PSY1023 Chap.4 Research Gaps, Aims and Research Questions
Research Gaps, Aims and Research Questions
By the fourth week of PSY1023 your tutorial group has picked a sub-topic within the unit-wide theme of psychosocial factors shaping the university student experience. The next job is turning that interest into a study someone could actually run.
The unit breaks this into four parts that you write in sequence: the gap in existing knowledge, the aim of your study, the rationale that justifies it, and the research question it will answer. Weeks 3 and 4 teach each part, and in Week 5 your group talks the tutor through a draft and gets informal feedback.
The gap comes first because everything else depends on it.
A gap is a problem the literature has not yet addressed, or has addressed only in part. It might exist because nobody has studied an idea, because the available studies have aged, or because recent work has not reached a particular group of people.
The unit also sorts gaps into theoretical, empirical and methodological kinds, and it warns that some popular gaps simply do not suit a small interview study: you cannot promise scale, prove that one thing causes another, or guarantee a diverse sample when your participants are allocated classmates.
The aim then states the purpose in broad terms, usually with verbs such as explore, understand, discover or investigate.
The rationale argues that the study is worth doing, and the unit offers a checklist adapted from Rojon and Sanders (2012) to test it. The research question narrows everything to one focused inquiry. Good qualitative questions are exploratory, phrased as genuine questions, concerned with one phenomenon, and clear about who is being studied and where.
They can also be refined as the project develops, which is normal rather than a sign of failure. What matters is that the final question still answers to the gap and aim you started with, and that a reader can see the line running between them.
This chapter teaches the chain as a single argument rather than four boxes to fill.
It shows how to mine your research matrix for limitations that point to a gap, how to keep the aim realistic for interviews of about fifteen minutes, and how to diagnose a weak question and rebuild it. The same four parts reappear in the introduction of your group's qualitative results report, so the effort you put in now carries straight through to the largest assessment task in the unit.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The four core elements of the proposal and their order
- 02
Defining a research gap and the situations that create one
- 03
Theoretical, empirical and methodological gaps
- 04
Gaps a short interview study cannot support
- 05
Writing qualitative aims and testing the rationale
- 06
Types and criteria of a qualitative research question
- 07
Using Week 5 tutor feedback to revise the proposal
Worked example · free
Build a proposal chain for an emerging adulthood project
- 2Gap: state what the literature leaves open. Rating-scale studies show how adult students feel but not how they explain that feeling, and students still living with their families are under-represented, so both a methodological and a population gap exist.
- 1Aim: use a qualitative verb and keep it broad. To explore how first-year students who live in the family home make sense of becoming an adult.
- 2Rationale: show why the gap matters and who benefits. The study looks at a familiar topic from a different angle, and orientation and support staff could use the findings to plan transition programs that do not assume students have moved out.
- 1Research question: one phenomenon, a defined sample and setting, and open wording. How do first-year students at an Australian university who live with their parents describe what makes them feel like adults?
Key terms
- Research Gap
- A question or problem that existing studies have left unanswered or only partly answered, leaving a recognisable shortfall in knowledge.
- Theoretical Gap
- The kind of gap that appears when current theories cannot fully explain an observed phenomenon or when new evidence strains an accepted framework.
- Empirical Gap
- A shortage of data or studies in a particular area, signalling that more collection or observation is needed to confirm or extend what is known.
- Methodological Gap
- Weakness in the methods earlier studies used, where those methods suited the question poorly and a different approach could reveal something new.
- Research Aim
- The broad statement of what a study sets out to achieve, written in qualitative work with verbs such as explore, understand, discover or investigate.
- Research Rationale
- The justification for doing a study, explaining why the gap matters and who stands to benefit from closing it.
Research Gaps, Aims and Research Questions FAQ
Can our group use the starting references to establish the research gap?
The unit treats the starting references as background reading to help you understand each sub-topic. Your gap should be informed by your own search of recent peer-reviewed journal articles, logged in the research matrix, rather than resting on those few papers.
Why is causation a poor choice of gap for this project?
The project is qualitative and uses short interviews with a handful of classmates. That design can describe how people experience and interpret something, but it cannot show that one variable produces a change in another, so a causal gap promises more than the study can deliver.
Is it a problem if our research question changes after Week 5?
No. Qualitative questions may be reviewed, refined and reformulated as a project develops, and the Week 5 tutorial exists to give feedback you can act on. Keep the final version consistent with the gap, aim and rationale in your report introduction.
What is the difference between an aim and a research question?
An aim states the overall purpose in broad terms, such as exploring an experience. A research question is narrower: it names one phenomenon, a defined group and setting, and is phrased as an open question your interview data can actually answer.
Where do the gap, aim and rationale appear in the final assessment?
They form part of the introduction of the group Qualitative Results Report, which is recommended at about 300 words and also defines key terms with references. The marking rubric has a separate row judging whether the aim and question align with the gap and rationale.
Assessment move
Treat the proposal as one argument and build it from evidence outward. Start by filling the limitations column of your research matrix honestly for every article, because that column is where most usable gaps hide.
Once several recent peer-reviewed studies are logged, look across the column for a pattern: a population that keeps being left out, a method that keeps being used even where it fits badly, or a finding that has not been checked in an Australian setting. Write that pattern as a short gap statement and name the studies that show it.
Next, draft the aim in a single sentence beginning with a qualitative verb, and test it against the reality of your project: participants come from your own cohort and each interview lasts about fifteen minutes. If the aim needs a large or carefully balanced sample, or depends on proving cause and effect, narrow it now rather than after feedback.
Then run the rationale checklist question by question and write one line of evidence for each answer. Finally, write the research question and check it against the four criteria: exploratory, framed as a question, centred on one phenomenon, and explicit about sample and setting. Before Week 5, rehearse the five-minute presentation as a group and decide who will take notes on the tutor's comments.
Afterwards, revise all four elements together, because a change to the question usually forces a change to the gap or aim. Keep every version so you can trace how your thinking developed when you write the report introduction.
Working through Research Gaps, Aims and Research Questions in PSY1023? Sia is AskSia’s AI Psychology tutor — ask any PSY1023 Research Gaps, Aims and Research Questions question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how PSY1023 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
