All right it's time to write the limitations section, which is usually not the most fun because we need
to talk about the things that were bad in our research. But actually, even the limitations section can
be a section in which you can truly impress your readers by showing the reader that you understand the
limitations of your study very well and that you're very honest about that.
And if the reader is already impressed by the value that you're providing with your research then that
will be the cherry on the cake. And as I already said before very often the limitations are a separate
section with separate heading.
Just as for the implications.
But again that is up to you.
You can structure your discussion section in whatever way you think makes sense.
Okay.
So the first goal in the limitation section is quite obviously to state the limitations of your study
or at least the most important ones.
So common expressions you find here are: "Our study has two main limitations. First,...
Second,..." and so on. "The most important limitation is that...". "Another limitation is that...". So it's quite straightforward.
And limitations you can think of are all kinds of things. You can think of confounds, unreliable measurements,
unrepresentative samples, correlational designs that do not allow you to draw conclusions about causality,
or just in general conclusions that you canNOT draw from your findings. Conclusions that a researcher
may WANT to draw from your findings but that you actually CANNOT draw. Or you can think of biases that
arise from participants dropping out.
It depends very much on your study.
But most of the time finding at least one limitation isn't that difficult.
Now, the second goal is - if possible - to also qualify your limitations.
But it is important to only qualify them after you first admitted them.
This is very important because you do not want to give the impression that you're just trying to argue
your limitations away.
So here are some examples.
"Although these alternative explanations of our results cannot be ruled out entirely,
there are two patterns in the results that point towards our primary explanation." See what happens here?
I admit explicitly that there is a valid limitation but then I explain why it may not matter so much.
Or "Although our findings allow for the alternative explanation that X, the results by Devin at all are
in conflict with his explanation.
Taking this into account the more plausible explanation for our finding is..." and so on.
Or "Although the drop out rate was considerable,
we observed no difference between participants who completed our study and participants who dropped
out."
So what I want you to notice here is that each of these sentences starts by admitting the limitation.
So be sure that even if you have good arguments against your limitation that you don't just argue it
away right away.
First make very very clear to your reader that you admit your limitation. Okay so that's how you write about
limitations.
Again you can find more expressions in the "discussion outline and writing template" and in the next lecture
we're gonna talk about writing the summary and conclusions section at the very end of your discussion
section.