Abstract: The application of big data boosts educational changes with broad prospects, but it is far from being omnipotent, instead it has certain boundaries and limits. It is conducive to the rational application and development of big data in education to attain self-reflections on and insights into the limits of the application of big data in education. Ontological limit, epistemic limit, value limit and ethical limit constitute the basic limits of application of big data in education. The ontological limit means that big data in education cannot be equated with a true and complete educational world in an ontological sense. The epistemic limit refers to the flaw of big data as a new angle of understanding education. The value limit refers to the impossibility of the instrumental value of big data in education to cover the cultivation value of education. Finally, the ethical limit means that the application of big data to education is inevitably bound by ethics, in addition to being controlled by the logic of technology.

Key words: big data, education application, limitation