How to identify Research Gaps?

To identify research gaps let’s first understand What is research Gap?

What is Research Gap?
A research gap is any Research topic/ problem having a lack of information in a particular field. A research gap exists when there is a new idea that hasn’t been studied in the literature. The research gap is an area where more studies and research are required to be conducted.
Researchers and students often find it difficult to identify the research gaps in their specific fields. Finding innovative research gaps in the literature is never an easy task.

How to identify Research Gaps?
Identification of the research gap requires a lot of research and reading to get familiar with all the studies already conducted and their contribution to research and development.

Here are different approaches to identify research gaps.

1. Read Case studies, Research articles, systematic reviews, and literature reviews on your topic. In this way, you will have an overview of the literature in your field and a glimpse of trends and changes over a period of time for the research gap.

2. List down all possible questions about your topic and do extensive research to check if those questions have already been answered. If any of the questions haven’t been addressed probably you have discovered a gap. Do further research on the internet and libraries to confirm your finding.

3. Do have a look at the future prospects/conclusion section of existing research papers/ research studies on your topic. Many authors hint research area with gaps for future studies in this section. So Future prospects section of research articles should be carefully monitored for the identification of research gaps.