Masters Dissertation Example

 6.6 Limitations of the study and further research 
The limitations inherent in any self-reporting based assessment have already been emphasised, 
both for the issues of respondent bias, reliance of author perceptions, and over-estimation of 
the use of research findings. The study could have been improved in this respect by properly 
defining the ‘concrete’ recommendations made, and tying them in to the actions that were 

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implemented. There was also some element of subjectivity in the survey design identifying 
what constitutes conservation ‘impact’, and it was difficult to design a survey to be relevant to 
the wide range of publications. Further research could attempt to solidify the link between 
author perceptions and implementation by confirming the use of findings at source. Given that 
this study has identified geographical discrepancies in implementation and the factors 
influencing uptake, this could involve the analysis of focused case studies by geographical 
area, similar to work being done in the policy field (Court & Young, 2003), perhaps involving 
an analysis of the utility of specialised and local journals as a tool for dissemination. Similarly, 
research into the link between use of research and conservation success could provide further 
insights into the utility of research in terms of the factors promoting actual conservation 
improvement. 
It would also be useful to examine the references of documents such as IUCN Red Lists and 
action plans as this could provide a useful measure of real world conservation impact. An 
analysis of the use of literature by CITES, as an important convention for species-based 
conservation, would also have been useful to contextualise the issue on a wider policy scale. 
This study also did not properly take into account how the research reporting conservation 
outcomes is utilised, and further research could focus on this important aspect. 
It could be argued, however, that rather than further research in this area there should be more 
of a discussion on what the aims of peer-review publication are in conservation biology, and if 
it is to provide the science base for ‘on the ground’ species conservation there needs to 
perhaps be a change in the emphasis of the system towards research with more practical 
application.