to the last two years . If you’re undertaking this task in January or February, for example, you’ll likely need to select a two-year period.

Need a helping hand?

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Step 3: Review and shortlist articles that interest you

Once you’ve run a few searches using different keywords and phrases, you’ll need to scan through the results to see what looks most relevant and interesting to you. At this stage, you can just look at the titles and abstracts (the description provided by Google Scholar) – don’t worry about reading the actual article just yet.

Next, select 5 – 10 articles that interest you and open them up. Here, we’re making the assumption that your university has provided you with access to a decent range of academic databases. In some cases, Google Scholar will link you directly to a PDF of the article, but in most cases, you’ll need paid access. If you don’t have this (for example, if you’re still applying to a university), you can look at two options:

Open-access articles – these are free articles which you can access without any journal subscription. A quick Google search (the regular Google) will help you find open-access journals in your area of interest, but you can also have a look at DOAJ and Elsevier Open Access.

DeepDyve – this is a monthly subscription service that allows you to get access to a broad range of journals. At the time of shooting this video, their monthly subscription is around $50 and they do offer a free trial, which may be sufficient for your project.

Step 4: Skim-read your article shortlist

Now, it’s time to dig into your article shortlist and do some reading. But don’t worry, you don’t need to read the articles from start to finish – you just need to focus on a few key sections.

Specifically, you’ll need to pay attention to the following:

  • The abstract (which you’ve probably already read a portion of in Google Scholar)
  • The introduction – this will give you a bit more detail about the context and background of the study, as well as what the researchers were trying to achieve (their research aims)
  • The discussion or conclusion – this will tell you what the researchers found

By skimming through these three sections for each journal article on your shortlist, you’ll gain a reasonable idea of what each study was about, without having to dig into the painful details. Generally, these sections are usually quite short, so it shouldn’t take you too long.

Step 5: Go “FRIN hunting”

This is where the magic happens. Within each of the articles on your shortlist, you’ll want to search for a few very specific phrases , namely:

  • Future research
  • Further research
  • Research opportunities
  • Research directions

All of these terms are commonly found in what we call the “FRIN” section . FRIN stands for “further research is needed”. The FRIN is where the researchers explain what other researchers could do to build on their study, or just on the research area in general. In other words, the FRIN section is where you can find fresh opportunities for novel research . Most empirical studies will either have a dedicated FRIN section or paragraph, or they’ll allude to the FRIN toward the very end of the article. You’ll need to do a little scanning, but it’s usually pretty easy to spot.

It’s worth mentioning that naturally, the FRIN doesn’t hand you a list of research gaps on a platter. It’s not a silver bullet for finding research gaps – but it’s the closest thing to it. Realistically, the FRIN section helps you shortcut the gap-hunting process  by highlighting novel research avenues that are worth exploring.

This probably sounds a little conceptual, so let’s have a look at a few examples:

The impact of overeducation on job outcomes: Evidence from Saudi Arabia (Alzubaidi, 2020)

If you scroll down to the bottom of this article, you’ll see there’s a dedicated section called “Limitations and directions for future research”. Here they talk about the limitations of the study and provide suggestions about how future researchers could improve upon their work and overcome the limitations.

Perceived organizational support and job satisfaction: a moderated mediation model of proactive personality and psychological empowerment (Maan et al, 2020)

In this article, within the limitations section, they provide a wonderfully systematic structure where they discuss each limitation, followed by a proposal as to how future studies can overcome the respective limitation. In doing so, they are providing very specific research opportunities for other researchers.

Medical professionals’ job satisfaction and telemedicine readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic: solutions to improve medical practice in Egypt (El-Mazahy et al, 2023)

In this article, they don’t have a dedicated section discussing the FRIN, but we can deduct it based on the limitations section. For example, they state that an evaluation of the knowledge about telemedicine and technology-related skills would have enabled studying their independent effect on the perception of telemedicine.

Follow this FRIN-seeking process for the articles you shortlisted and map out any potentially interesting research gaps . You may find that you need to look at a larger number of articles to find something interesting, or you might find that your area of interest shifts as you engage in the reading – this is perfectly natural. Take as much time as you need to develop a shortlist of potential research gaps that interest you.

Importantly, once you’ve developed a shortlist of potential research gaps, you need to return to Google Scholar to double-check that there aren’t fresh studies that have already addressed the gap. Remember, if you’re looking at papers from two years ago in a fast-moving field, someone else may have jumped on it . Nevertheless, there could still very well be a unique angle you could take – perhaps a contextual gap (e.g. a specific country, industry, etc.).

Ultimately, the need for originality will depend on your specific university’s requirements and the level of study. For example, if you’re doing an undergraduate research project, the originality requirements likely won’t be as gruelling as say a Masters or PhD project. So, make sure you have a clear understanding of what your university’s expectations are. A good way to do this is to look at past dissertations and theses for your specific programme. You can usually find these in the university library or by asking the faculty.

How to evaluate potential research gaps

Once you’ve developed a shortlist of potential research gaps (and resultant potential research topics) that interest you, you’ll need to systematically evaluate  them  to choose a winner. There are many factors to consider here, but some important ones include the following:

  • Originality and value – is the topic sufficiently novel and will addressing it create value?
  • Data access – will you be able to get access to the sample of interest?
  • Costs – will there be additional costs involved for data collection and/or analysis?
  • Timeframes – will you be able to collect and analyse the data within the timeframe required by your university?
  • Supervisor support – is there a suitable supervisor available to support your project from start to finish?

To help you evaluate your options systematically, we’ve got a topic evaluation worksheet that allows you to score each potential topic against a comprehensive set of criteria. You can access the worksheet completely free of charge here .

Research topic evaluator

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered quite a lot of ground in this post. Here are the key takeaways:

  • A research gap is any space where there’s a lack of solid, agreed-upon research regarding a specific topic/issue/phenomenon.
  • Unique research topics emerge from research gaps , so it’s essential to first identify high-quality research gaps before you attempt to define a topic.
  • To find potential research gaps, start by seeking out recent journal articles on Google Scholar and pay particular attention to the FRIN section to identify novel opportunities.
  • Once you have a shortlist of prospective research gaps and resultant topic ideas, evaluate them systematically using a comprehensive set of criteria.

If you’d like to get hands-on help finding a research gap and research topic, be sure to check out our private coaching service , where we hold your hand through the research journey, step by step.

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Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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Powerful notes! Thanks a lot.

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This is helpful. Thanks a lot.

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Thank you very much for this. It is really a great opportunity for me to learn the research journey.

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Research Method

Home » Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to Identify

Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to Identify

Table of Contents

Research Gap

Research Gap

Definition:

Research gap refers to an area or topic within a field of study that has not yet been extensively researched or is yet to be explored. It is a question, problem or issue that has not been addressed or resolved by previous research.

How to Identify Research Gap

Identifying a research gap is an essential step in conducting research that adds value and contributes to the existing body of knowledge. Research gap requires critical thinking, creativity, and a thorough understanding of the existing literature . It is an iterative process that may require revisiting and refining your research questions and ideas multiple times.

Here are some steps that can help you identify a research gap:

  • Review existing literature: Conduct a thorough review of the existing literature in your research area. This will help you identify what has already been studied and what gaps still exist.
  • Identify a research problem: Identify a specific research problem or question that you want to address.
  • Analyze existing research: Analyze the existing research related to your research problem. This will help you identify areas that have not been studied, inconsistencies in the findings, or limitations of the previous research.
  • Brainstorm potential research ideas : Based on your analysis, brainstorm potential research ideas that address the identified gaps.
  • Consult with experts: Consult with experts in your research area to get their opinions on potential research ideas and to identify any additional gaps that you may have missed.
  • Refine research questions: Refine your research questions and hypotheses based on the identified gaps and potential research ideas.
  • Develop a research proposal: Develop a research proposal that outlines your research questions, objectives, and methods to address the identified research gap.

Types of Research Gap

There are different types of research gaps that can be identified, and each type is associated with a specific situation or problem. Here are the main types of research gaps and their explanations:

Theoretical Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of theoretical understanding or knowledge in a particular area. It can occur when there is a discrepancy between existing theories and empirical evidence or when there is no theory that can explain a particular phenomenon. Identifying theoretical gaps can lead to the development of new theories or the refinement of existing ones.

Empirical Gap

An empirical gap occurs when there is a lack of empirical evidence or data in a particular area. It can happen when there is a lack of research on a specific topic or when existing research is inadequate or inconclusive. Identifying empirical gaps can lead to the development of new research studies to collect data or the refinement of existing research methods to improve the quality of data collected.

Methodological Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of appropriate research methods or techniques to answer a research question. It can occur when existing methods are inadequate, outdated, or inappropriate for the research question. Identifying methodological gaps can lead to the development of new research methods or the modification of existing ones to better address the research question.

Practical Gap

A practical gap occurs when there is a lack of practical applications or implementation of research findings. It can occur when research findings are not implemented due to financial, political, or social constraints. Identifying practical gaps can lead to the development of strategies for the effective implementation of research findings in practice.

Knowledge Gap

This type of research gap occurs when there is a lack of knowledge or information on a particular topic. It can happen when a new area of research is emerging, or when research is conducted in a different context or population. Identifying knowledge gaps can lead to the development of new research studies or the extension of existing research to fill the gap.

Examples of Research Gap

Here are some examples of research gaps that researchers might identify:

  • Theoretical Gap Example : In the field of psychology, there might be a theoretical gap related to the lack of understanding of the relationship between social media use and mental health. Although there is existing research on the topic, there might be a lack of consensus on the mechanisms that link social media use to mental health outcomes.
  • Empirical Gap Example : In the field of environmental science, there might be an empirical gap related to the lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on biodiversity in specific regions. Although there might be some studies on the topic, there might be a lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on specific species or ecosystems.
  • Methodological Gap Example : In the field of education, there might be a methodological gap related to the lack of appropriate research methods to assess the impact of online learning on student outcomes. Although there might be some studies on the topic, existing research methods might not be appropriate to assess the complex relationships between online learning and student outcomes.
  • Practical Gap Example: In the field of healthcare, there might be a practical gap related to the lack of effective strategies to implement evidence-based practices in clinical settings. Although there might be existing research on the effectiveness of certain practices, they might not be implemented in practice due to various barriers, such as financial constraints or lack of resources.
  • Knowledge Gap Example: In the field of anthropology, there might be a knowledge gap related to the lack of understanding of the cultural practices of indigenous communities in certain regions. Although there might be some research on the topic, there might be a lack of knowledge about specific cultural practices or beliefs that are unique to those communities.

Examples of Research Gap In Literature Review, Thesis, and Research Paper might be:

  • Literature review : A literature review on the topic of machine learning and healthcare might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of machine learning for early detection of rare diseases.
  • Thesis : A thesis on the topic of cybersecurity might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in detecting and preventing cyber attacks.
  • Research paper : A research paper on the topic of natural language processing might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of natural language processing techniques for sentiment analysis in non-English languages.

How to Write Research Gap

By following these steps, you can effectively write about research gaps in your paper and clearly articulate the contribution that your study will make to the existing body of knowledge.

Here are some steps to follow when writing about research gaps in your paper:

  • Identify the research question : Before writing about research gaps, you need to identify your research question or problem. This will help you to understand the scope of your research and identify areas where additional research is needed.
  • Review the literature: Conduct a thorough review of the literature related to your research question. This will help you to identify the current state of knowledge in the field and the gaps that exist.
  • Identify the research gap: Based on your review of the literature, identify the specific research gap that your study will address. This could be a theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, or knowledge gap.
  • Provide evidence: Provide evidence to support your claim that the research gap exists. This could include a summary of the existing literature, a discussion of the limitations of previous studies, or an analysis of the current state of knowledge in the field.
  • Explain the importance: Explain why it is important to fill the research gap. This could include a discussion of the potential implications of filling the gap, the significance of the research for the field, or the potential benefits to society.
  • State your research objectives: State your research objectives, which should be aligned with the research gap you have identified. This will help you to clearly articulate the purpose of your study and how it will address the research gap.

Importance of Research Gap

The importance of research gaps can be summarized as follows:

  • Advancing knowledge: Identifying research gaps is crucial for advancing knowledge in a particular field. By identifying areas where additional research is needed, researchers can fill gaps in the existing body of knowledge and contribute to the development of new theories and practices.
  • Guiding research: Research gaps can guide researchers in designing studies that fill those gaps. By identifying research gaps, researchers can develop research questions and objectives that are aligned with the needs of the field and contribute to the development of new knowledge.
  • Enhancing research quality: By identifying research gaps, researchers can avoid duplicating previous research and instead focus on developing innovative research that fills gaps in the existing body of knowledge. This can lead to more impactful research and higher-quality research outputs.
  • Informing policy and practice: Research gaps can inform policy and practice by highlighting areas where additional research is needed to inform decision-making. By filling research gaps, researchers can provide evidence-based recommendations that have the potential to improve policy and practice in a particular field.

Applications of Research Gap

Here are some potential applications of research gap:

  • Informing research priorities: Research gaps can help guide research funding agencies and researchers to prioritize research areas that require more attention and resources.
  • Identifying practical implications: Identifying gaps in knowledge can help identify practical applications of research that are still unexplored or underdeveloped.
  • Stimulating innovation: Research gaps can encourage innovation and the development of new approaches or methodologies to address unexplored areas.
  • Improving policy-making: Research gaps can inform policy-making decisions by highlighting areas where more research is needed to make informed policy decisions.
  • Enhancing academic discourse: Research gaps can lead to new and constructive debates and discussions within academic communities, leading to more robust and comprehensive research.

Advantages of Research Gap

Here are some of the advantages of research gap:

  • Identifies new research opportunities: Identifying research gaps can help researchers identify areas that require further exploration, which can lead to new research opportunities.
  • Improves the quality of research: By identifying gaps in current research, researchers can focus their efforts on addressing unanswered questions, which can improve the overall quality of research.
  • Enhances the relevance of research: Research that addresses existing gaps can have significant implications for the development of theories, policies, and practices, and can therefore increase the relevance and impact of research.
  • Helps avoid duplication of effort: Identifying existing research can help researchers avoid duplicating efforts, saving time and resources.
  • Helps to refine research questions: Research gaps can help researchers refine their research questions, making them more focused and relevant to the needs of the field.
  • Promotes collaboration: By identifying areas of research that require further investigation, researchers can collaborate with others to conduct research that addresses these gaps, which can lead to more comprehensive and impactful research outcomes.

Disadvantages of Research Gap

While research gaps can be advantageous, there are also some potential disadvantages that should be considered:

  • Difficulty in identifying gaps: Identifying gaps in existing research can be challenging, particularly in fields where there is a large volume of research or where research findings are scattered across different disciplines.
  • Lack of funding: Addressing research gaps may require significant resources, and researchers may struggle to secure funding for their work if it is perceived as too risky or uncertain.
  • Time-consuming: Conducting research to address gaps can be time-consuming, particularly if the research involves collecting new data or developing new methods.
  • Risk of oversimplification: Addressing research gaps may require researchers to simplify complex problems, which can lead to oversimplification and a failure to capture the complexity of the issues.
  • Bias : Identifying research gaps can be influenced by researchers’ personal biases or perspectives, which can lead to a skewed understanding of the field.
  • Potential for disagreement: Identifying research gaps can be subjective, and different researchers may have different views on what constitutes a gap in the field, leading to disagreements and debate.

About the author

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Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Enago Academy

Identifying Research Gaps to Pursue Innovative Research

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This article is an excerpt from a lecture given by my Ph.D. guide, a researcher in public health. She advised us on how to identify research gaps to pursue innovative research in our fields.

What is a Research Gap?

Today we are talking about the research gap: what is it, how to identify it, and how to make use of it so that you can pursue innovative research. Now, how many of you have ever felt you had discovered a new and exciting research question , only to find that it had already been written about? I have experienced this more times than I can count. Graduate studies come with pressure to add new knowledge to the field. We can contribute to the progress and knowledge of humanity. To do this, we need to first learn to identify research gaps in the existing literature.

A research gap is, simply, a topic or area for which missing or insufficient information limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question. It should not be confused with a research question, however. For example, if we ask the research question of what the healthiest diet for humans is, we would find many studies and possible answers to this question. On the other hand, if we were to ask the research question of what are the effects of antidepressants on pregnant women, we would not find much-existing data. This is a research gap. When we identify a research gap, we identify a direction for potentially new and exciting research.

peer review

How to Identify Research Gap?

Considering the volume of existing research, identifying research gaps can seem overwhelming or even impossible. I don’t have time to read every paper published on public health. Similarly, you guys don’t have time to read every paper. So how can you identify a research gap?

There are different techniques in various disciplines, but we can reduce most of them down to a few steps, which are:

  • Identify your key motivating issue/question
  • Identify key terms associated with this issue
  • Review the literature, searching for these key terms and identifying relevant publications
  • Review the literature cited by the key publications which you located in the above step
  • Identify issues not addressed by  the literature relating to your critical  motivating issue

It is the last step which we all find the most challenging. It can be difficult to figure out what an article is  not  saying. I like to keep a list of notes of biased or inconsistent information. You could also track what authors write as “directions for future research,” which often can point us towards the existing gaps.

Different Types of Research Gaps

Identifying research gaps is an essential step in conducting research, as it helps researchers to refine their research questions and to focus their research efforts on areas where there is a need for more knowledge or understanding.

1. Knowledge gaps

These are gaps in knowledge or understanding of a subject, where more research is needed to fill the gaps. For example, there may be a lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind a particular disease or how a specific technology works.

2. Conceptual gaps

These are gaps in the conceptual framework or theoretical understanding of a subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand the relationship between two concepts or to refine a theoretical framework.

3. Methodological gaps

These are gaps in the methods used to study a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to develop new research methods or to refine existing methods to address specific research questions.

4. Data gaps

These are gaps in the data available on a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to collect data on a specific population or to develop new measures to collect data on a particular construct.

5. Practical gaps

These are gaps in the application of research findings to practical situations. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand how to implement evidence-based practices in real-world settings or to identify barriers to implementing such practices.

Examples of Research Gap

Limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a disease:.

Despite significant research on a particular disease, there may be a lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease. For example, although much research has been done on Alzheimer’s disease, the exact mechanisms that lead to the disease are not yet fully understood.

Inconsistencies in the findings of previous research:

When previous research on a particular topic has inconsistent findings, there may be a need for further research to clarify or resolve these inconsistencies. For example, previous research on the effectiveness of a particular treatment for a medical condition may have produced inconsistent findings, indicating a need for further research to determine the true effectiveness of the treatment.

Limited research on emerging technologies:

As new technologies emerge, there may be limited research on their applications, benefits, and potential drawbacks. For example, with the increasing use of artificial intelligence in various industries, there is a need for further research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of AI.

How to Deal with Literature Gap?

Once you have identified the literature gaps, it is critical to prioritize. You may find many questions which remain to be answered in the literature. Often one question must be answered before the next can be addressed. In prioritizing the gaps, you have identified, you should consider your funding agency or stakeholders, the needs of the field, and the relevance of your questions to what is currently being studied. Also, consider your own resources and ability to conduct the research you’re considering. Once you have done this, you can narrow your search down to an appropriate question.

Tools to Help Your Search

There are thousands of new articles published every day, and staying up to date on the literature can be overwhelming. You should take advantage of the technology that is available. Some services include  PubCrawler ,  Feedly ,  Google Scholar , and PubMed updates. Stay up to date on social media forums where scholars share new discoveries, such as Twitter. Reference managers such as  Mendeley  can help you keep your references well-organized. I personally have had success using Google Scholar and PubMed to stay current on new developments and track which gaps remain in my personal areas of interest.

The most important thing I want to impress upon you today is that you will struggle to  choose a research topic  that is innovative and exciting if you don’t know the existing literature well. This is why identifying research gaps starts with an extensive and thorough  literature review . But give yourself some boundaries.  You don’t need to read every paper that has ever been written on a topic. You may find yourself thinking you’re on the right track and then suddenly coming across a paper that you had intended to write! It happens to everyone- it happens to me quite often. Don’t give up- keep reading and you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Class dismissed!

How do you identify research gaps? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Frequently Asked Questions

A research gap can be identified by looking for a topic or area with missing or insufficient information that limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

Identifying a research gap is important as it provides a direction for potentially new research or helps bridge the gap in existing literature.

Gap in research is a topic or area with missing or insufficient information. A research gap limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

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Thank u for your suggestion.

Very useful tips specially for a beginner

Thank you. This is helpful. I find that I’m overwhelmed with literatures. As I read on a particular topic, and in a particular direction I find that other conflicting issues, topic a and ideas keep popping up, making me more confused.

I am very grateful for your advice. It’s just on point.

The clearest, exhaustive, and brief explanation I have ever read.

Thanks for sharing

Thank you very much.The work is brief and understandable

Thank you it is very informative

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Thanks for sharing this educative article

Thank you for such informative explanation.

Great job smart guy! Really outdid yourself!

Nice one! I thank you for this as it is just what I was looking for!😃🤟

Thank you so much for this. Much appreciated

Thank you so much.

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How to Identify a Research Gap

How to Identify a Research Gap

  • 5-minute read
  • 10th January 2024

If you’ve been tasked with producing a thesis or dissertation, one of your first steps will be identifying a research gap. Although finding a research gap may sound daunting, don’t fret! In this post, we will define a research gap, discuss its importance, and offer a step-by-step guide that will provide you with the essential know-how to complete this critical step and move on to the rest of your research project.

What Is a Research Gap?

Simply put, a research gap is an area that hasn’t been explored in the existing literature. This could be an unexplored population, an untested method, or a condition that hasn’t been investigated yet. 

Why Is Identifying a Research Gap Important?

Identifying a research gap is a foundational step in the research process. It ensures that your research is significant and has the ability to advance knowledge within a specific area. It also helps you align your work with the current needs and challenges of your field. Identifying a research gap has many potential benefits.

1. Avoid Redundancy in Your Research

Understanding the existing literature helps researchers avoid duplication. This means you can steer clear of topics that have already been extensively studied. This ensures your work is novel and contributes something new to the field.

2. Guide the Research Design

Identifying a research gap helps shape your research design and questions. You can tailor your studies to specifically address the identified gap. This ensures that your work directly contributes to filling the void in knowledge.

3. Practical Applications

Research that addresses a gap is more likely to have practical applications and contributions. Whether in academia, industry, or policymaking, research that fills a gap in knowledge is often more applicable and can inform decision-making and practices in real-world contexts.

4. Field Advancements

Addressing a research gap can lead to advancements in the field . It may result in the development of new theories, methodologies, or technologies that push the boundaries of current understanding.

5. Strategic Research Planning

Identifying a research gap is crucial for strategic planning . It helps researchers and institutions prioritize areas that need attention so they can allocate resources effectively. This ensures that efforts are directed toward the most critical gaps in knowledge.

6. Academic and Professional Recognition

Researchers who successfully address significant research gaps often receive peer recognition within their academic and professional communities. This recognition can lead to opportunities for collaboration, funding, and career advancement.

How Do I Identify a Research Gap?

1. clearly define your research topic .

Begin by clearly defining your research topic. A well-scoped topic serves as the foundation for your studies. Make sure it’s not too broad or too narrow; striking the right balance will make it easier to identify gaps in existing literature.

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2. Conduct a Thorough Literature Review

A comprehensive literature review is a vital step in any research. Dive deep into the existing research related to your topic. Look for patterns, recurring themes, and consensus among scholars. Pay attention to areas where conflicting opinions or gaps in understanding emerge.

3. Evaluate Existing Studies

Critically evaluate the studies you encounter during your literature review. Assess the paradigms , methodologies, findings, and limitations of each. Note any discrepancies, unanswered questions, or areas where further investigation is warranted. These are potential indicators of research gaps.

4. Identify Unexplored Perspectives

Consider the perspectives presented in the existing literature. Are there alternative viewpoints or marginalized voices that haven’t been adequately explored? Identifying and incorporating diverse perspectives can often lead to uncharted territory and help you pinpoint a unique research gap.

Additional Tips

Stay up to date with emerging trends.

The field of research is dynamic, with new developments and emerging trends constantly shaping the landscape. Stay up to date with the latest publications, conferences, and discussions in your field and make sure to regularly check relevant academic search engines . Often, identifying a research gap involves being at the forefront of current debates and discussions.

Seek Guidance From Experts

Don’t hesitate to reach out to experts in your field for guidance. Attend conferences, workshops, or seminars where you can interact with seasoned researchers. Their insights and experience can provide valuable perspectives on potential research gaps that you may have overlooked. You can also seek advice from your academic advisor .

Use Research Tools and Analytics

Leverage tech tools to analyze patterns and trends in the existing literature. Tools like citation analysis, keyword mapping, and data visualization can help you identify gaps and areas with limited exploration.

Identifying a research gap is a skill that evolves with experience and dedication. By defining your research topic, meticulously navigating the existing literature, critically evaluating studies, and recognizing unexplored perspectives, you’ll be on your way to identifying a research gap that will serve as the foundation for your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

If you need any help with proofreading your research paper , we can help with our research paper editing services . You can even try a sample of our services for free . Good luck with all your research!

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How to identify research gaps

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Anthony Newman

About this video

Researching is an ongoing task, as it requires you to think of something nobody else has thought of before. This is where the research gap comes into play.

We will explain what a research gap is, provide you with steps on how to identify these research gaps, as well as provide you several tools that can help you identify them.

About the presenter

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Senior Publisher, Life Sciences, Elsevier

Anthony Newman is a Senior Publisher with Elsevier and is based in Amsterdam. Each year he presents numerous Author Workshops and other similar trainings worldwide. He is currently responsible for fifteen biochemistry and laboratory medicine journals, he joined Elsevier over thirty years ago and has been Publisher for more than twenty of those years. Before then he was the marketing communications manager for the biochemistry journals of Elsevier.  By training he is a polymer chemist and was active in the surface coating industry before leaving London and moving to Amsterdam in 1987 to join Elsevier.

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FAQ: What is a research gap and how do I find one?

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Last Updated: Jun 27, 2023 Views: 453683

What is a research gap.

A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research (studies on Internet use in 2001, for example). Or, perhaps a specific population has not been well studied (perhaps there are plenty of studies on teenagers and video games, but not enough studies on toddlers and video games, for example). These are just a few examples, but any research gap you find is an area where more studies and more research need to be conducted. Please view this video clip from our Sage Research Methods database for more helpful information: How Do You Identify Gaps in Literature?

How do I find one?

It will take a lot of research and reading.  You'll need to be very familiar with all the studies that have already been done, and what those studies contributed to the overall body of knowledge about that topic. Make a list of any questions you have about your topic and then do some research to see if those questions have already been answered satisfactorily. If they haven't, perhaps you've discovered a gap!  Here are some strategies you can use to make the most of your time:

  • One useful trick is to look at the “suggestions for future research” or conclusion section of existing studies on your topic. Many times, the authors will identify areas where they think a research gap exists, and what studies they think need to be done in the future.
  • As you are researching, you will most likely come across citations for seminal works in your research field. These are the research studies that you see mentioned again and again in the literature.  In addition to finding those and reading them, you can use a database like Web of Science to follow the research trail and discover all the other articles that have cited these. See the FAQ: I found the perfect article for my paper. How do I find other articles and books that have cited it? on how to do this. One way to quickly track down these seminal works is to use a database like SAGE Navigator, a social sciences literature review tool. It is one of the products available via our SAGE Knowledge database.
  • In the PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES databases, you can select literature review, systematic review, and meta analysis under the Methodology section in the advanced search to quickly locate these. See the FAQ: Where can I find a qualitative or quantitative study? for more information on how to find the Methodology section in these two databases.
  • In CINAHL , you can select Systematic review under the Publication Type field in the advanced search. 
  • In Web of Science , check the box beside Review under the Document Type heading in the “Refine Results” sidebar to the right of the list of search hits.
  • If the database you are searching does not offer a way to filter your results by document type, publication type, or methodology in the advanced search, you can include these phrases (“literature reviews,” meta-analyses, or “systematic reviews”) in your search string.  For example, “video games” AND “literature reviews” could be a possible search that you could try.

Please give these suggestions a try and contact a librarian for additional assistance.

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What is a Research Gap

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Table of Contents

If you are a young researcher, or even still finishing your studies, you’ll probably notice that your academic environment revolves around certain research topics, probably linked to your department or to the interest of your mentor and direct colleagues. For example, if your department is currently doing research in nanotechnology applied to medicine, it is only natural that you feel compelled to follow this line of research. Hopefully, it’s something you feel familiar with and interested in – although you might take your own twists and turns along your career.

Many scientists end up continuing their academic legacy during their professional careers, writing about their own practical experiences in the field and adapting classic methodologies to a present context. However, each and every researcher dreams about being a pioneer in a subject one day, by discovering a topic that hasn’t been approached before by any other scientist. This is a research gap.

Research gaps are particularly useful for the advance of science, in general. Finding a research gap and having the means to develop a complete and sustained study on it can be very rewarding for the scientist (or team of scientists), not to mention how its new findings can positively impact our whole society.

How to Find a Gap in Research

How many times have you felt that you have finally formulated THAT new and exciting question, only to find out later that it had been addressed before? Probably more times than you can count.

There are some steps you can take to help identify research gaps, since it is impossible to go through all the information and research available nowadays:

  • Select a topic or question that motivates you: Research can take a long time and surely a large amount of physical, intellectual and emotional effort, therefore choose a topic that can keep you motivated throughout the process.
  • Find keywords and related terms to your selected topic: Besides synthesizing the topic to its essential core, this will help you in the next step.
  • Use the identified keywords to search literature: From your findings in the above step, identify relevant publications and cited literature in those publications.
  • Look for topics or issues that are missing or not addressed within (or related to) your main topic.
  • Read systematic reviews: These documents plunge deeply into scholarly literature and identify trends and paradigm shifts in fields of study. Sometimes they reveal areas or topics that need more attention from researchers and scientists.

How to find a Gap in Research

Keeping track of all the new literature being published every day is an impossible mission. Remember that there is technology to make your daily tasks easier, and reviewing literature can be one of them. Some online databases offer up-to-date publication lists with quite effective search features:

  • Elsevier’s Scope
  • Google Scholar

Of course, these tools may be more or less effective depending on knowledge fields. There might be even better ones for your specific topic of research; you can learn about them from more experienced colleagues or mentors.

Find out how FINER research framework can help you formulate your research question.

Literature Gap

The expression “literature gap” is used with the same intention as “research gap.” When there is a gap in the research itself, there will also naturally be a gap in the literature. Nevertheless, it is important to stress out the importance of language or text formulations that can help identify a research/literature gap or, on the other hand, making clear that a research gap is being addressed.

When looking for research gaps across publications you may have noticed sentences like:

…has/have not been… (studied/reported/elucidated) …is required/needed… …the key question is/remains… …it is important to address…

These expressions often indicate gaps; issues or topics related to the main question that still hasn’t been subject to a scientific study. Therefore, it is important to take notice of them: who knows if one of these sentences is hiding your way to fame.

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ThePhDHub

What is a Research Gap? How to Identify it?

“ Choosing a topic, research or subject that has not been answered or explored yet by any other scientists is referred to as a research gap.” 

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find one! 

When you start reading literature, initially you may notice that nothing is left to study! That everyone feels, even me too when I was in my initial days of PhD. But when you get enough research experience, you can find gaps in research easily. 

“Every research is incomplete.”

Indeed, a research work completes when it states a gap or unexplored area with the final conclusion, so that future research will get direction. 

The process of research or doctorate starts (immediately after you get admission) by initiating searching a research gap which leads to postulating a research question. 

 A research question is your title or statement of thesis using which you will find your thesis objectives and address a particular question. It can be stated only by finding a research or literature gap. 

And as I said, it’s quite difficult for PhD students.  

So in this blog post, I will explain to you what a research or literature gap is and how you can identify it. 

How to appear in the PhD Interview?

What is a research or literature gap? 

Firstly, a research/ knowledge gap or literature gap is though different terms but has a similar meaning. The reason is that a research problem can be addressed either by experimental research and literature review. 

Definition: 

A research or literature gap is a problem or unexplored/ underexplored area of the existing research. 

Choosing a topic, research or subject that has not been answered or explored yet by any other scientist is referred to as a research gap. 

Let us start with an example;

Take a look at the hypothetical closing sentence.

“3 common mutations IVS1-5, IVS1-1 and CD8/9 have been selected for the present to screen thalassemia patients. A common mutation IVS1-5 has been identified in 2 out of 70 unrelated thalassemia patients using the conventional PCR technique.” 

Let’s say you want to do research on the Genetics of Thalassemia. Suppose this one is the closing paragraph of some research article and is a final conclusion. How can you find a research gap here? 

I find many gaps, Let us find out some of them;

  • The sample size is too small. 
  • There are 12 common mutations in beta-thalassemia which are present in almost 80% of cases. Only three are selected in the present study. 
  • The present study is geologically restricted. 
  • The author has used a single conventional PCR technique. More techniques like DNA sequencing can be used to address the same problem, which possibly provides more knowledge and can identify novel mutations as well. 
  • The author hasn’t clarified which type of thalassemia patients they have included in the present study. 

These are some of the possible gaps in the present research. Let’s look at other closing statements for the same. 

“3 common mutations IVS1-5, IVS1-1 and CD8/9 have been selected for the present to screen thalassemia patients. A common mutation IVS1-5 has been identified in 2 out of 70 unrelated thalassemia patients using the conventional PCR technique. The present study can be strengthened by increasing sample size, diversifying geological studies, increasing the number of common mutations and using other techniques for thalassemia.”

“Major limitations of the present study are small sample size, number of mutations and technique selected for the study. 

All these closing statements posit the same type of research gaps. You can use these to prepare your thesis statement. Take a look at the one. 

“Identifying common Beta-thalassemia mutations by DNA sequencing from south India.”

The red box showing the research gap explained in the article.

Where to find a literature gap? 

Some research clearly indicates gaps in their studies whereas some don’t. And that’s why it’s difficult for students to discover one. Notedly, by looking into variables used in the study, gaps can be recognized.

  • Samples- size, types, collection method, transportation conditions. 
  • Research technique- single, two or multiple; significance, efficiency and accuracy of the techniques used. 
  • Geological location and condition of the study conducted. 
  • Objectives selected for the study.
  • Data obtained and research discussions. 

You have to read tons of literature to actually determine possible gaps in the research. A research gap has been indicated in the conclusion section, final interpretation, future direction or suggestions part of a research paper. 

Besides, when you came across some phrases used in the literature such as, 

The present study has not been covered…..

………… excluded from the present study. 

………… is important to address in future research. 

…………. Techniques can be fruitful for future research. 

……………. have/has not been studied/ reported/ evaluated in the present study. 

Keep in mind that this indicates a gap, problem or scopes of improvement in the study. 

Read more: Which factors decide a PhD Salary?

How to find a research gap?

As I said, it’s not an easy process to find a problem or gap in the research, though by following some steps that I will mention here, you can find one and can go with it. 

Select a topic that you like and that motivates you: 

Research interest is important because you have to do the same work for at least 4 to 5 years. Research takes a tremendous amount of physical, mental, economical and intellectual effort. Meaning you have to select a topic that likely motivates you. You should not get tired of doing that! 

Find lucrative keywords to go ahead: 

You can’t go through the whole topic or subject, right! you have to select one or a few. Means, make things more narrow. Take a look at the process, I have explained with an example. 

The inverted pyramid of narrowing down the research process.

Find a keyword that is relevant to the topic you like or are interested in and go ahead with it. 

Find relevant resources and literature: 

Now next in the process, type your keyword or group of keywords in the Google search box and try identifying literature, reviews and research associated with it. 

Find reviews, read them and try to find gaps in studies. Keep in mind that it will remain in your interest circle. 

Read peer-reviewed articles and find gaps in the research: 

Try to read every fresh research and review article around your topic, go through the technique and sample collection process used in each research and discover discordance or space there. 

You can make a comparative analysis table as well. Take a look at the table below, 

When you make a comparative analysis of a few studies you will get an idea about the research gap, gap in sample collection, scope to use other techniques, improvisation or new research areas to include in the study. 

Choosing one from many: 

When you complete the process, you may find many unanswered questions or research gaps (if you have done things in this manner) and you get stuck with many, which to choose and which to leave. 

For PhD, it’s important to weightage a research work accurately; not more, not less. An imbalance will create an unnecessary burden and create problems in the future. 

Henceforth, prioritizing and narrowing down the research gap is crucial. 

In this case, you can take your supervisor’s help. Postulate an amazing research question that would be suitable for PhD, as per your interest, under your budget and fulfill your supervisor’s need. 

Expected outcomes: 

This is confusing for you surely! 

You may wonder by only identifying a gap and postulating a research question, how can we expect anything as outcomes? 

Expected outcomes of the research have significant value and importance in the PhD, PhD research proposal and your final report. You or your guide has to explain the possible results of the study. 

It’s mandatory and will give you direction for research. Expected outcomes can be considered as a path on which you will have to walk. 

Take an example of the research question we just postulated, “Identifying common Beta-thalassemia mutations by DNA sequencing from south India.”

What will be the expected results? 

  • You will get some common mutations. 
  • You will probably get some new mutations or variations. 
  • Or you will get nothing, which means, no mutations in any samples. 

In either case, you have definite outcomes, and your final results will be around it, perhaps. You will definitely not get any information regarding the globin protein because that’s not included in the study. 

Right! 

You are just doing mutational analysis and want to find some common mutations in the selected population. So what research gap you will identify will surely give some expected outcomes. 

Wrapping up: 

Research gap/ knowledge gap or literature gap all terms leads us to the same direction and help us to propose a research question. Although as we said, expected outcomes are also an important consideration to fill the gap. 

If you are new to PhD or just started this article is the best place for you to start, and will definitely assist you to find a mission piece of link in the research. 

I hope you like this article. Please do visit other articles on this blog. 

Dr Tushar Chauhan

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Library Guide to Capstone Literature Reviews: Find a Research Gap

Find a research gap: tips to get started.

Finding a research gap is not an easy process and there is no one linear path. These tips and suggestions are just examples of possible ways to begin. 

In Ph.D. dissertations, students identify a gap in research. In other programs, students identify a gap in practice. The literature review for a gap in practice will show the context of the problem and the current state of the research. 

Research gap definition

A research gap exists when:

  • a question or problem has not been answered by existing studies/research in the field 
  • a concept or new idea has not been studied at all
  • all the existing literature on a topic is outdated 
  • a specific population/location/age group etc has not been studied 

A research gap should be:

  • grounded in the literature
  • amenable to scientific study
  • Litmus Test for a Doctoral-Level Research Problem (Word) This tool helps students determine if they have identified a doctoral level research problem.

Identify a research gap

To find a gap you must become very familiar with a particular field of study. This will involve a lot of research and reading, because a gap is defined by what does (and does not) surround it.

  • Search the research literature and dissertations (search all university dissertations, not just Walden!).
  • Understand your topic! Review background information in books and encyclopedias . 
  • Look for literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.
  • Take notes on concepts, themes, and subject terms . 
  • Look closely at each article's limitations, conclusions, and recommendations for future research. 
  • Organize, analyze, and repeat! 

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  • Quick Answer: How do I find dissertations on a topic?

Start with broad searches

Use the Library Search (formerly Thoreau)  to do a broad search with just one concept at a time . Broad searches give you an idea of the academic conversation surrounding your topic.

  • Try the terms you know (keywords) first.
  • Look at the Subject Terms (controlled language) to brainstorm terms. 
  • Subject terms help you understand what terms are most used, and what other terms to try.
  • No matter what your topic is, not every researcher will be using the same terms. Keep an eye open for additional ways to describe your topic.
  • Guide: Subject Terms & Index Searches: Index Overview

Keep a list of terms

  • Create a list of terms
  • Example list of terms

This list will be a record of what terms are: 

  • related to or represent your topic
  • synonyms or antonyms
  • more or less commonly used
  • keywords (natural language) or subject terms (controlled language)
  • Synonyms & antonyms (database search skills)
  • Turn keywords into subject terms

Term I started with:

culturally aware 

Subject terms I discovered:

cultural awareness (SU) 

cultural sensitivity (SU) 

cultural competence (SU) 

Search with different combinations of terms

  • Combine search terms list
  • Combine search terms table
  • Video: Search by Themes

Since a research gap is defined by the absence of research on a topic, you will search for articles on everything that relates to your topic. 

  • List out all the themes related to your gap.
  • Search different combinations of the themes as you discover them (include search by theme video at bottom) 

For example, suppose your research gap is on the work-life balance of tenured and tenure-track women in engineering professions. In that case, you might try searching different combinations of concepts, such as: 

  • women and STEM 
  • STEM or science or technology or engineering or mathematics
  • female engineering professors 
  • tenure-track women in STEM
  • work-life balance and women in STEM
  • work-life balance and women professors
  • work-life balance and tenure 

Topic adapted from one of the award winning Walden dissertations. 

  • Walden University Award Winning Dissertations
  • Gossage, Lily Giang-Tien, "Work-Life Balance of Tenured and Tenure-Track Women Engineering Professors" (2019). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 6435.

Break your topic into themes and try combining the terms from different themes in different ways. For example: 

Theme 1 and Theme 4

Theme 2 and Theme 1

Theme 3 and Theme 4

Video: Search by Themes (YouTube)

(2 min 40 sec) Recorded April 2014 Transcript

Track where more research is needed

Most research articles will identify where more research is needed. To identify research trends, use the literature review matrix to track where further research is needed. 

  • Download or create your own Literature Review Matrix (examples in links below).
  • Do some general database searches on broad topics.
  • Find an article that looks interesting.
  • When you read the article, pay attention to the conclusions and limitations sections.
  • Use the Literature Review Matrix to track where  'more research is needed' or 'further research needed'. NOTE:  you might need to add a column to the template.
  • As you fill in the matrix you should see trends where more research is needed.

There is no consistent section in research articles where the authors identify where more research is needed. Pay attention to these sections: 

  • limitations
  • conclusions
  • recommendations for future research 
  • Literature Review Matrix Templates: learn how to keep a record of what you have read
  • Literature Review Matrix (Excel) with color coding Sample template for organizing and synthesizing your research
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We guide you through a quick workflow to find gaps in literature reviews.

Marina Kisley avatar

Finding research gaps is vital: not only do gaps spur new areas of research and advance knowledge, but they are opportunities for academic growth and success. For example , articles in the biomedical field that fill gaps are cited more heavily and are 61% more likely to be published in high-impact journals.

However, finding research gaps isn’t always easy. It can be time-consuming to sift through the existing literature on a subject, particularly in an entirely new domain. Improving this process is one our goals at Litmaps, which is why we built Discover . Once you’re properly set up it takes just a few minutes to start discovering new papers, and potential research gaps.

Below we go through a two general workflows for finding gaps in literature reviews. There are two ways the following technique can be applied: 1. On your own literature review , and 2. On an existing literature review .

First – what is a research gap?

The research gap refers to any yet unexplored or unresolved area of scientific enquiry. Although the number of gaps in research are practically infinite, finding research gaps efficiently is a challenge. Whether or not you've already complied a library of existing literature, finding research gaps is time-consuming work. Certain methods and automated tools can make finding gaps in your research easier by quickly revealing papers you haven't yet explored.

There are various methods to identify potential gaps in research. Sifting through papers, understanding the current landscape of a field and navigating the literature are all valid techniques. However, these traditional methods tend to be time-consuming, taking hours or even days to complete.

Using Litmaps Discover to find research gaps

In both of the workflows below, we use Discover to quickly find related papers. Discover is a method for searching across the references and citations of a group of articles. It'll recommend the most highly-shared connections to help identify gaps when searching across the references of a literature review.

Method 1: Searching your own literature review for gaps

This is a great way to sense-check your own literature review findings. Finding gaps in your literature coverage helps ensure your literature review is high quality. The gaps you find can also prompt you to expand and/or change the scope of your literature review.

1. Prepare your literature library

The easiest way to get started is by uploading your existing library into Litmaps. If you're already using a reference manager tool like Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote, you'll be able to export the relevant references to a "BibTeX" file. See this guide for how to do this.

If you don't have a research library set up yet, don't worry. Our Seed tool will help you to quickly create a new collection of articles based on a single one.

2. Start a new search

We're going to use the Litmaps Discover tool to try to find literature gaps.

Go to Discover and start a New Search. If you've exported a BibTeX from your reference manager click “Import from Reference Manager” and upload your BibTeX file. Otherwise, use an existing Litmaps collection by clicking "Add from Your Library" and selecting the collection you'd like to use.

When your articles are loaded, either press the >> Quick Start button, or click Next: Configure Inputs , and then Run Search .

3. Discover unfound articles

Litmaps has searched over the citations and references of all the articles from your library, and has returned suggestions. These suggestions are displayed in the outer circle of the visual display: they've been found to be the most connected to your library through their citations and/or references .

Visualization provided by Litmaps Discover, with the input articles in the center, represented as dots. Outer ring with different markers, denoting suggested papers. Dots are connected by lines where papers reference one another.

From here you should review the suggested articles in the outer circle . By going through them, you can often unearth gaps in your research:

You'll want to look for articles you haven't seen before, but seem relevant to your topic. They should probably be covered by your literature review!

Also keep your eye out for articles which are adjacent to your literature review topic. They might not be included in your final review, but it's good practice to have an understanding of the edges of your topic – and be able to reason about why they're not included in your findings.

If you're using Litmaps Pro , you can also try Co-authorship Search as a secondary search algorithm. Plus, Pro also lets you filter by date and keyword to quickly help refine your search to be exactly what you're looking for.

4. Save new papers to your library

In just a couple of minutes, you've sifted through hundreds of references in your literature library and identified the most relevant papers.

Save these new articles to your collection by hitting the plus alongside an article's title. This way, when you click "Finish" to end the search, you're able to export a new BibteX file.

Finally, your newly-generated BibTeX file can be imported back into your reference manager.

Method 2: Searching an existing literature review for gaps

You can assess a literature review's comprehensiveness by seeing if it missed any key papers. Finding gaps in existing literature reviews can help find underserved branches of research that might be promising leads to an impactful topic.

For this example, we're going to be searching a 2007 literature review on Shilajit , a consumable natural resin with therapeutic applications.

1. Get references from the literature review

There are a few ways to extract the references for the review paper you want to investigate. Below is a demonstration of doing this within Litmaps, but check out our full guide for a more detailed explanation, and more ways of doing this.

Create a new collection

Click on "add articles", and search for your review paper. In this example, I've used the article's DOI to quickly find it.

Rather than adding this article to our collection, we want to add its references :

Go to the References tab

Select All, then click the "Add to..." button, and choose the collection you created.

The review's references are now inside your collection – you can close the search modal.

2. Use Discover to find missing papers

Next, we'll explore the library using Discover:

Go to Discover, and create a New Search

Add the review article's references – we'll use the Add from Your Library to add all articles from the collection we created earlier.

Start the search

3. Analyze the results

Discover shows suggested papers in the outer ring: they've been found to be the most connected to the references of the Shilajit review paper.

Since the articles you've searched across represent all of the references in the literature review, any articles in the outer ring can be considered “missing” from the literature review . In this case, we are interested in papers published before the date of this paper's publication (2007). These represent relevant and highly cited papers that the original literature review did not review.

In this Shilajit example, Discover identified four papers published before 2007! One of these is a highly-ranked 2002 review paper that we'd expect the 2007 paper to reference. However, the 2002 paper referred to Shilajit using another name, " Mumie". This may explain why the 2007 paper authors didn't discover and reference it at the time.

4. Search deeper using Pro

We'll set the maximum date filter to 2007 – this is the year of publication of the literature review we're focusing on. The search will now quickly reveal the most relevant papers up to that date – the research our review paper authors would have had access to.

Alternatively, we can set the filter to only see papers published after 2007. This is useful if you’re searching for new advances in research since a given paper was published – we'll write more on this topic in future, but for now we'd encourage you to experiment with what results this

5. Add missing papers to your library

Hopefully this process has led you to find some articles that the original review article missed – potentially providing new research avenues for you to investigate.

If you'd like to save some of the results you've found, simply by hit the "plus" next to an article's title. When you click Finish to end the search, you'll be able to export these articles to a BibTeX file for importing into your reference manager, or you can save them to a new collection within Litmaps for further discovery.

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How to Find a Research Gap

Last Updated: February 16, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Danielle Blinka, MA, MPA . Danielle Blinka is a Writer, Editor, Podcaster, Improv Performer, and Artist currently living in Houston, TX. She also has experience teaching English and writing to others. Danielle holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Master of Arts in English with a concentration in writing, and Master of Public Administration from Lamar University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 32,490 times. Learn more...

Do you want to contribute original research and make an impact in your field? If so, it's important to look for research gaps, or areas of study that are either under-researched or currently unexplored. In this article, we'll explain in detail the best way to identify a research gap—by performing a comprehensive literature review—so you can dive deep into your research topic and analyze articles critically and effectively. For more tips and tricks on identifying potential research gaps and how to proceed when you find one, read on.

Researching Your Topic

Step 1 Start with a broad topic related to your field of interest.

  • If you start with a narrow topic, you may struggle to find a gap in research, since you’ll be focused on fewer avenues of study.
  • For instance, a broad topic for social sciences research might be "organizational development" or "human motivation." For urban planning, a broad topic might be "walkable cities" or "traffic management."

Step 2 Conduct preliminary research to explore your topic.

  • While you can't include sources like Wikipedia and news websites on your literature review, it's okay to read them to get an overview of your topic and recent developments in your field.
  • It’s okay to narrow your topic as you learn more about it. However, keep your options open until you’re sure you’ve found an area with gaps in research.
  • Let's say you were researching human motivation. You might use search terms like "motivating workers," "goal setting," and "improving worker productivity."

Step 3 Compile a wide range of articles about your topic.

  • Your research needs to be very thorough to ensure that you’re actually finding a gap. If you only read a handful of articles, you may be missing other existing research that answers your proposed research question.

Tip: Look for both quantitative and qualitative research, if applicable to your field. This will give you a broader overview of the current research.

Step 4 Talk to an adviser or mentor about the current research in your field.

  • Ask them questions like, “Which areas of research are hot right now?” “What kinds of changes are happening within the field?” “What possible avenues of research do you see?” or “Do you think this topic is a good fit for me?”

Analyzing the Literature

Step 1 Read each article at least twice to help you understand it.

  • If you decide an article is unhelpful, it’s okay to skip the second reading.

Tip: Conducting a literature review is often a very time-consuming task. However, it’s also an essential part of identifying a research gap. Additionally, you can use the notes you take during your literature review when it comes time to write your article, thesis, or dissertation.

Step 2 Check the introduction to learn why the research is important.

  • As an example, an author might identify their gap in research with a statement like: “This subject has not been previously studied,” or “This question remains unanswered.”

Step 3 Write notes and...

  • If you keep your notes in a separate document, make sure you label them with the title of the article and the author’s name. This way you won’t accidentally get your notes mixed up.

Step 4 Look for the answers to your questions about the literature.

  • Save any questions that you can’t answer because they may be a starting point for writing a research question.

Step 5 Map out the existing research using a table, Venn diagram, or mind map.

  • For instance, you might make a research gap table in a spreadsheet. Create 3 columns and label them “Author,” “Year,” and "Summary." For each article, list the authors, year of publication, and a bullet point summary of the article contents.
  • Similarly, you may make a Venn diagram to compare 1 or more articles. Look for overlapping themes and methods, as well as differences between the articles.

Using Current Research, Key Concepts, or Trends

Step 1 Check the “discussion” and “future research” sections for gaps.

  • Keep in mind that other researchers may have addressed the gaps identified in a particular article since that article was written. However, this can give you a starting point for finding a potential gap.

Step 2 Read meta-analyses, literature reviews, and systematic reviews to identify trends.

  • Don’t rely solely on these types of papers when conducting your research. However, they can make a great supplement.

Step 3 Review the key concepts listed on journal websites to find hot topics.

  • Some journals will even tell you how many articles are pertaining to that key concept. If you see a key concept that has fewer articles than the others, that might be a good avenue for further research because it’s been studied less.

Step 4 Review Google trends to find questions asked about your topic.

  • You can access Google trends here: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
  • For instance, if you look up "organizational development" on Google trends, you'll see that people are looking for information on management development, mission statements, and software framework.

Expert Q&A

  • Reading Wikipedia articles related to your topic of study may help you identify a gap in research, though you can’t use those articles as sources. Look for areas where more citations are needed, unanswered questions, or sections that are underdeveloped.

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  • ↑ https://libanswers.snhu.edu/faq/264001
  • ↑ https://resources.nu.edu/researchprocess/literaturegap
  • ↑ https://guides.umd.umich.edu/c.php?g=529423&p=3621573
  • ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62480/

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Steps for identifying research gaps in the literature

Your Master's thesis should make a significant, novel contribution to the field. Your thesis hypothesis should address a  research gap which you identify in the literature, a research question or problem that has not been answered in your research area of interest. This shows that you have developed expertise in the body of knowledge and theoretical issues in your chosen research area. 

Step 1: Focus Your Research Area

Before you start trying to identify gaps in the literature, you need to figure out what your area of interest is, and then focus and narrow that research area. If you don't narrow down your initial research area of interest, you'll end up wanting to research everything. You'll overwhelm yourself with all the research gaps you find because there are still a lot of unanswered research questions out there. 

  • Do some exploratory research  on your broad research idea in your course textbook, class notes, in meta-analysis, systematic, and literature reviews, and  PsycINFO  to identify more specific issues and arguments in your research area and possible relationships between them.
  • Read ebooks  to get the "big picture" about the research area you're interested in studying. Books and ebooks provide detailed information on your research area, put your research area in context, provide summaries of research, and help you identify major themes and relationships for your study.
  • Ask your advisors and other faculty  about possible topics or issues within your research area of interest. That being said, you're going to spend over a year immersed in work on your thesis, so make sure you  choose issues because you find them deeply interesting , not just because your advisor recommended them.

Step 2: Read, Read, and then Read Some More

Read (a lot of) research articles : this is going to be time-demanding, but you really do need to read through a lot of research articles in your research area to become an expert in it. That being said, what you use from the articles that you read should relate directly back to your focused research questions and hypothesis. Don't waste your time getting sidetracked by issues that don't relate to your research questions and hypothesis.

  • Go to  Start Finding Sources ,  Search Databases , and  Browse Journals  to find journal articles for your research area
  • Pay close attention to Introductions , in which authors explain why their research is important, and Suggestions for Future Research , in which authors point readers to areas which lack investigation or need future examination

Follow the research trails  of seminal articles and authors using Web of Science and Scopus:

  • In Scopus , click on Document Search , enter the article title, click on the article title in the list of search hits, then click on View all ~ citing documents link in the right sidebar for a list of articles that have cited this article
  • In Web of Science , enter the article title and choose Title from the right drop down menu , then click on the Times Cited number next to the article to see a list of articles that have cited this article
  • In Scopus , click on Author Search , enter the last name and first initial(s) of the author, click on the author's name in the list of search hits, then click on Cited By ~ documents for a list of articles that have cited this author
  • In Web of Science , enter the author name and choose Author from the right drop down menu , then click on the Times Cited number next to each article to see a list of articles that have cited this author's article

Read meta-analyses, literature reviews,  and  systematic reviews : these papers delve deep into the literature, examining the trends and changes over a long period of time in your research area and summaries of previous research findings.

  • In PsycINFO , click on literature review, systematic review, and  meta analysis  under the Methodologies heading in the sidebar to the right of the list of search hits 
  • In CINAHL , add systematic reviews to your search 
  • In Web Of Science , check the box beside Review under the Document Type heading in the sidebar to the right of the list of search hits

Step 3: Map out the Literature :

Keep track of what the authors told you and the questions that occur to you whenever you read anything - an article, a book, a book chapter, a dissertation, etc. This will also help you write your thesis introduction later on and help you avoid  unconscious plagiarism .Some more tips:

  • Use mind maps, tables, charts, pictures, post-it notes to map out the literature, whatever works for you. 
  • Research each of your questions to see if there are people out there who had the same questions and found answers to them
  • Science Direct , Web of Science , and Wiley Online Library databases help you follow the research trail by listing articles that have since cited the research article you're reading

If you find don't find any answers to one of your questions, you've probably found a research gap from which you can develop a thesis hypothesis and experimental project. Get feedback from your advisors before you get too carried away, though!

  • Get started by considering your central thesis question 
  • How do the sources you've found connect to that question and help you answer it?
  • How do the sources connect to and build off of one another?
  • << Previous: What Do Thesis Projects Involve?
  • Next: Develop A Hypothesis >>
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Home » Education » What is the Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem

What is the Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem

The main difference between research gap and research problem is that a research gap identifies a gap in knowledge about a subject, whereas a research problem identifies and articulates the need for research .

Research gap and research problem are two very similar elements of a research study. They are closely related and play a crucial role in research. In fact, a researcher cannot identify a research problem without a research gap, and it’s impossible to conduct a research study without both. A researcher first identifies a research gap (an area that has not been explored in previous literature on the subject) after conducting a thorough literature review . Then he/she formulates a clear research problem from this research gap.

Key Areas Covered

1.  What is a Research Gap       – Definition, Features, Function 2. What is a Research Problem      – Definition, Features, Function 3.  Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem      – Comparison of Key Differences

Research Gap, Research Problem

Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem - Comparison Summary

What is a Research Gap

A research gap is a key element in any research study. It’s the center of a research project and determines the area that lacks crucial information. We can define a research gap as a question that has not been addressed or an area of interest that has not been explored in previous literature on the subject. For example, a researcher in the field of health or medicine can research the long-term effects of Covid-19 vaccines, which is a research gap in the existing literature on the subject. To identify the research gap, the researcher has to gather and study all relevant books, reports, and journal articles on the subject. Researchers can usually decide on their research gap once they have conducted their literature review.

A research gap can exist when there are no studies on a new concept or idea. Sometimes, researchers can also find a research gap if the existing research is not up to date and needs modification or updates. For example, research on internet use in 2002 is no longer valid today, and the data needs modification. A researcher can also choose a specific population that has not been studied well.

Compare Research Gap and Problem - What's the difference?

What is a Research Problem

A research problem is a question(s) the researcher wants to answer through his study. Research problems introduce the readers to the topic that is being discussed. It also places the problem in a particular context, defining the parameters of the investigation. Finally, it provides the framework for reporting the results of the research, reveals what is necessary to conduct the research, and explains how the information will be presented.

A research problem must cover the essential issues at hand and be specific. Moreover, the researcher must present it logically and clearly. The research problem must also ensure that the research is based on actual facts and evidence and not on beliefs and opinions.

There are four general types of research problems:

  • Casuist Research Problem – involves the determination of right and wrong in questions of conduct or conscience
  • Difference Research Problem – compares and contrasts two or more phenomena
  • Descriptive Research Problem – describes the significance of a state, situation, phenomenon
  • Relational Research Problem – indicates a relationship between two or more variables

Without a well-defined research problem, a researcher will be more likely to end up with an unfocused and unmanageable research study.

Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem

A research gap is an area of interest that has not been explored in previous literature on the subject, while a research problem is a definite or clear statement about an area of concern that points to a need for meaningful understanding and deliberate investigation.

First, the researcher has to identify a research gap in the area of interest and then form his/her research problem.

A research gap identifies a gap in knowledge about a subject, whereas a research problem identifies and articulates the need for research.

A researcher identifies a research gap after conducting a thorough literature review. Then he/she formulates a clear research problem from this research gap. Therefore, the difference between research gap and research problem is the order of sequence. A research gap further justifies the research problem.

1. “ FAQ: What is a research gap and how do I find one? ” Shapiro Library. Southern New Hampshire University. 2. McCombes, Shona. “ How to Define a Research Problem | Ideas & Examples ” Scribber.

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The gap in voter participation between Black and white Americans decreased following the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Unfortunately, our research shows that for more than a decade, this trend has been reversing. This report uses data to which few previous researchers have had access to document the racial turnout gap in the 21st century.

The racial turnout gap — or the difference in the turnout rate between white and nonwhite voters — is a key way of measuring participation equality. We find that the gap has consistently grown since 2012 and is growing most quickly in parts of the country that were previously covered under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was suspended by the Supreme Court in its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder .  footnote1_ow3yzp5 1 Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to “preclear” any changes to their voting policies and practices with the U.S. Department of Justice (or federal courts). In the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, argued that Congress had not established that the formula used to determine the jurisdictions that would be subject to preclearance (found in Section 4b) was reflective of current political realities and that the formula was thus unconstitutional. While the Court agreed that the original coverage formula’s reliance (in part) on low turnout was justified in the 1960s and 1970s, the narrow majority concluded that contemporary turnout gaps should be used to assess current coverage under Section 4b. The Court relied heavily on turnout rates to substantiate its argument, writing that in the 2012 presidential election, “African-American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered by §5.” But this interpretation of the data was far too narrow: the low turnout gaps in 2012 were likely due to Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy and did not demonstrate that preclearance was no longer needed.  footnote2_6dnncpn 2 Lawrence Bobo and Franklin D. Gilliam, “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment,”  American Political Science Review  84, no. 2 (1990): 377–93, https://doi.org/10.2307/1963525 ; and Ebonya Washington, “How Black Candidates Affect Voter Turnout,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 3 (2006): 973–98, https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.121.3.973 . That moment, on its own, was unrepresentative of the general pattern showing a sustained, and now growing, racial turnout gap.

In this report, we assess how the racial turnout gap has evolved in the decade since the Court’s decision. We find that while the gap is growing virtually everywhere, Shelby County had an independent causal impact in regions that were formerly covered under Section 5. By 2022, our primary models indicate that the white–Black turnout gap in these regions was about 5 percentage points greater than it would have been if the Voting Rights Act were still in full force, and the white–nonwhite gap was about 4 points higher. Put differently: the turnout gap grew almost twice as quickly in formerly covered jurisdictions as in other parts of the country with similar demographic and socioeconomic profiles.

Recent scholarship finds that restrictive voting laws generally limit the turnout of voters of color the most.  footnote3_4q2bfu3 3 Anna Baringer, Michael C. Herron, and Daniel A. Smith, “Voting by Mail and Ballot Rejection: Lessons from Florida for Elections in the Age of the Coronavirus,”  Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy  19, no. 3 (2020): 289–320, https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2020.0658 ; Bernard L. Fraga and Michael G. Miller, “Who Do Voter ID Laws Keep from Voting?,”  Journal of Politics  84, no. 2 (2022): 1091–1105, https://doi.org/10.1086/716282 ; John Kuk, Zoltan Hajnal, and Nazita Lajevardi, “A Disproportionate Burden: Strict Voter Identification Laws and Minority Turnout,”  Politics, Groups, and Identities  10, no. 1 (2022): 126–34, https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1773280 ; and Enrijeta Shino, Mara Suttmann-Lea, and Daniel A. Smith, “Determinants of Rejected Mail Ballots in Georgia’s 2018 General Election,”  Political Research Quarterly  75, no. 1 (2022): 231–43, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912921993537 . But while the research documents the effects of individual policies like polling place consolidation and voter identification laws, less is known about how the effects of these policies compound as more restrictions on voting are enacted.  footnote4_22djzg1 4 Kevin Morris and Peter Miller, “Authority After the Tempest: Hurricane Michael and the 2018 Elections,”  Journal of Politics  85, no. 2 (2023): 405–20, https://doi.org/10.1086/722772 ; and Fraga and Miller, “Who Do Voter ID Laws Keep from Voting?”  Moreover, many policies and practices that drive voting are not codified in state law. Take, for instance, voter list maintenance practices: following the Shelby County decision, jurisdictions that previously had been required to preclear any changes to voting with the federal government dramatically increased the rate at which they removed voters, even if state laws governing list maintenance did not change.  footnote5_41r0nbs 5 Jonathan Brater et al., Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote , Brennan Center for Justice, 2018, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/purges-growing-threat-right-vote . We cannot identify and measure the impact of each individual change to voting policies and practices across the country, but the racial turnout gap necessarily takes account of all changes in voting policy, statutory or otherwise. Our unique data set, collected from nearly 1 billion vote records, allows us to conduct this analysis for the first time.

This report uses voter file snapshots from shortly after each of the past eight federal elections from Catalist and L2 to estimate turnout rates by race. Catalist and L2 are respected firms that sell voter file data to campaigns, advocacy groups, and academic institutions. Our conclusions based on this body of information about individual-level turnout behavior far surpasses what previous researchers have been able to establish working from limited survey data. We show that the racial turnout gap has grown everywhere. In all regions, the gap in the 2022 midterms was larger than in any midterm since at least 2006. In 2022, white Americans voted at higher rates than nonwhite Americans in every single state besides Hawaii. Moreover, the turnout gap cannot be entirely explained by socioeconomic differences — in income or education level — between Americans of different races and ethnicities.

That gap costs American democracy millions of ballots that go uncast by eligible voters. It also has significant consequences for political candidates and their campaigns. In 2020, if the gap had not existed, 9 million more ballots would have been cast — far more than the 7 million by which Joe Biden won the national popular vote. In 32 states, the number of “uncast” ballots due to the turnout gap was larger than the winning presidential candidate’s margin of votes.  footnote6_c3r08rw 6 David Wasserman et al., “2020 Popular Vote Tracker,” Cook Political Report , 2020, https://www.cookpolitical.com/2020-national-popular-vote-tracker . That’s not to say that the racial turnout gap necessarily changed electoral outcomes in any given state, but the immensity of this figure does put the magnitude of the turnout gap into greater perspective. The gap matters for our political system.

Given that the racial turnout gap is growing around the country, including in regions that weren’t covered by Section 5, Shelby County ’s impact is not immediately clear. The widening of the gap nationally can’t be directly attributed to the Supreme Court’s decision, though the Court perhaps emboldened jurisdictions that were not subject to preclearance to enact new restrictive policies.  footnote7_kj2hs1a 7 Further, by putting the burden on advocates to monitor changes in policy and bring Section 2 cases in all 50 states, the decision made it more likely that a change in a non-covered jurisdiction would go unnoticed or unchallenged. Section 2 prohibits any electoral practice that minimizes the voting strength of a racial or ethnic group. However, the turnout gap — especially the white–Black turnout gap — is growing more quickly in counties that were formerly subject to Section 5 than in other, comparable parts of the country. A variety of statistical approaches support the conclusion that this more rapid growth in the turnout gap is attributable to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County .

In addition, the effect of Shelby County has been growing over time; the decision did not result in a one-time increase. Instead, the difference between formerly covered and other jurisdictions was larger in 2022 than in any election since the decision was handed down. Meanwhile, with the federal government unable to protect the political rights of people of color using the full power of the Voting Rights Act, the laws and practices that would have been subject to preclearance continue to accumulate.  footnote8_zpwhzug 8 J. Morgan Kousser and others have documented the central role that the federal government must play in promoting and safeguarding multiracial democracy in the United States. See J. Morgan Kousser, Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847381/colorblind-injustice ; and Jacob Grumbach, Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2hbr28q .

I. Methodology

To calculate turnout rates in this report, we rely on data from the registered voter files. Current academic scholarship indicates that the voter file data from states with self-reported racial identification is superior to the data collected by the Current Population Survey, which has been used in much of the existing research on the racial turnout gap and actually understates the magnitude of the turnout gap.  footnote1_4ndwdtr 1 Stephen Ansolabehere, Bernard L. Fraga, and Brian F. Schaffner, “The Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement Overstates Minority Turnout,”  Journal of Politics  84, no. 3 (2022): 1850–55, https://doi.org/10.1086/717260 . Even the best political opinion surveys are often biased when it comes to self-reported turnout — some respondents falsely report that they voted, and others misremember whether they participated, leading to incorrect estimates of turnout. footnote2_nixjk1e 2 Ted Enamorado and Kosuke Imai, “Validating Self-Reported Turnout by Linking Public Opinion Surveys with Administrative Records,”  Public Opinion Quarterly  83, no. 4 (2019): 723–48, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfz051 .

Voter files, on the other hand, are government administrative records of who participated and are free of response or sampling bias. While other academic surveys like the Cooperative Election Study have begun validating respondents’ reported turnout history in recent years, the voter files offer an unparalleled look at the U.S. electorate. footnote3_6m8kjs3 3 These voter files do not indicate for whom someone voted; ballots are secret in the United States. Instead, they indicate whether someone voted and, in some states and years, how the ballot was cast (in person or via the mail).

Voter File Data

All told, we analyze nearly 1 billion voter file records. footnote4_kuc9r9r 4 The snapshots we leverage collectively have 1.5 billion records; this report, however, looks only at the individuals who voted in a particular federal general election. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use such a large set of registered voter files to estimate turnout rates. Specifically, we analyze snapshots of the registered voter file from every state from the past eight federal elections. Each snapshot includes a record of every voter registered in the state at that time. These snapshots were each collected shortly after the election in question, offering an accurate picture of participants in each of the elections. footnote5_x6mmhdr 5 In the technical appendix accompanying this report, we report the date of each snapshot. Though the voter files are the best available data, they are not perfect. Voter files are constantly in flux. For instance, it can take states a handful of months to record participation in the registered voter file. Moreover, states are constantly “cleaning” their voter files and removing ineligible voters. By the time a complete set of participants is included in the file, other voters may have died, moved away, or been removed from the file for another reason. Thus no 100 percent accurate voter file exists that captures all participants and includes all individuals registered as of a given election. See Seo-young Silvia Kim and Bernard Fraga, “When Do Voter Files Accurately Measure Turnout? How Transitory Voter File Snapshots Impact Research and Representation,” American Political Science Association, APSA Preprints, Version 1, September 14, 2022, https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2022-qr0gd . For the 2008–2012 elections, we rely on snapshots provided by Catalist; for the 2014–2022 elections, we use records from L2. There is no reason that obtaining data from different vendors would impact any results we present in the body of this report. One potential concern could arise from different racial predictions from the vendors, but in no case do we rely on proprietary racial categorization. Instead, in all years and from both vendors, we rely solely on either self-reported racial data or on consistent, open-source methodologies discussed below. footnote6_u9z7htw 6 In many states, voters’ state identification numbers are reported by both Catalist and L2. Using the state ID number, along with voters’ house number and ZIP code, we identify 94 million voters who did not move between the 2012 and 2014 elections. The correlation coefficients (an estimate of the “fit” of these data sets) on the predicted probability of being white, nonwhite, Black, or Latino are all 0.97 (it is 0.93 for probability of being Asian). Given that voters’ racial estimates are updated each year as the racial composition of the citizen voting-age population in an assigned block group changes, we would expect a correlation coefficient approaching, but not exactly, 1. As such, we conclude that the files are highly comparable and that combining these files improves the power of our analyses and does not bias our results. In addition, the parallel trends assumption (that is, that the turnout gaps in covered and non-covered counties would have evolved in parallel if the Court hadn’t invalidated Section 4b) means that changing data vendors does not bias our causal estimates of the effect of Shelby County on the turnout gap, so long as differences between vendors are unrelated to coverage status. Among this set of voters, the average change in the predicted probability of being white decreased by 0.5 percentage points for voters in covered and uncovered states alike between 2012 and 2014, indicating that our results are not being driven by the crossover from Catalist to L2 in 2014.

We refrain from analyzing registration rates calculated from the voter files. Such files contain some amount of deadwood — that is, voters who are registered but no longer eligible to vote (perhaps because they have moved or passed away). If racial groups have different levels of deadwood, we would have biased registration rates. Moreover, states conduct voter list maintenance (the removal of ineligible voters) at different times. Comparing the total number of registrants in two states in the spring of an odd-numbered year might be less an indication of underlying registration rates than of the timing of this routine administrative list maintenance. Neither of these issues is likely to impact turnout rates estimated from the voter file. These records indicate whether each person actually cast a ballot. What’s more, voters who participate in an election are unlikely to be removed from the rolls as part of systematic voter list maintenance the following spring, when our snapshots were collected: states generally remove individuals due to nonparticipation. footnote7_uq64ege 7 According to the National Voter Registration Act, voters can be removed from the rolls only under specific circumstances if the state doesn’t have personalized information indicating a change in eligibility. Generally, voters must fail to respond to a postcard and fail to participate in two federal election cycles before they can be removed. Thus, many individuals removed after a given election will be those who did not vote. For a detailed discussion of how list maintenance impacts voter file data, see Kim and Fraga, “When Do Voter Files Accurately Measure Turnout?”

Voters’ Race and Racial Turnout Rates

Most states do not include self-reported racial identification in their voter files. footnote8_zbqg3e5 8 The exceptions are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. For these states, we use Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG), an approach that incorporates two different data sources to predict each voter’s race. footnote9_r57jbz8 9 Kosuke Imai and Kabir Khanna, “Improving Ecological Inference by Predicting Individual Ethnicity from Voter Registration Records,”  Political Analysis  24, no. 2 (2016): 263–72, https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpw001 . The first is the racial composition of a voter’s neighborhood, in this case census block groups. The second is the racial distribution of surnames from the Census Bureau. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau publishes data on the racial identifications of Americans with different surnames. For instance, in the 2010 census, 92 percent of respondents with the last name Martinez identified as Latino, and 89 percent of respondents with the last name Wood identified as white. Using both data sources, BISG estimates the likelihood that a voter is Black, white, Latino, Asian, or “some other race.” footnote10_5sb4zau 10 Following BISG’s categorization, we consider Latino or Hispanic voters to be nonwhite in all cases. Throughout our analyses, we aggregate up the posterior probabilities rather than assigning voters a discrete race. Thus, if we had 10 voters who were each predicted to be Black with 40 percent certainty and white with 60 percent certainty, we would assume (in aggregate) that we had four Black and six white voters. Discrete assignment would assume that we had 10 white voters, the most likely racial category for each of them. It is worth noting that the surname data provided by the Census Bureau and incorporated into the BISG algorithm does not report whether an individual is “some other race.” Instead, the developers of the BISG algorithm combine the “Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native Alone” and “Non-Hispanic Two or More Races” to create the “some other race” category. Because the “other” category returned by BISG does not correspond exactly to “other” as defined in, e.g., the Census Bureau’s CVAP data, at no point do we present turnout estimates of the “other” category. Wherever we present the overall nonwhite turnout rates (or the white–nonwhite gap), “nonwhite” is calculated by subtracting the estimated number of white ballots (or CVAP) from the total number of ballots (CVAP), thus sidestepping this issue. BISG is widely used among academic researchers and has been accepted by courts as a valid basis for evaluating a number of concepts, including the presence of racially polarized voting. footnote11_ucj17n1 11 Christian R. Grose, Expert Report of Christian R. Grose, Ph.D., La Union Del Pueblo Entero et al. v. Gregory w. Abbott et al., No. 5:21-CV-0844-XR (W.D. Tex 2022); Loren Collingwood, Expert Report of Loren Collingwood, Ph.D., LULAC Texas et al. v. John Scott et al., No. 1:21-cv-786-XR (W.D. Tex 2022); Jacob M. Grumbach and Alexander Sahn, “Race and Representation in Campaign Finance,”  American Political Science Review  114, no. 1 (2020): 206–21, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055419000637 ; and Kevin DeLuca and John A. Curiel, “Validating the Applicability of Bayesian Inference with Surname and Geocoding to Congressional Redistricting,” Political Analysis 31, no. 3 (2023): 465–71, https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2022.14 .

Throughout this report, we slightly modify the canonical version of BISG, which uses the racial characteristics of the total population (from the decennial census) of a voter’s block group. footnote12_si98ggk 12 Imai and Khanna, “Improving Ecological Inference.” We use geographic population characteristics to estimate the characteristics of voters; thus, the more similar the geographic population we use is to the pool of registered voters, the better we can predict race. The total population can skew estimates where it is different from the citizen voting-age population (CVAP) — for instance, in areas with large noncitizen immigrant populations. We therefore use the CVAP from the five-year American Community Survey (ACS) estimate ending with each election year as our target population for the BISG analyses. In the technical appendix accompanying this report, we show that using CVAP results in better estimates (in states with self-reported race) and that our primary results hold when using total or total adult population.

We calculate turnout rates by dividing the number of ballots cast by members of each racial group by the CVAP from the ACS five-year estimates ending in each election year. footnote13_56nnwlx 13 The Census Bureau did not begin reporting CVAP numbers until 2009, and the 2022 numbers will not be available until early 2024. Therefore, the denominators for 2008 turnout are the five-year 2009 CVAP estimates, while those for 2022 turnout are the 2021 estimates. The Census Bureau publishes CVAP at the block-group level, a low geographic level that roughly corresponds to neighborhoods. (The median block group had a population of 1,248 in 2021.) footnote14_2ugjxtt 14 U.S. Census Bureau, “American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2009–2022),” accessed July 24, 2023, https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-5year.html . In conjunction with the geocoded voter file, we produce detailed turnout estimates for very low geographic units across the nation. footnote15_0wrg1qe 15 This approach has been used in recent political science scholarship. Kevin T. Morris and Kelsey Shoub, “Contested Killings: The Mobilizing Effects of Community Contact with Police Violence,” American Political Science Review  (2023): 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055423000321 ; Eitan D. Hersh and Clayton Nall, “The Primacy of Race in the Geography of Income-Based Voting: New Evidence from Public Voting Records,”  American Journal of Political Science  60, no. 2 (2016): 289–303, https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12179 ; Wendy K. Tam Cho, James G. Gimpel, and Iris S. Hui, “Voter Migration and the Geographic Sorting of the American Electorate,”  Annals of the Association of American Geographers  103, no. 4 (2013): 856–70, https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2012.720229 ; and Jacob R. Brown and Ryan D. Enos, “The Measurement of Partisan Sorting for 180 Million Voters,” Nature Human Behaviour 5, no. 8 (2021): 998–1008, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562–021–01066-z . We also aggregate up to higher geographic levels like counties and states.

Calculating turnout as the share of citizens of voting age in each racial group who participate — and not as the share of registered voters in each group — follows the definition provided by Bernard Fraga in his book, The Turnout Gap . footnote16_s9rp1x8 16 Bernard L. Fraga,  The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 12, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108566483 . We calculate the turnout gap in the same way, by subtracting the turnout rate of each group from the turnout rate of white Americans.

Adjusting the Turnout Gap

In addition to looking at the raw turnout gap, we also present results weighting the gap by the nonwhite share of the population in each state. This lets us determine how much higher overall turnout would have been had nonwhite voters participated at the same rate as white voters and compare the gap’s impact on statewide turnout across states with different racial characteristics. Such estimates rely on two measures. The first is the size of the racial turnout gap. The greater the distance between white and nonwhite turnout, the higher the weighted turnout gap. The second is the relative size of the nonwhite population in a given jurisdiction. Those where the population is less white will have a higher weighted turnout gap. Weighting the turnout gap allows us to compare the impact of the gap on statewide turnout in different sorts of states.

We do not mean to imply that large racial turnout gaps do not matter where minority populations are small. For example, Native American turnout rates are lower than those of other groups, a result of centuries of racially discriminatory policymaking. footnote17_il3otxx 17 National Congress of American Indians, “Every Native Vote Counts: Fast Facts,” 2020, http://www.nativevote.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020-Native-Vote-Infographic.pdf ; and James Thomas Tucker, Jacqueline De León, and Dan McCool, Obstacles at Every Turn: Barriers to Political Participation Faced by Native American Voters , Native American Rights Fund, 2020, https://vote.narf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/obstacles_at_every_turn.pdf . However, the Native American population in most states is not large enough to depress overall statewide turnout. Different measures are clearly needed to capture the participatory implications of large turnout gaps on small populations. Despite this limitation, however, weighting the turnout gap offers a way of identifying the states where racial turnout gaps are meaningfully depressing overall turnout numbers.

We weight a jurisdiction’s turnout gap by estimating the jurisdiction’s racial turnout gap and multiplying it by the nonwhite share of the population. Consider, for example, a hypothetical state where white turnout is 60 percent, nonwhite turnout is 50 percent, and 20 percent of the CVAP is nonwhite. The turnout gap is 10 percentage points (60 percent – 50 percent), and the weighted gap is 2 percentage points (10 percentage point turnout gap × 20 percent nonwhite population share). In other words, statewide turnout in this state would have been 2 percentage points higher in the absence of the turnout gap.

II. Participation Rate Differences Across Time

In the analyses that follow, we examine how turnout rates and gaps have evolved since 2008. Data of this kind is not available prior to 2008, making that the earliest year for which voter file snapshots can be used on a nationwide scale. While the Obama presidency probably reduced racial turnout gaps early in our study period, our results indicate that the gap has widened ever since 2014, when a nonwhite presidential candidate was not temporarily reducing these disparities.

General Turnout Gap

Figure 1 plots the national turnout rates among Asian, Black, Latino, and white voters — the ethnic/racial groups for which BISG provides reliable estimates. As figure 1 makes clear, turnout for white and Black voters in the 2008 and 2012 elections, with Obama at the top of the ticket, reached near parity. While turnout rates for Asian and Latino voters lagged white and Black voters, the overall white–nonwhite turnout gap was narrower during these years than in the decade that followed.

Racial Turnout Gap, 2008-2022 line chart

As we discussed above, the majority of the Court in Shelby County pointed to the narrow turnout gaps in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections to argue against the continued necessity of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Of course, political science research has long established that Black voters participate at higher rates when Black candidates are on the ballot; this, as much as anything else, was the likely explanation for the near parity in those years. footnote1_u0sm46z 1 Bobo and Gilliam, “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment”; and Washington, “How Black Candidates Affect Voter Turnout.” Figure 1 makes clear just how narrow the Court’s argument was. In the 2010 election, when Section 5 was still in full force, the white–Black turnout gap was 8 percentage points — four times the size of the gap in 2008. By pointing only to presidential elections with a Black candidate, it focused on elections where factors unrelated to voting rights (temporarily) reduced the racial turnout gap.

While turnout rates have collectively improved since 2012, white turnout has increased the most: from the 2012 to 2020 presidential elections, white turnout rose by 10 percentage points while overall nonwhite turnout went up by less than 8 points. Similarly, from the 2014 to 2022 midterm elections, white turnout rose by 13 points while nonwhite turnout increased by only 8 points. Much of the increase in the gap was concentrated in 2022, perhaps due to the highly contentious round of redistricting leading into that year’s election. All told, the white–nonwhite turnout gap increased from 10 points to 12 points between 2012 and 2020.

The shifts in national turnout rates among different racial groups raise many questions. Black voters, for instance, are generally concentrated in the Northeast and the South, while Latino and Asian communities are larger on the West Coast. Are the differences in racial turnout rates just regional differences? Are voters on the West Coast less likely to participate overall, regardless of their race? Figures 2 and 3 plot the turnout rates for each racial group within each of the country’s broadly defined regions: Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. footnote2_6rgk947 2 We divide states into regions as follows. Northeast: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. South: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. West: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Presidential Election Turnout Rates by Race and Region, 2008-2020 line graphs

Figures 2 and 3 make clear that most of the racial turnout gap is not explained by regional differences. Within each region, white turnout exceeded that of other groups in every year apart from the 2008 and 2012 elections in the South, where Black turnout slightly exceeded white turnout. footnote3_oxof1n6 3 See also Fraga,  The Turnout Gap , 110.

Americans with less education, less money, and fewer resources are less likely to participate in elections. footnote4_524znm5 4 Fraga,  The Turnout Gap ; Yeaji Kim, “Absolutely Relative: How Education Shapes Voter Turnout in the United States,”  Social Indicators Research 168 (2023): 447–69, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205–023–03146–1 ; Alexander K. Mayer, “Does Education Increase Political Participation?,” Journal of Politics  73, no. 3 (2011): 633–45, https://doi.org/10.1017/s002238161100034x ; Robert Paul Hartley, “Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Americans: Changing the Political Landscape,” Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, August 2020, https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/PPC-Voter-Research-Brief-18.pdf ; Henry E. Brady, Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman, “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation,”  American Political Science Review  89, no. 2 (1995): 271–94, https://doi.org/10.2307/2082425 ; and Zachary Markovich and Ariel White, “More Money, More Turnout? Minimum Wage Increases and Voting,” Journal of Politics  84, no. 3 (2022): 1834–38, https://doi.org/10.1086/716291 . The opportunity cost of participating can be higher for Americans with fewer resources. footnote5_wkw982r 5 Scot Schraufnagel, Michael J. Pomante, and Quan Li, “Cost of Voting in the American States: 2022,”  Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy  21, no. 3 (2022): 220–28, https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2022.0041 . Traveling to a polling place, for instance, is harder for people without access to a car; the time cost might be compounded for an individual required to take unpaid time off work to vote. Further, individuals juggling multiple jobs or child-care responsibilities, or who face other demands on their time, might forget to register to vote prior to the deadline. Policies that make it more difficult to vote fall hardest on the people with the fewest resources to dedicate to voting.

Economically disadvantaged voters might also abstain from participating because of alienation from government and a political system that in many ways fails to reflect their policy preferences. footnote6_pj36wi8 6 Suzanne Mettler and Mallory SoRelle, “Policy Feedback Theory,” chapter 3 in  Theories of the Policy Process , Christopher M. Weible and Paul A. Sabatier, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2018), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429494284–4 ; Suzanne Mettler and Joe Soss, “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics,”  Perspectives on Politics  2, no. 1 (2004): 55–73, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592704000623 ; and Joe Soss and Lawrence R. Jacobs, “The Place of Inequality: Non-participation in the American Polity,”  Political Science Quarterly  124, no. 1 (2009): 95–125, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538–165x.2009.tb00643.x . Regressive policies, such as campaign finance rules that favor wealthy donors and corporate entities or aggressive partisan gerrymandering, send messages to voters that politicians do not care about their needs. As Soss and Jacobs observe, policies that do not address voters’ pressing challenges can “foster atomized publics with little sense of what they have in common and at stake in politics and government.” footnote7_wocmcec 7 Soss and Jacobs, “The Place of Inequality,” 110. The same is true when voters think of the government as something that happens to , and not with , them. In some communities, for example, a constant and aggressive police presence teaches citizens that government is something imposed on them, not something that they can control. footnote8_afko39b 8 Monica C. Bell, “Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement,”  Yale Law Journal  (2017): 2054–2150, https://www.jstor.org/stable/45222555 ; Brie McLemore, “Procedural Justice, Legal Estrangement, and the Black People’s Grand Jury,”  Virginia Law Review  105, no. 2 (2019): 371–95, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26842242 ; Robert J. Sampson and Dawn Jeglum Bartusch, “Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences,”  Law and Society Review 32, no. 4 (1998): 777–804, https://doi.org/10.2307/827739 ; and Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver,  Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

As a result of centuries of racially discriminatory policymaking, including when only white people were permitted by law to vote or make policy, racial and ethnic minorities are over-represented in populations where economic and other social precarities are common. footnote9_p6o6udn 9 Richard Rothstein,  The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2017), https://wwnorton.com/books/the-color-of-law ; Jacob W. Faber, “We Built This: Consequences of New Deal Era Intervention in America’s Racial Geography,”  American Sociological Review  85, no. 5 (2020): 739–75, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420948464 ; Daniel Aaronson et al., “The Long-Run Effects of the 1930s HOLC ‘Redlining’ Maps on Place-Based Measures of Economic Opportunity and Socioeconomic Success,”  Regional Science and Urban Economics  86 (2021): 103622, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103622 ; and Solomon Greene, Margery Austin Turner, and Ruth Gourevitch, “Racial Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Disparities,” US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty, August 29, 2017, https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/92961/racial-residential-segregation-and-neighborhood-disparities.pdf . Given that social disadvantages can undermine democratic participation, do socioeconomic factors explain the racial turnout gap? They do explain some of it: turnout in the bottom income quartile in 2022 was 32 percent, compared with 58 percent in the top income quartile. The bottom quartile was also considerably less white (the CVAP was 53 percent white compared with 72 percent white in the top quartile). But we find that there are turnout gaps between racial groups living in socioeconomically similar neighborhoods, which indicates that these characteristics can’t entirely explain such gaps.

While the voter file does not include information about voters’ economic status or education, ACS five-year estimates from the Census Bureau reveal the income and education characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they live. We break out turnout gaps by census tract in figures 4 and 5 to test whether neighborhood characteristics influence turnout. footnote10_9sd443r 10 U.S. Census Bureau, “Census Tracts,” accessed January 5, 2023, https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/education/CensusTracts.pdf (explaining that “census tracts are small, relatively permanent statistical subdivisions of a county. [They] average about 4,000 inhabitants.”). We first plot the turnout gap for different races in neighborhoods based on the median household income, with the first quartile being the lowest-income neighborhoods and the fourth quartile being the highest.

Racial Turnout Gap Across Income Quartiles, 2008-2022 line chart

Figure 4 makes immediately clear that the turnout gap is not driven simply by the fact that voters of color live in lower-income neighborhoods: a persistent turnout gap has grown steadily in each income quartile over the past decade. Outside the highest-income areas, the white–Black turnout gap closed prior to 2014, though it has subsequently grown. While white–nonwhite turnout rates approached parity in the early parts of the past decade among voters living in low-income neighborhoods, the same is not true in high-income neighborhoods, which have consistently had the largest turnout gaps. The white–nonwhite turnout gap exceeded 15 percentage points in 2022’s midterm election among voters living in the highest-income parts of the country. footnote11_hctswol 11 While there is recent scholarship arguing that BISG misclassifies nonwhite individuals as white in wealthy areas, we show in the appendix that the same relationships between socioeconomic characteristics and turnout gaps remain when looking only at states with self-reported race. See Lisa P. Argyle and Michael Barber, “Misclassification and Bias in Predictions of Individual Ethnicity from Administrative Records,”  American Political Science Review  (May 15, 2023): 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055423000229 .

The trends in the white–Asian turnout gap, broken out by income, tell a different story. As figure 1 shows, the overall white–Asian turnout gap narrowed from 14 points in 2016 to just 8 points in 2020. Figure 4 shows, however, that increased participation rates were largely concentrated among Asian voters living in high-income neighborhoods. For Asian Americans living in the lowest-income neighborhoods, the gap grew between 2016 and 2020.

Neighborhood estimates of education level similarly cannot fully explain the turnout gap, as seen in figure 5. When we split tracts into quartiles based on the proportion of the adult population that has at least a bachelor’s degree, turnout gaps remain for all groups. Similar to the trends across income level, the white–nonwhite turnout gap is largest among voters living in the highest-educated neighborhoods. And, while the gaps may be smaller in lower-education neighborhoods, those are also the neighborhoods where the gap is growing most rapidly. Further, reductions in the white–Asian turnout gap are almost entirely concentrated among voters in the highest-educated neighborhoods. While the white–Asian gap is substantially larger than that of other racial and ethnic groups among voters living in all but the most educated areas, it has consistently been close to or smaller than the white–Latino gap in high-education neighborhoods.

Weighted Turnout Gaps

Figure 6 shows how the turnout gap impacted statewide turnout in the 2020 presidential (left-hand panel) and 2022 midterm (right-hand panel) elections. We break states out according to whether they were entirely, partially, or not covered by the preclearance condition of the Voting Rights Act prior to Shelby County . Nationally, turnout would have been 4 percentage points higher in 2020 and 6 percentage points higher in 2022 if nonwhite voters had participated at the same rate as white voters. These figures are particularly striking considering that turnout in these elections was at near-record highs; in fact, turnout in 2020 was the highest in at least a century. And yet, had voters of color participated at the same rates as white voters in 2020, 9.3 million more ballots would have been cast, and in 2022 that figure would have been 13.9 million. White turnout exceeded nonwhite turnout in every single state except Hawaii in 2022.

Weighted Turnout Gap, 2020-2022 bar charts

Figure 6 indicates that the weighted turnout gap was not uniformly distributed across states. It was largest in Alaska in 2020 and Florida in 2022. New Mexico and Texas had the second- and third-largest gap in both elections. These states are home to large nonwhite populations, so their presence at the top is unsurprising given that the relative size of the nonwhite population directly contributes to the influence of the racial turnout gap on overall participation rates. Another striking feature of this figure, however, is the concentration of high weighted gaps in states in the West; generally speaking, the impact of the racial turnout gap on statewide turnout was larger in states where Latinos make up a large share of the nonwhite population. This corresponds with results presented in the previous section: although Latino turnout rates were not markedly different in different regions, Latinos make up a larger share of the population in the West, exerting a larger influence on statewide turnout in those states.

Figure 6 also makes clear just how distinct the states formerly covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act remain. The formerly covered states have large nonwhite populations and large turnout gaps, leading to some of the largest statewide turnout distortions in the nation. Put differently, a decade after Shelby County , the turnout gap continues to have a disproportionate impact in precisely the parts of the country that were once covered due to their histories of racially discriminatory voting practices.

Figures 7 and 8 break down the weighted turnout gaps in 2020 and 2022, respectively, based on which group formed the largest nonwhite racial or ethnic group in the state. The weighted gap is consistently highest in states where Latinos were the largest nonwhite group. Once again, the impact of the racial turnout gap on statewide participation rates is highest in the parts of the country that were covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. (In these charts, “other” includes all states where a group other than Black or Latino Americans is the single largest nonwhite group.)

Weighted Turnout Gap by Largest Nonwhite Racial or Ethnic Group, 2020 & 2022 bar charts

Figure 9 shows how the weighted gap has evolved over the past 15 years. We break the trends out into four major regions. The figure indicates that the weighted gap has grown nearly everywhere, just as the raw racial turnout gap has. By way of reminder, the growth in the weighted gap is driven both by changes in the turnout gap and by changes in the nonwhite share of the population; if the turnout rate is constant but the nonwhite share of the population grows, the effect of the turnout gap on statewide turnout increases.

Weighted Turnout Gap by Region, 2008-2022 line graph

III. The Effects of Shelby County v. Holder

See the academic working paper for a more in-depth discussion of the theory, methods, and results included in this section.

Prior to 2013, states and localities with a history of racial discrimination in their voting practices were required to clear any changes to their electoral policies before they could go into effect. Over the past decade, since the Supreme Court suspended preclearance, nearly 30 laws that make voting more difficult have gone into effect in states formerly covered under Section 5. footnote1_36rb6mn 1 Jasleen Singh and Sara Carter, “States Have Added Nearly 100 Restrictive Laws Since SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act 10 Years Ago,” Brennan Center for Justice, June 23, 2023, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/states-have-added-nearly-100-restrictive-laws-scotus-gutted-voting-rights .

These formal changes in laws may be just the tip of the iceberg. County-level administrators have a great amount of discretion over how elections are run, deciding such things as the movement or even closure of polling places. footnote2_5jj8ext 2 Ariel R. White, Noah L. Nathan, and Julie K. Faller, “What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials,”  American Political Science Review  109, no. 1 (2015): 129–42, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055414000562 ; and Markie McBrayer, R. Lucas Williams, and Andrea Eckelman, “Local Officials as Partisan Operatives: The Effect of County Officials on Early Voting Administration,”  Social Science Quarterly  101, no. 4 (2020): 1475–88, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12815 . Such discretionary modifications are not reflected in changes to statewide voting law, but they would have been subject to preclearance in covered jurisdictions prior to the Shelby County decision.

Because jurisdictions are no longer required to report and submit these changes to the federal government for analysis of their potentially discriminatory effects, researchers have struggled to assess the total impact this Supreme Court decision has had on voters of color. By evaluating the decision’s effects on the racial turnout gap, we are able to provide at least one measure that necessarily takes account of all changes in voting, whether statutory or otherwise. Our unique data set allows us to conduct this analysis for the first time.

As we showed in the previous sections, places formerly covered by Section 5 had the highest weighted turnout gaps in 2020 and 2022. But that doesn’t necessarily prove that the elimination of the preclearance regime caused the gaps in these places to grow; it’s possible that these places already had higher than average turnout gaps prior to 2013, for instance, or that the gaps in places with large Black populations would have increased the most over the past decade even if the preclearance system had continued.

To test the effect of the Shelby County decision more directly, we calculate the white–nonwhite and white–Black turnout gap for every county in the country for each election between 2008 and 2022. footnote3_d0lqn3r 3 The weighted turnout gap is driven in part by the nonwhite share of the population in a given jurisdiction. Given that Shelby County could not realistically have impacted this characteristic, we do not test the impact of the Court’s decision on the weighted turnout gap. We focus in this section on the white–nonwhite and white–Black gaps for two reasons. First, most of these regions were covered under Section 5 specifically because of discrimination against Black Americans. Second, Black Americans make up half of the nonwhite population in these counties, compared with just 25 percent in the rest of the country (see table A5 in the appendix). The relatively small size of the other groups makes studying their specific gaps more statistically challenging. But the counties formerly covered by Section 5 differed socioeconomically in important ways from the rest of the country. footnote4_1fsg5fo 4 Throughout this section, we include in the covered group counties that were not covered but whose state’s policies were subject to preclearance (because another county in the state was covered), unless otherwise noted. They were, for instance, on average 16.7 percent Black, compared with just 3.4 percent for non-covered counties. Covered counties voted for Barack Obama at higher rates, and were also younger, than uncovered counties. Because of these differences, we might expect the turnout gap to evolve in formerly covered counties in the post– Shelby County period in distinct ways from the rest of the country. Take, for instance, the Black share of the population. Given our expectation that Obama’s candidacy reduced the white–Black turnout gap, we would expect the turnout gap to grow the most quickly in the post-Obama era in areas with large Black populations. Put differently, there might have been forces other than Shelby County disproportionately increasing the turnout gap in formerly covered jurisdictions.

To account for the differences between covered and non-covered counties, we use a tool called entropy balancing. This lets us weight the counties that were not covered so that they resemble the covered ones, based on 2012 (that is, pre- Shelby County ) characteristics. For a much more detailed discussion of our methodology, a balance table, and various robustness checks, see the appendix.

Figure 10 plots the trends in the white–Black turnout gap over time for counties covered under Section 5 and the (weighted) ones that were not. The white–Black gap before Shelby County was more than 3 points higher in covered counties than in counties that were not covered. By way of reminder, the Supreme Court wrote in Shelby County that the turnout gaps in formerly covered jurisdictions appeared to be in line with the rest of the country. While there was some truth to that point, it ignored the important socioeconomic differences between this region and the rest of the country. Figure 10 indicates that — after accounting for these differences — conditions in Section 5 jurisdictions were considerably worse than in the rest of the country even before Shelby County .

White-Black Turnout Gap Time Series line chart

While the figure visually indicates that the turnout gaps might have grown more in places formerly covered by Section 5 than in others, Shelby County is clearly not the sole driver of the increasing turnout disparities. That’s not necessarily surprising: as discussed above, new restrictive voting laws have gone into effect all around the country over the past decade, not only in formerly covered states, and this could be responsible for some of the upward trends in the gap.

However, the Supreme Court decision could be exacerbating underlying trends. To test this possibility, we use a “difference-in-differences” design. footnote5_ycx3zum 5 Brantly Callaway and Pedro H. C. Sant’Anna, “Difference-in-Differences with Multiple Time Periods,”  Journal of Econometrics  225, no. 2 (2021): 200–230, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2020.12.001 . We begin from the assumption that the turnout gaps in covered and non-covered counties would have evolved in parallel if the Court hadn’t invalidated Section 4b, net of controlling for other relevant characteristics. The plausibility of this assumption is bolstered by the fact that, as figure 10 shows, the gaps went up and down in virtual lockstep prior to 2013. This doesn’t mean that the gaps in the two sets of counties would have been the same; as figure 10 makes clear, the formerly covered counties had higher gaps even prior to Shelby County (once we weighted the other counties appropriately). If the post– Shelby County differences between covered and non-covered counties increased to a great enough extent, we could conclude that Shelby County had a causal impact on the turnout gap.

Our statistical models (which include county and year fixed effects) indicate that Shelby County caused a statistically significant increase in both the white–Black and the white–nonwhite turnout gaps. In the non-covered counties, the white–nonwhite and white–Black turnout gaps grew by 5 and 6 percentage points between 2012 and 2022, respectively; in the covered counties, however, the comparable figures were 9 and 11 points, respectively. In other words, by 2022, the white–nonwhite turnout gap grew about 4 points larger and the white–Black gap 5 points larger in the formerly covered counties than they would have if Shelby County hadn’t been handed down. They grew at a substantially quicker pace than similar, non-covered counties. Over the post-treatment period as a whole, the average treatment effect on the treated counties was about 2 points, which is statistically significant at the 99 percent confidence level.

In addition to these overall effects, we also conclude that the effects of Shelby County were largest in exactly the sorts of counties we would expect. We start from the observation that Shelby County could have had different effects in different sorts of counties. Many counties were fully covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; any changes to their local election practices needed to be precleared by the federal government. There were, however, other counties that were not covered by Section 5, but where the decision might still have had an impact: non-covered counties in states that were partially covered by Section 5. That’s because the Supreme Court ruled in Monterey County v. Lopez that all statewide voting policies were subject to review if even a single county in the state was covered by Section 5. footnote6_w62imy6 6 Monterey County v. Lopez, 525 U.S. 266 (1999). In Florida, for instance, only five counties were formally covered by preclearance. Nevertheless, Section 5 blocked the state’s 2002 House district maps. These uncovered counties in partially covered states could therefore make local decisions without getting preclearance from the federal government, but state policies impacting the administration of elections in these counties were subject to such approval. Because Shelby County didn’t impact these uncovered counties as much, we would expect the decision to have a muted effect in these places.

Table 1 indicates that the effect of Shelby County was indeed muted in counties that were not covered by Section 5 but were in partially covered states. In fact, the coefficients on State Covered × Post Shelby County are not statistically significant in the white–nonwhite gap model. We do, however, find that Shelby County meaningfully increased the turnout gaps in counties where both state and local practices were subject to preclearance.

Shelby County's Larger Impact in Counties with Objection Letters table

Our second extension deals with Section 5 objection letters from the years prior to Shelby County . Before Section 4b was invalidated, localities would receive an “objection letter” from the federal government if a proposed change was not cleared under the preclearance condition. Put differently, these objection letters identified policies with racially disparate impacts and stopped them from going into effect. We would expect that Shelby County would have a larger effect in counties that tried to enact a racially regressive policy in the years when they were still covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. To avoid the possibility that objection letters are simply identifying the counties that were directly covered by Section 5, we do not include the uncovered counties in partially covered states in this analysis (these counties did not need to preclear changes and thus would not have received objection letters).

Table 2 indicates that this was the case. Shelby County did increase the white–nonwhite turnout gap even in counties without an objection letter. But the gaps went up considerably more in the counties that did have an objection letter: by an additional 1.8 points (for the white–Black gap) and 1.6 points (for the white–nonwhite gap).

Shelby County's Larger Impact in Counties with Objection Letters table

That the causal effect of Shelby County on the white–nonwhite turnout gap is significant only in the fully covered counties, and not in the uncovered counties in partially covered states, underscores the importance of local election administration for participation rates. So too does our finding that the gap increase was concentrated in counties that tried to implement discriminatory changes under Section 5. County-level coverage, not constraints on statewide policy, appear to have been the drivers of post- Shelby County turnout gap increases.

In the appendix, we show that the finding that Shelby County increased the turnout gaps is robust to many robustness checks.

If the United States wants to make good on its foundational claims of a democratic system of governance open to all citizens, it must find ways to close the racial turnout gap. Wider now than at any point in at least the past 16 years, the gap costs millions of votes from Americans of color all around the country. Perhaps most worrisome of all, the gap is growing most quickly in parts of the country that were previously covered under the preclearance regime of the 1965 Voting Rights Act until the disastrous Shelby County ruling.

This report gives us a better look at the contours of the racial turnout gap than ever before and throws the severity of the problem into stark relief. We urge scholars to continue to study the myriad drivers of the turnout gap, from statewide policies to local election practices, from language barriers to disaffection from the criminal justice system; without a full understanding of the causes, we cannot develop solutions that will permanently ensure political representation for Americans of all races.

Importantly, as we’ve shown, socioeconomics can’t fully explain the gap; the gap remains in high- and low-income neighborhoods alike. We do, however, prove one of the causes of the increasing racial turnout gap: the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County . There is no doubt that the end of federal preclearance in regions with histories of racial discrimination increased the racial turnout gap. We argue that this is due to changes both in state policy and in local election practices. A fully functional Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act would improve conditions in areas where racial discrimination remains in voting policy. We urge Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to update and restore the preclearance regime for the 21st century.

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Framework for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Review: Evaluation

Methods Research Reports

Investigators: Karen A Robinson , PhD, Oluwaseun Akinyede , MPH, Tania Dutta , MS, MPP, Veronica Ivey Sawin , BA, Tianjing Li , MD, PhD, Merianne Rose Spencer , BS, Charles M Turkelson , PhD, and Christine Weston , PhD.

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Structured Abstract

Background:.

Research gaps prevent systematic reviewers from making conclusions and, ultimately, limit our ability to make informed health care decisions. While there are well-defined methods for conducting a systematic review, there has been no explicit process for the identification of research gaps from systematic reviews. In a prior project we developed a framework to facilitate the systematic identification and characterization of research gaps from systematic reviews. This framework uses elements of PICOS (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Setting) to describe the gaps and categorizes the reasons for the gaps as (A) insufficient or imprecise information, (B) biased information, (C) inconsistent or unknown consistency results, and/or (D) not the right information.

To further develop and evaluate a framework for the identification and characterization of research gaps from systematic reviews.

We conducted two types of evaluation: (1) We applied the framework to existing systematic reviews, and (2) Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) applied the framework either during a systematic review or during a future research needs project (FRN). EPCs provided feedback on the framework using an evaluation form.

Our application of the framework to 50 systematic reviews identified about 600 unique research gaps. Key issues emerging from this evaluation included the need to clarify instructions for dealing with multiple comparisons (lumping vs. splitting) and need for guidance on applying the framework retrospectively. We received evaluation forms from seven EPCs. EPCs applied the framework in 8 projects, five of which were FRNs. Challenges identified by the EPCs led to revisions in the instructions including guidance for teams to decide a priori whether to limit the use of the framework to questions for which strength of evidence has been assessed, and the level of detail needed for the characterization of the gaps.

Conclusions:

Our team evaluated a revised framework, and developed guidance for its application. A final version is provided that incorporates revisions based on use of the framework across existing systematic reviews and feedback from other EPCs on their use of the framework. Future research is needed to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of using the framework, for review authors and for users of the systematic reviews.

  • Collapse All
  • Acknowledgments
  • Peer Reviewers
  • Introduction
  • Review and Revise Framework and Develop Detailed Instructions
  • Test Framework and Instructions Through Application to Existing Systematic Reviews
  • Evaluate Implementation of Framework
  • Revise and Finalize Framework and Instructions
  • Peer Review and Public Commentary
  • Key Findings
  • Limitations
  • Future Research
  • Implications for Practice
  • Conclusions
  • Appendix A JHU EPC Frameworks Project: Research Gaps Worksheet and Instructions (Original)
  • Appendix B JHU EPC Framework Evaluation Form
  • Appendix C JHU EPC Frameworks Project: Research Gaps Worksheet and Instructions
  • Appendix D Listing of Reviews Included in Retrospective Application of Framework
  • Appendix E Detailed Analysis of Evaluation of the Use of the Research Gaps Framework by Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs)
  • Appendix F JHU EPC Frameworks Project: Research Gaps Worksheet and Instructions (Final)

Prepared for: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1 , Contract No. 290-2007-10061-I. Prepared by: Johns Hopkins University Evidence-based Practice Center, Baltimore, MD

Suggested citation:

Robinson KA, Akinyede O, Dutta T, Sawin VI, Li T, Spencer MR, Turkelson CM, Weston C. Framework for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Review: Evaluation. Methods Research Report. (Prepared by Johns Hopkins University Evidence-based Practice Center under Contract No. 290-2007-10061-I.) AHRQ Publication No. 13-EHC019-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Health care Research and Quality. February 2013. www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/reports/final.cfm .

This report is based on research conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) under contract to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Rockville, MD (Contract No. 290-2007-10061-I). The findings and conclusions in this document are those of the authors, who are responsible for its contents; the findings and conclusions do not necessarily represent the views of AHRQ. Therefore, no statement in this report should be construed as an official position of AHRQ or of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The information in this report is intended to help health care decisionmakers—patients and clinicians, health system leaders, and policymakers, among others—make well informed decisions and thereby improve the quality of health care services. This report is not intended to be a substitute for the application of clinical judgment. Anyone who makes decisions concerning the provision of clinical care should consider this report in the same way as any medical reference and in conjunction with all other pertinent information, i.e., in the context of available resources and circumstances presented by individual patients.

This report may be used, in whole or in part, as the basis for development of clinical practice guidelines and other quality enhancement tools, or as a basis for reimbursement and coverage policies. AHRQ or U.S. Department of Health and Human Services endorsement of such derivative products may not be stated or implied.

None of the investigators have any affiliations or financial involvement that conflicts with the material presented in this report.

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  • Cite this Page Robinson KA, Akinyede O, Dutta T, et al. Framework for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Review: Evaluation [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2013 Feb.
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International Women’s Day: What is it and why do we need it?

International Women’s Day is observed on 8 March every year.

International Women’s Day is observed on 8 March every year. Image:  Unsplash/ThisisEngineering RAEng

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This article was first published in 2022 and updated.

  • 8 March is International Women’s Day – devoted to celebrating the achievements of women and seeking gender equality.
  • The campaign theme in 2024 is #InspireInclusion , while the official theme of the UN observance of the day is ‘ Invest in women: Accelerate progress ’.
  • It will take another 131 years to reach gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023 .

Gender equality is central to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) – and a perennial item on the Secretary-General's annual priority list.

SDG5 calls for the world to " Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls " by 2030.

Empowering women can boost economies and help the peace process, believes António Guterres, but it needs to happen faster.

"We are promoting women's full and equal participation and leadership in all sectors of society, as a matter of urgency," he told the UN General Assembly, outlining the agency's priorities on 7 February 2024.

It will take another 131 years to reach gender parity , according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023.

The continued fight for women’s rights is marked each year by International Women’s Day (IWD).

What is International Women’s Day and when did it start?

IWD takes place on 8 March every year.

It began life as National Women’s Day in the United States back in February 1909. The following year, at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, women’s rights activist Clara Zetkin called for an international women’s day to give women a greater voice to further their demands for equal rights.

It was unanimously approved by the female attendees from 17 countries, including Finland’s first three women MPs. International Women’s Day was marked for the first time in March 1911 – and the date was fixed as 8 March in 1913. The UN celebrated it for the first time in 1975 and in 1996 it announced its first annual theme: "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future".

How is the day marked around the world?

International Women’s Day is celebrated as a national holiday by countries across the globe, with women often given flowers and gifts – and there are IWD events in major cities worldwide .

On 8 March 1914, there was a women’s suffrage march in London, calling for women’s right to vote, at which high-profile campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested.

In 2001, the internationalwomensday.com platform was launched to reignite attention for the day, celebrate women’s achievements and continue to call for gender parity.

On the centenary in 2011, sitting US President Barack Obama called for March to be known as Women’s History Month. He said: “History shows that when women and girls have access to opportunity , societies are more just, economies are more likely to prosper, and governments are more likely to serve the needs of all their people.”

The World Economic Forum has been measuring gender gaps since 2006 in the annual Global Gender Gap Report .

The Global Gender Gap Report tracks progress towards closing gender gaps on a national level. To turn these insights into concrete action and national progress, we have developed the Gender Parity Accelerator model for public private collaboration.

These accelerators have been convened in twelve countries across three regions. Accelerators are established in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, Egypt and Jordan in the Middle East and North Africa, and Japan and Kazakhstan in Asia.

All Country Accelerators, along with Knowledge Partner countries demonstrating global leadership in closing gender gaps, are part of a wider ecosystem, the Global Learning Network, that facilitates exchange of insights and experiences through the Forum’s platform.

Have you read?

In these countries CEOs and ministers are working together in a three-year time frame on policies that help to further close the economic gender gaps in their countries. This includes extended parental leave, subsidized childcare and making recruitment, retention and promotion practices more gender inclusive.

If you are a business in one of the Gender Parity Accelerator countries you can join the local membership base.

If you are a business or government in a country where we currently do not have a Gender Parity Accelerator you can reach out to us to explore opportunities for setting one up.

What is the theme of International Women’s Day in 2024?

Each year, there are effectively two different themes: one proposed as a campaign theme by the IWD website, which this year is #InspireInclusion , and the UN's official, which this year is " Invest in women: Accelerate progress ".

UN Women and the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs jointly publish an annual update on the progress towards SDG5.

In the latest – Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023 – they reveal there's an "alarming" $360 billion annual deficit in spending on gender-equality measures.

A gender-focused SDG stimulus package to deliver transformational results for women, girls and societies.

UN Women has outlined areas that need joint action to ensure women are not left behind:

Investing in women: A human rights issue

"Gender equality remains the greatest human rights challenge. Investing in women is a human rights imperative and cornerstone for building inclusive societies. Progress for women benefits us all."

Implementing gender-responsive financing

"Due to conflicts and rising fuel and food prices, recent estimates suggest that 75% of countries will curb public spending by 2025 . Austerity negatively impacts women and crowds out public spending on essential public services and social protection."

Shifting to a green and caring economy

"The current economic system exacerbates poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation , disproportionately affecting women and marginalized groups. Advocates for alternative economic models propose a shift towards a green and caring economy that amplifies women’s voices."

Supporting feminist change-makers

"Feminist organizations are leading efforts to tackle women’s poverty and inequality. However, they are running on empty, receiving a meagre 0.13% of total official development assistance ."

What is the state of gender parity globally?

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2023 found that, although the global parity score has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, "the overall rate of change has slowed down significantly".

The index benchmarks 146 countries across four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment) and tracks progress towards closing gender gaps over time.

Of the four gaps tracked, Political Empowerment remains the largest, with only 22.1% closed – a 0.1 percentage point increase on 2022.

The gender health gap: It's more than a women’s issue. Here’s why

Why clear job descriptions matter for gender equality, buses are key to fuelling indian women's economic success. here's why, what is the gender pay gap.

The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remained the second largest of the gaps, with only 60.1% closed so far (up slightly from 58% in 2022). The pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis is having a disproportionate impact on women .

The gender pay gap is the “difference between the average pay of men and women within a particular group or population” according to the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equal pay in the UK.

Each year, the charity marks Equal Pay Day in the UK, the day of the year at which women stop earning relative to men. In 2023, that date was 22 November.

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License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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No equality for working women in any country in the world, study reveals

Global gender gap is far bigger than previously thought, as annual World Bank report takes childcare and safety issues into account for first time

No country in the world affords women the same opportunities as men in the workforce, according to a new report from the World Bank , which found the global gender gap was far wider than previously thought.

Closing the gap could raise global gross domestic product by more than 20%, said the report.

For the first time, the bank investigated the impact of childcare and safety policies on women’s participation in the labour market in 190 countries. It found that when these two factors were taken into account, women on average enjoyed just 64% of the legal protections men do, down from the previous estimate of 77%.

Report author Tea Trumbic said childcare and safety issues particularly affected women’s ability to work. Violence could physically prevent them from going to work, and childcare costs could make it prohibitive.

The 10th edition of the women, business and the law report , published on Monday, also for the first time assessed the gap between laws and the policies put in place to implement them. It found countries had, on average, established less than 40% of the systems needed for full implementation.

While 95 countries enacted laws on equal pay, only 35 had measures in place to ensure the pay gap was addressed. Globally, women earned just 77 cents of each dollar earned by a man.

Many sub-Saharan African countries had seen rapid progress in the reform of laws in recent years, said the study, but had the largest gap between legislation and implementation.

Togo had the highest number of laws in sub-Saharan Africa, giving women 77% of the legal rights of men, but had structures in place to implement just a quarter of them.

“We’ve seen a consistent reform effort from several African countries … this year the report really highlights Togo and Sierra Leone that had really big shifts in the last three to four years,” said Trumbic. “But the supportive frameworks are largely lacking. So that’s why the implementation gap is even larger in countries that reformed recently because they’ve raised the standard in their laws, but they don’t have the supportive mechanisms to implement them.”

Addressing the childcare gap would immediately lead to a 1% increase in women’s participation in the labour force. The report said less than half the countries had financial support or tax relief for parents of young children and less than a third had quality standards in place for childcare that could assure parents of their children’s safety.

In 81 countries, a woman’s pension benefits do not account for periods of work absences related to childcare.

The report said that while 151 countries had laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, only 40 had laws that covered abuse in public areas or on public transport, meaning women were not protected on their way to work.

“All over the world, discriminatory laws and practices prevent women from working or starting businesses on an equal footing with men,” said Indermit Gill, chief economist of the World Bank Group. “Closing this gap could raise global gross domestic product by more than 20% – essentially doubling the global growth rate over the next decade – but reforms have slowed to a crawl.”

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State of the union 2024: where americans stand on the economy, immigration and other key issues.

President Joe Biden delivered last year's State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 7, 2023. Ahead of this year's address, Americans are focused the economy, immigration and conflicts abroad. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden will deliver his third State of the Union address on March 7. Ahead of the speech, Americans are focused on the health of the economy and the recent surge of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as ongoing conflicts abroad.

Here’s a look at public opinion on key issues facing the country, drawn from recent Pew Research Center surveys of U.S. adults.

This analysis looks at Americans’ views on a variety of national issues ahead of the annual State of the Union address.

These findings primarily come from a survey of 5,140 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Links to additional ATP surveys used for this analysis, including information about their methodologies, are available in the text.

Economy remains top of mind for most Americans

A bar chart showing that Americans' top policy priority this year is strengthening the economy.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say strengthening the economy should be a top priority for Biden and Congress this year, according to a Center survey conducted in January . Of the 20 policy goals we asked about, no other issue stands out – as has been the case for the past two years .

This assessment comes amid ongoing worries about high prices . Majorities of U.S. adults say they are very concerned about the price of food and consumer goods (72%) and the cost of housing (64%).

Still, views of the economy overall have warmed a bit in the past year. Slightly more than a quarter of Americans (28%) rate U.S. economic conditions as excellent or good, an increase of 9 percentage points since last April. This shift is driven largely by Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents: 44% rate the economy positively, compared with just 13% of Republicans and GOP leaners.

Despite these sharply different assessments, majorities of both Democrats (63%) and Republicans (84%) say strengthening the economy should be a top policy goal this year. These shares are largely unchanged since last year.

Immigration resonates strongly with Republicans

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing that most Democrats and nearly half of Republicans say boosting resources for quicker decisions on asylum cases would improve situation at Mexico border.

About six-in-ten Americans (57%) say dealing with immigration should be a top policy goal for the president and Congress this year, a share that’s increased 18 points (from 39%) since the start of Biden’s term.

This change is almost entirely due to growing concern among Republicans: 76% now say immigration should be a top priority, up from 39% in 2021. By comparison, the 39% of Democrats who cite immigration as a priority has remained fairly stable since 2021.

Related: Latinos’ Views on the Migrant Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The growing number of migrant encounters at the southern border has emerged as a key issue in the 2024 election cycle. Biden and former President Donald Trump, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, both visited the border on Feb. 29 .

Eight-in-ten U.S. adults say the federal government is doing a bad job dealing with the large number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, including 45% who say it’s doing a very bad job, according to our January survey . Republicans and Democrats alike fault the federal government for its handling of the border situation – 89% and 73%, respectively, say it’s doing a bad job.

The survey also asked Americans to react to nine potential policies that could address the situation at the border, and found broadly positive views of several. Half or more of U.S. adults say the following would make the situation better:

  • Increasing the number of judges and staff to process asylum applications (60%)
  • Creating more opportunities for people to legally immigrate to the U.S. (56%)
  • Increasing deportations of people who are in the country illegally (52%)

Fewer than two-in-ten say any of these proposals would make the situation worse.

Terrorism and crime are growing concerns, particularly among Republicans

A line chart showing that, since 2021, concerns about crime have grown among both Republicans and Democrats.

About six-in-ten U.S. adults say defending the country from future terrorist attacks (63%) and reducing crime (58%) should be political priorities this year. But Republicans place more emphasis on these issues than Democrats.

Republicans’ concerns about terrorism have risen 11 points since last year – 76% now say it should be a top policy priority, up from 65% then. By comparison, about half of Democrats (51%) say defending against terrorism should be a priority this year, while 55% said this last year.

Concerns about crime have risen somewhat in both parties since the start of Biden’s presidency. About seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) say reducing crime should be a top priority this year, up 13 points since 2021. And 47% of Democrats say the same, up 8 points since 2021.

Most Americans see current foreign conflicts as important to U.S. interests

A dot plot showing that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to see Russia-Ukraine war as important.

As Biden urges Congress to pass emergency foreign aid , about three-quarters of Americans see the war between Israel and Hamas (75%), the tensions between China and Taiwan (75%), and the war between Russia and Ukraine (74%) as somewhat or very important to U.S. national interests, according to a separate Center survey from January .

Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely to see the Israel-Hamas war and China-Taiwan tensions as important to national interests. But Democrats are more likely than Republicans to describe the war in Ukraine this way (81% vs. 69%).

In a late 2023 survey , 48% of Republicans said the U.S. was giving too much support to Ukraine, while just 16% of Democrats said the same. This partisan gap has grown steadily wider since the beginning of the war.

Related: Americans’ Views of the Israel-Hamas War

Republicans and Democrats alike prioritize limiting money in politics

A dot plot showing that Democrats and Republicans alike say major donors, lobbyists have too much influence on Congress.

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) – including similar shares of Democrats (65%) and Republicans (60%) – say reducing the influence of money in politics should be a top policy goal this year.   

Most Americans (72%) favor spending limits for political campaigns, according to a July 2023 Center survey . Eight-in-ten also say major campaign donors have too much influence over decisions that members of Congress make, while 73% say lobbyists and special interest groups have too much influence.

And 81% of Americans, including majorities in both parties, rate members of Congress poorly when it comes to keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work as public servants.

Wide partisan gaps on climate policy

A dot plot showing that Republicans rank climate change at the bottom of their priorities for the president and Congress in 2024.

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say protecting the environment (63% vs. 23%) and dealing with climate change (59% vs. 12%) should be top policy priorities for 2024. In fact, addressing climate change ranks last on Republicans’ list of priorities this year.

Views of the Biden administration’s current climate policies also differ sharply by party. Eight-in-ten Democrats say the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change, compared with 29% of Republicans, according to a Center survey from spring 2023 .

Overall, a majority of U.S. adults (67%) support prioritizing the development of renewable energy , such as wind and solar, over expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas. But Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to prefer this (90% vs. 42%). Still, the public overall is hesitant about a full energy transition: Just 31% say the U.S. should phase out fossil fuels completely.

Related: How Republicans view climate change and energy issues

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Striking findings from 2021

Public sees black people, women, gays and lesbians gaining influence in biden era, economy and covid-19 top the public’s policy agenda for 2021, 20 striking findings from 2020, our favorite pew research center data visualizations of 2019, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Public Health

An Emerging Group of Researchers Is Changing Our Understanding of Gun Violence

The Black and Brown Collective was formed to address inequities in the gun violence research community. Its diversity is reflected in its work — and is strengthening the field itself.

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It was a warm summer day in 2021 when graduate student Nazsa Baker got a phone call from a family member that would change her trajectory in urban health. Her older cousin had been shot twice as he left the local corner store, only a few houses down from their grandmother’s home in East Orange, New Jersey. Baker was familiar with this kind of shocking news; she grew up in a community riddled with shootings , which had been her inspiration for pursuing violence prevention work. But her relative’s shooting focused her on the other side of that field: what life is like in the aftermath.

When she got the call, Baker remembered her 35-year-old cousin as a child, running inside their grandmother’s house after being startled by the sound of fireworks, an instinct borne of an upbringing amid gunshots. He survived the shooting, and during his recovery, Baker was able to use her expertise to provide him with information on accessing hospital intervention programs, an often difficult process for survivors to navigate as they heal.

The tragedy in Baker’s family was personal, but it coincided with a pivotal moment: just two years earlier, after decades of political hostility toward federal funding for gun violence research, Congress allowed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to fund those studies for the first time since 1995 . The shift in resources has led to more diversity, Baker said, in both the demographics of researchers and the topics of the research itself. By increasing the number of opportunities for researchers who’ve experienced gun violence, a growing body of research reflects a better understanding of what makes marginalized communities vulnerable to it. Black adults are 10 times more likely than their white peers to die by gun homicide; Black kids in America are nearly four times more likely to die by gunfire than white kids; and suicide by firearm is increasing among Black youth, recent research shows. 

“For a lot of us when we are doing this research, it’s personal,” Baker, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers’ New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, said recently of the importance of racial diversity in firearms research. “We either had someone affected by firearm violence that we know, or communities that we come from have been impacted, and things can happen at the drop of a dime.” 

After struggling for decades to advance their work, experts of color are beginning to close what has long been a notable deficiency of diversity in their field. They are contributing to effective interventions , prevention , and community involvement in solutions. And as they push against the historic disparities within their respective institutions, they are finding support through a burgeoning national network of gun violence researchers — the Black and Brown Collective , launched last year by Dr. Shani Buggs, professor at the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis. To date, the collective supports around 30 Black and Latino gun violence researchers, providing tools for navigating the field, as well as a sense of community.

“The Collective was formed out of frustration, passion, and promise,” Buggs told The Trace in an email. “While the field of gun violence research has been abysmally small compared to the magnitude of the problem, there are even fewer researchers in the field with ties, relationships, and even direct experience in communities with persistent, elevated rates of gun violence.” 

The changing landscape brought on by the CDC funding has led to more diverse scholarship that evaluates interpersonal violence, domestic violence, and policing, forms of firearm violence that disproportionately affect women and people of color . From Baker’s perspective came a dissertation on Black male survivorship in hospital-based violence intervention programs, followed up by a recent research article she co-authored, published last month in The American Journal of Men’s Health. The study explored the quality of life of Black men with gun violence-related injuries, a largely under-researched group. Nearly a dozen qualitative interviews found that the disabilities among this group negatively impacted their perception of their manhood and masculinity.

“I understand that Black men, especially those who are suffering from a firearm-related disability, are hyper-invisible in research,” Baker said. Her work on the health of Black men — bringing them from margin to center — is a direct result of the visibility of the established cohort of researchers in the collective, she said. That dynamic helped her “understand my positionality and intersectionality as a Black woman researcher, researching Black communities.”

Baker’s primary mentor is one of the chairs of the collective, Joseph Richardson, and much of his work reinforces understanding the role of identity in the field. A Philadelphia native, Richardson grew up in a single-parent, working-class family in the 1980s and 90s, decades marked by a devastating increase in citywide firearm violence that was soon inextricable from his youth. He watched as the violence intensified in a few short years and his nearby Black community fell apart.

“Seeing the first person in my neighborhood get shot during the crack era, and watching the aftermath of what the shooting did to him. He just kind of became a zombie, and ultimately he was the first person I knew who was killed on my block,” recalled Richardson, who is a professor of African-American studies, medical anthropology, and epidemiology at the University of Maryland. “That’s the sort of period I came up in.”

In the 90s and early 2000s, Richardson was getting his postgraduate degrees and spent years as an ethnographer in Harlem’s housing projects, some of the most dangerous in the country at the time, work that he recalls with great pride and describes as his “foundation to understanding gun violence as a public health issue.” When he entered the field 25 years ago, diversity in gun research, or even a collective concept of gun violence research as a field, was uncommon.

“When I started early on, the two people that I worked with at my university were Black: Dr. Carnell Cooper and Dr. Tanya Sharpe. Black people have always existed in this space, we have been here,” said Richardson. “We have always been here to support each other, but it has been difficult. That’s why the Black and Brown Collective is so important because it’s providing the space for people who have historically been sidelined.”

As Richardson’s work in the gun violence space was beginning, the field’s pedagogy was also being formed around gun violence prevention, and that moment in time coincided with the politicization of resistance to gun violence research. The 1996 Dickey Amendment deterred gun violence research for decades. While the amendment didn’t completely prohibit research on firearm violence, it created funding obstacles to any research analyzing the implications of firearm access and policy.

Gun violence research funding continues to face political challenges. Last year, House Republicans proposed an appropriations bill to eliminate all gun violence research funding at the Center for Diseases and Control and Prevention. The new effort, coming at the same time that diversity and inclusion practices in higher education are being challenged across the country, threatens the work that Richardson and others have been key to establishing. 

“Researchers of color depend on mentors of color to support us, which is beautiful but also fundamentally inequitable because it puts a huge burden on faculty of color to mitigate the structural challenges,” said Jordan Costa, who lost her father in a shooting when she was 8 and now leverages her lived experience in her role as the senior project manager for Giffords Center for Violence Intervention. “Support for first-generation doctoral students with lived experience is a huge issue, and programs are often designed for people who have the liberty to solely focus on school and have had generations of access to education.”

Costa was introduced to Richardson and the public health approach to gun violence when she was in a college class where Richardson taught about his hospital intervention work. She was inspired to do similar work, particularly bridging the gap for Spanish-speaking victims of violence who struggle to access services because of language barriers. Costa is currently working on her dissertation, a process that was complicated by the pandemic and the difficulties that have arisen as a first-generation doctoral student still navigating the effects of her grief.

For Costa and other members of the collective, their identification with the crisis may be changing the nature of the research itself. 

“A lot of the activism is not rooted in what we say, but the type of research that we do,” said Baker. “So those of us who are more qualitative, our goal is to tell the story, to ensure that it is from the perspective of the participants, and be respectful of those stories. I see that as a form of activism.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misquoted Jordan Costa, and has been amended.

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Storing Guns Safely Could Save Lives. Why Aren't Americans Listening?

Michael D. Anestis has been studying firearm death for nearly 15 years. In an interview with The Trace, he said it's time to change the narrative on risks.

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COMMENTS

  1. What Is A Research Gap (With Examples)

    A research gap is an unanswered question or unresolved problem in a field, which reflects a lack of existing research in that space. The four most common types of research gaps are the classic literature gap, the disagreement gap, the contextual gap and the methodological gap.

  2. How To Find A Research Gap (Tutorial + Examples)

    A research gap refers to an area where there's a lack of settled research, whereas a research topic outlines the focus of a specific study. Despite being different things, these two are related because research gaps are the birthplace of research topics.

  3. Research Gap

    Here are some examples of research gaps that researchers might identify: Theoretical Gap Example: In the field of psychology, there might be a theoretical gap related to the lack of understanding of the relationship between social media use and mental health. Although there is existing research on the topic, there might be a lack of consensus ...

  4. What Is A Research Gap

    A research gap is, simply, a topic or area for which missing or insufficient information limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question. It should not be confused with a research question, however. For example, if we ask the research question of what the healthiest diet for humans is, we would find many studies and possible answers to ...

  5. Methods for Identifying Health Research Gaps, Needs, and Priorities: a

    BACKGROUND. Well-defined, systematic, and transparent methods to identify health research gaps, needs, and priorities are vital to ensuring that available funds target areas with the greatest potential for impact. 1, 2 As defined in the literature, 3, 4 research gaps are defined as areas or topics in which the ability to draw a conclusion for a given question is prevented by insufficient evidence.

  6. Introduction

    A research gap may not be a research need if filling the gap would not be of use to stakeholders that make decisions in health care. The clear and explicit identification of research gaps is a necessary step in developing a research agenda. Evidence reports produced by Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) have always included a future ...

  7. Identifying Research Gaps and Prioritizing Psychological Health

    Establishing the need for the review can be achieved through a research gap analysis or needs assessment. Identification of a gap serves as the first step in developing a new research question.2 Research gaps in health care do not necessarily align directly with research needs. Research gaps are only critical where knowledge gaps substantially ...

  8. Research Gap 101: What Is A Research Gap & How To Find One (With

    Learn what a research gap is, the different types of research gaps (including examples), and how to find a research gap for your dissertation, thesis or rese...

  9. How to Identify a Research Gap

    Identifying a research gap has many potential benefits. 1. Avoid Redundancy in Your Research. Understanding the existing literature helps researchers avoid duplication. This means you can steer clear of topics that have already been extensively studied. This ensures your work is novel and contributes something new to the field.

  10. How to identify research gaps

    About this video. Researching is an ongoing task, as it requires you to think of something nobody else has thought of before. This is where the research gap comes into play. We will explain what a research gap is, provide you with steps on how to identify these research gaps, as well as provide you several tools that can help you identify them.

  11. What is Research Gap and how to identify research gap

    Though there is no well-defined process to find a gap in existing knowledge, your curiosity, creativity, imagination, and judgment can help you identify it. Here are 6 tips to identify research gaps: 1. Look for inspiration in published literature. Read books and articles on the topics that you like the most.

  12. FAQ: What is a research gap and how do I find one?

    A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research ...

  13. What is a Research Gap

    Literature Gap. The expression "literature gap" is used with the same intention as "research gap.". When there is a gap in the research itself, there will also naturally be a gap in the literature. Nevertheless, it is important to stress out the importance of language or text formulations that can help identify a research/literature gap ...

  14. What is a Research Gap? How to Identify it?

    Choosing a topic, research or subject that has not been answered or explored yet by any other scientist is referred to as a research gap. Take a look at the hypothetical closing sentence. "3 common mutations IVS1-5, IVS1-1 and CD8/9 have been selected for the present to screen thalassemia patients. A common mutation IVS1-5 has been identified ...

  15. Find a Research Gap

    Since a research gap is defined by the absence of research on a topic, you will search for articles on everything that relates to your topic. You will: List out all the themes related to your gap. Search different combinations of the themes as you discover them (include search by theme video at bottom) ...

  16. Find Research Gaps in Minutes

    The research gap refers to any yet unexplored or unresolved area of scientific enquiry. Although the number of gaps in research are practically infinite, finding research gaps efficiently is a challenge. Whether or not you've already complied a library of existing literature, finding research gaps is time-consuming work. ...

  17. 3 Ways to Find a Research Gap

    5. Map out the existing research using a table, Venn diagram, or mind map. While this is optional, creating a chart or table may help you better understand the literature. Additionally, it could help you identify common themes and areas that are under-developed. This might help you find a research gap.

  18. Identify Research Gaps

    Your Master's thesis should make a significant, novel contribution to the field. Your thesis hypothesis should address a research gap which you identify in the literature, a research question or problem that has not been answered in your research area of interest.This shows that you have developed expertise in the body of knowledge and theoretical issues in your chosen research area.

  19. (PDF) Types of Research Gaps

    PDF | Miles (2017) proposed a taxonomy of research gaps, built on the two previous models. It consists of seven core research gaps: (a) Evidence Gap;... | Find, read and cite all the research you ...

  20. Research gaps for future research and their identification

    A research gap develops as a result of the design of the study's constraints, the use of poor tools, or external influences that the study could or could not control. Research needs can be viewed ...

  21. How do I write about gaps in research?

    Answer: Before writing about gaps in research, you first need to identify them. Identifying research gaps is often the starting point of research. You identify potential research gaps by going through existing literature in the area you are studying. From the various gaps you identify, you decide to explore one in greater detail in your research.

  22. What is the Difference Between Research Gap and Research Problem

    October 15, 2022. by Hasa. 4 min read. The main difference between research gap and research problem is that a research gap identifies a gap in knowledge about a subject, whereas a research problem identifies and articulates the need for research. Research gap and research problem are two very similar elements of a research study.

  23. Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout, 2008-2022

    The gap in voter participation between Black and white Americans decreased following the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Unfortunately, our research shows that for more than a decade, this trend has been reversing. This report uses data to which few previous researchers have had access to document the racial turnout gap in the 21st century.

  24. Framework for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Review

    Research gaps prevent systematic reviewers from making conclusions and, ultimately, limit our ability to make informed health care decisions. While there are well-defined methods for conducting a systematic review, there has been no explicit process for the identification of research gaps from systematic reviews. In a prior project we developed a framework to facilitate the systematic ...

  25. The Global Women's Health Gap Is Costing Us In Lives And ...

    Closing the women's health gap is a $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies. ... Of the half of the 650 research papers that did show sex-disaggregated data, two thirds showed a ...

  26. International Women's Day: What is it and why do we need it?

    8 March is International Women's Day - devoted to celebrating the achievements of women and seeking gender equality. The campaign theme in 2024 is #InspireInclusion, while the official theme of the UN observance of the day is 'Invest in women: Accelerate progress'.; It will take another 131 years to reach gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023.

  27. No equality for working women in any country in the world, study

    While 95 countries enacted laws on equal pay, only 35 had measures in place to ensure the pay gap was addressed. Globally, women earned just 77 cents of each dollar earned by a man.

  28. What is the Gender Health Gap?

    For International Women's Day this year, we run through the latest research and current statistics to explore the different circumstances in which the gender health gap exists and the probable reasons for the divide. Furthermore, we look at what changes are being made by governments to bridge the gap, working towards the highest-quality and ...

  29. State of the Union 2024

    This partisan gap has grown steadily wider since the beginning of the war. Related: Americans' Views of the Israel-Hamas War. ... About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research ...

  30. An Emerging Group of Researchers Is Changing Our Understanding of Gun

    Gun violence research funding continues to face political challenges. Last year, ... She was inspired to do similar work, particularly bridging the gap for Spanish-speaking victims of violence who struggle to access services because of language barriers. Costa is currently working on her dissertation, a process that was complicated by the ...