The gap statement and justification in higher education research: an analysis of published articles

Figures & data

Table 1. A typology of research gaps (adapted from Jacobs [2011] and Müller-Bloch and Kranz [2015]).

Gaps	Definitions
Evidence gap	Results from studies allow for conclusions in their own right, but are inconsistent when examined from a different point of view.
Knowledge gap	Research findings do not exist or are lacking in the literature.
Practice gap	Professional behaviour or practices either deviate from research findings, are not covered by research, or need to change and so require research.
Methodological gap	A variation of research methods is necessary to generate new insights or to avoid distorted findings.
Evaluation gap	Research findings or propositions need to be evaluated or empirically verified.
Theoretical gap	Theory should be applied to certain research issues to generate new insights, or should be developed for explaining a phenomenon.

Table 2. Selected journals and issues for analysis.

Journal	Issues (2019-2021)	Randomly selected issues Volume (Issue)	Articles
Studies in Higher Education	36	46(2)	18
		46(4)	17
Higher Education	36	80(3)	10
		78(4)	10
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education	24	45(4)	13
		45(5)	11
Higher Education Research & Development	21	38(5)	15
		38(3)	15
Teaching in Higher Education	24	24(5)	8
		24(1)	7
Total	141	10	124

Table 3. Explicit and implicit gap statements for types of higher education articles.

	Conceptual (n = 11; 9%)	Mixed-methods (n = 17; 14%)	Qualitative (n = 49; 40%)	Quantitative (n = 47; 38%)	Total (n = 124; 100%)
Explicit statement
Evaluation gap	-	-	2	-	2
Evidence gap	-	1	-	1	2
Knowledge gap	-	1	2	5	8
Methodological gap	-	-	-	1	1
Practice gap	-	2	-	-	2
Theoretical gap	-	-	-	-	0
Implicit statement
Evaluation gap	-	-	2	1	3
Evidence gap	-	2	5	6	13
Knowledge gap	4	7	25	23	59
Methodological gap	-	1	2	3	6
Practice gap	3	2	2	1	8
Theoretical gap	-	-	-	-	0
Total gaps					104
No gap statement	4	4	9	7	24

Table 4. Basis for claiming gaps in the literature.

Gap substantiation
	Number	% of articles with claimed gaps (n = 100)	% of total articles (n = 124)
Identified by another researcher	2	2%	1.6%
Synthesis of the literature	88	88%	71%
Unclear basis	10	10%	8.1%

Figure 1. Worthwhile gap statement construction and purpose.

Jacobs, R. L. 2011. “Developing a Research Problem and Purpose Statement.” In In The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing, edited by T. S. Rocco and T. G. Hatcher, 125–142. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

 Google Scholar

Müller-Bloch, C., and J. Kranz. 2015. “A Framework for Rigorously Identifying Research Gaps in Qualitative Literature Reviews.” Paper Presented at the Thirty Sixth International Conference on Information Systems, in Fort Worth.

 Google Scholar