Questionaires:

Advantages
 Less time consuming.

 Low to no cost.

 Generates a large amount of data.

 Various ways of administration.

 Sensitive topics are easily answered in private.

 Format is easily understood by most respondents.

 Answers can be easily quantified and analyzed.

 Gives respondents enough time to answer the questions.

Disadvantages
 Low return or response rate.

 Questions or concerns from respondents cannot be easily answered.

 Respondents might skip or ignore some questions, or avoid sensitive

questions.

 Biased opinions from people with strong interest on the topic.

 Respondents might fail to understand some questions.

 Some respondents might not be capable of answering questionnaires in

word (e.g. visually impaired).

 Some respondents might not take it seriously.

 Researchers might miss something important and cannot immediately ask

for follow up questions, especially if respondent is anonymous.

Research Gap:
A research gap is an area of study that previous researchers have missed out on, or the society has
limited information about it. When a researcher is conducting research, he/she aims at bridging the
gap. It is a research question that has been brought up due to a reoccurring problem in the society.

Most students undertaking their diploma, undergraduate, masters, and PhDs find it hard to come up
with research gaps and research questions for their research projects. The students are advised to
conduct researches that are relevant to their fields of study, so the research gaps must go hand in
hand with the field they are studying.

When identifying a research problem one must be familiar with the population of study and the case
study environment, if not so the research gap may end up not answering the research questions
appropriately hence misleading the research readers. The researcher targets to pass additional
information and what needs to be done by the society to help eliminate the research gap.

When identifying a research gap one my act upon his/her interests in a definite environment, race,
gender, and religion. The researcher may want to satisfy their curiosity on a certain subject. A study
gap that is well identifiable is often one that is on par with the researcher’s interests. The researcher
should identify areas that he/she is interested in and not areas of that a supervisor has pressured
you to do.

I actually perceive these as two different things. The knowledge gap is that which needs to be filled
by new research either because we know little or nothing. The research gap to me (and I am an
applied researcher) is the gap between the discovery of knowledge relevant to practice and the time
it takes to put that information into practice in the field.