Navigating Research Challenges: Ensuring Relevance, Feasibility, and Achievability

Every research journey begins with a single question – but not every question is worth pursuing. In mass communication research, choosing what to study is just as important as knowing how to study it. Before a researcher designs a survey, conducts interviews, or dives into content analysis, three fundamental gatekeepers must be cleared: relevance, feasibility, and achievability. These are not bureaucratic boxes to tick; they are the criteria that separate a study that actually gets done and contributes knowledge from one that stalls out mid-process, runs out of resources, or answers a question nobody was asking.

Why these three criteria matter 🔗

Research is an investment – of time, money, and intellectual energy. A topic that sounds impressive on paper can collapse quickly when it meets the real world. According to Elsevier’s research framework guidance, a well-constructed research question must be feasible, interesting, novel, ethical, and relevant – with relevance and feasibility functioning as the two pillars that hold the entire structure upright. In the context of mass communication studies – where researchers examine everything from social media framing to the role of regional news in shaping public opinion – these three criteria help a researcher move from broad curiosity to a focused, executable study.

Relevance: does your research actually matter? 🔗

A research problem is relevant when it addresses a genuine gap in existing knowledge, responds to a current issue, or contributes a new perspective on a well-studied phenomenon. Relevance is not simply about whether a topic is interesting to you – it is about whether the scholarly community and, where applicable, the public, actually needs the answer.

The role of theoretical frameworks 🔗

Establishing relevance begins with theoretical grounding. A theoretical framework connects your research to existing bodies of knowledge and provides a lens through which you interpret your data. As ATLAS.ti explains, theoretical frameworks help situate a study within the ongoing scholarly conversation, identifying gaps in the literature and explaining how the current research addresses them. In mass communication, this might mean anchoring a study in agenda-setting theory, framing theory, or the uses and gratifications approach – each of which comes with a pre-existing set of assumptions, variables, and expectations that your study either confirms, challenges, or extends.

The role of literature review 🔗

Alongside theoretical frameworks, a thorough literature review is the primary mechanism for establishing relevance. The University of Southern California’s research guide describes the literature review as the tool that identifies new ways to interpret gaps in previous research, resolves conflicts among contradictory studies, and points the way toward fulfilling a need for additional inquiry. In practical terms, this means reading what has already been published on your topic, identifying what remains unanswered, and positioning your study as a response to that gap.

For example, if dozens of studies have examined how national newspapers cover climate change but very few have looked at regional or vernacular language newspapers, that gap becomes the basis for a relevant research problem. Research published in CBE-Life Sciences Education reinforces this point: while a literature review describes what is known and not known about a phenomenon, the conceptual framework leverages these gaps in describing the current study. Together, they form the justification for why your research needs to exist.

Elsevier’s FINER criteria further clarify that relevance ensures research resonates with the real world – that findings are not merely theoretical but carry practical implications for communication practice, policy, or societal understanding. A study on how misinformation spreads through WhatsApp in rural communities is relevant not just academically, but because it can directly inform media literacy programs and platform design decisions.

Feasibility: can you actually do this research? 🔗

Even the most relevant research problem becomes worthless if it cannot be practically investigated. Feasibility is the honest assessment of whether a study can be carried out given the resources, data access, tools, and skills available to the researcher.

Data accessibility 🔗

The first question of feasibility is whether the data you need actually exists and whether you can get to it. A quantitative mass communications research text defines a feasible research question as one that can be realistically investigated within the parameters of your study, including the availability of data, time constraints, and resource limitations. If your study requires access to internal newsroom editorial meeting records, but no news organization will grant you that access, the research is not feasible – regardless of how compelling the question is. Similarly, studying social media behavior may require platform API access, which platforms increasingly restrict. Acknowledging these barriers upfront saves enormous time later.

Technological requirements 🔗

Modern communication research often requires specialized tools: content analysis software, statistical packages, transcription services, or media monitoring platforms. If your research design calls for computational text analysis of 50,000 social media posts but you do not have access to the relevant software or the technical know-how to use it, that is a feasibility problem. Elsevier notes that feasibility requires assessing whether the variables can be measured effectively and whether there are enough resources, including funding and expertise, to carry the study through to completion.

Personal capabilities and skill match 🔗

Feasibility also demands self-awareness. A study requiring advanced multivariate statistical analysis from a researcher who has limited quantitative training is not feasible unless mentorship or collaboration is built into the design. Choosing a methodology that matches your current skill set – or one where expert guidance is accessible – is a legitimate and smart research decision. This is not a concession; it is good planning. As guidance on mass communications research questions advises, pilot studies and consultation with peers or mentors can help refine questions and ensure they are both specific and feasible.

Achievability: can you finish it? 🔗

Feasibility and achievability are closely related but not identical. Feasibility asks: is it possible to do this research? Achievability asks: is it possible to complete this research within the specific constraints of time and resources you actually have? A project can be theoretically feasible but completely unachievable given a semester-long deadline or a shoestring budget.

Defining a realistic research scope 🔗

The most common threat to achievability is what project management literature calls scope creep – the gradual, uncontrolled expansion of a project beyond its original boundaries. Wikipedia’s project management entry defines scope creep as continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope, generally experienced after the project begins, which can lead to cost overruns and schedule failures. In research, this manifests as a study that begins with one focused question but slowly accumulates sub-questions, additional variables, extra data sources, and new theoretical angles until it becomes entirely unmanageable. According to Asana’s project management resource, research conducted by the Project Management Institute found that 55% of projects experience scope creep – a challenge that persists despite decades of awareness about the problem.

For a mass communication researcher, this might look like starting with the question “How do regional newspapers cover local elections?” and then deciding to also include television news, radio, social media pages of those outlets, reader comments, and editorial policies – all within a three-month window. Each addition might seem reasonable in isolation, but together they make the project impossible to complete with quality. A tightly scoped study that answers one clear question well is far more valuable – and far more publishable – than an over-ambitious project that never gets finished.

Time management and planning 🔗

Achievability requires building a realistic timeline that accounts for every stage of the research process: literature review, ethics clearance (if applicable), data collection, analysis, write-up, and revision. ATLAS.ti’s guidance on research objectives recommends using SMART criteria – ensuring objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – so that a researcher creates a clear roadmap from design to completion. A time-bound objective forces the researcher to confront whether what they are proposing can actually be completed within the deadline, which is one of the most clarifying exercises in the early stages of research design.

Budget and resource realism 🔗

Achievability has a financial dimension too. Printing questionnaires, traveling for fieldwork, purchasing software licenses, or transcribing hours of interview audio all cost money. If the research design requires a budget significantly beyond what is available, the project must be redesigned – not abandoned, but scaled to fit reality. This might mean reducing the sample size, shifting from in-person interviews to online surveys, or narrowing the geographic scope of the study. These are not compromises that weaken the research; they are adjustments that make it possible.

The iterative nature of these three criteria 🔗

Relevance, feasibility, and achievability rarely work in a linear sequence. More often, they function as an ongoing negotiation. A researcher might identify a highly relevant topic, only to discover it is not feasible with available data. Scaling back the scope might make it feasible, but then raises the question of whether the narrower version is still relevant enough to warrant the study. This back-and-forth is normal and necessary. Research on literature review methodology published in a Taylor & Francis journal notes that well-conducted reviews can create a firm platform for advancing theory development – but this only happens when researchers refine their problem iteratively, allowing each assessment to sharpen the next.

The goal is to find what might be called the sweet spot: a topic that contributes meaningfully to the field (relevant), uses data and methods you can actually access (feasible), and is scoped tightly enough to complete before your deadline with the resources you have (achievable). Getting there requires honesty about limitations, willingness to revise, and the discipline to resist the temptation of a grander study that never gets done. Communication research methods resources consistently emphasize that good research questions must be clear, feasible, and relevant – and that testing your questions against these characteristics should be a continuous process throughout the early stages of your research journey.

A finished, slightly modest study is always better than a grand, revolutionary one that exists only in a notebook. The three criteria – relevance, feasibility, and achievability – are not obstacles; they are the scaffolding that makes real, completed, impactful research possible.

What do you think? When you consider a research idea you have had – in your academic work or otherwise – which of these three criteria do you find hardest to honestly assess, and why? How might early literature review habits change the way you frame a research problem from the start?

References

1. https://scientific-publishing.webshop.elsevier.com/research-process/finer-research-framework/
2. https://atlasti.com/guides/literature-review/theoretical-framework-vs-literature-review
3. https://libguides.usc.edu/c.php?g=234974&p=1559473
4. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9582830/
5. https://bookdown.org/alex_leith/mc451/formulating-research-questions-and-hypotheses.html
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_creep
7. https://asana.com/resources/what-is-scope-creep
8. https://atlasti.com/research-hub/research-objectives
9. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/12460125.2023.2197704
10. https://fiveable.me/communication-research-methods/unit-11/research-questions/study-guide/yVfFeUtecr8OQ061