Limitations and Future Research

The limitations that may have affected this research lie primarily in the number of interviews carried out as well as the diversity of the sample.

Due to time and budget limitations, the sample size for this study was 15 participants.

However, it is not uncommon for laddering analyses to have small samples sizes, solely based on the amount of work that goes into conducting the interviews, transcribing the data and analyzing it.

For a more comprehensive look at Americans’ values in selecting a degree of higher education, a larger sample size would be ideal. Also, assuming that representatives from a wide array of background including religion, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, among others, are to be considered, a more deliberate sample selection would also enhance insights of future research.

Additionally, while extensive research was done prior to conducting interviews on the best practices of laddering, because the interviews were not carried out by a non-partial party to the research, there is a risk of interviewees being led in certain directions and toward certain conclusions.

Future research on American values and how they affect higher education choice should include a larger pool of participants. Based on the needs of the research (that is, the main research problem and/or specific research questions) the researcher may target a more specific group of participants. For example, the researcher may decide to only interview undergraduates in their final year of studies, or recent graduates who have already made the decision to enrol in a degree of higher education. Furthermore, the researcher may find that a certain demographic of participant is more applicable to the results they wish to seek.

This all depends on the specificity of the research questions sought.

Lastly, future research can build on this study in taking the specificity of the research problem one or even two steps further, to focus on Finland as a destination country and the Lappeenranta University of Technology as the destination institution.

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