How to write research objectives: with examples

Research objectives are short statements of what your study will do to reach its aim. Each one names a piece of work you can finish and check off. Most guides agree that they start with "To" and an action verb, and that they are written as a numbered list.

research objectivenoun

A specific, measurable statement of something a study will do or find out, which together with the other objectives carries out the study's aim.

Here are Tanushree's first five, the ones Dr. Chhetri sent back:

1. To study homestays in the Darjeeling hills.
2. To understand the impact of tourism on village life.
3. To know the problems of homestay owners.
4. To conduct a survey of homestays.
5. To study and suggest ways to improve homestay tourism.

None of these is wrong about the topic. The trouble is that none of them can be finished. When would she have "studied" homestays enough? A good objective works like a job on a list: you can see what it asks for, and you know when it is done. Objectives also decide what data you collect, which methods you use and, in many theses, what the chapters are.

The aim and the objectives are often written together as "aims and objectives", but they do different jobs. A guide on Discover PhDs puts it simply: the aim says what is to be achieved, and the objectives say how it will be achieved.

Tanushree's aim, after two drafts, read: "To examine how homestays in the Darjeeling hills affect the income and work of the village families who run them." It is broad, but it names the place, the people and the two things she cares about.

A research question asks what you want to find out, a hypothesis predicts the answer, and an objective states the work you will do to get it. If you have not written your questions yet, start with how to write a research question, and for predictions, see how to write a hypothesis.

Many guides split objectives into two kinds. A general objective states, in one line, what the study as a whole will do. It often reads almost like the aim. Specific objectives break it into smaller, connected pieces, each with its own method and its own result.

How many should you write? Editage and Researcher.Life both suggest one or two general objectives and three or four specific ones for a student project. Editage adds that more than four or five specific objectives usually means the study is not focused. Discover PhDs gives no fixed number. So the count depends on your field and university, but a master's dissertation with nine objectives is almost always trying to do too much.

Tanushree's general objective was a lightly reworded aim. Under it she placed four specific objectives:

1. Map.Who runs homestays, and where?
2. Estimate.How much of the family's income comes from guests?
3. Compare.Who in the family does the work of hosting?
4. Identify.What problems do the owners face?

Each piece answers one part of the aim, and none repeats another. Discover PhDs warns that overlapping objectives make it hard to say when each one is complete.

This is how Tanushree rewrote her list over the next week. The same steps work for any project, from a BSc to a PhD.

1. Start from the problem and the gap.Objectives come out of your problem statement. Homestays are promoted as a way to bring tourism income to villages, but she had found little evidence on what they earn hill families in North Bengal, or who does the work. If your gap is still fuzzy, read how to find a research gap first.
2. Write the aim in one sentence.Name the place, the people and what you want to know about them.
3. Split the aim into parts.Ask what you need to know to reach the aim. Each answer is a candidate objective.
4. Give each part one action verb.Begin with "To" and a verb that says exactly what you will do: estimate, compare, identify. Editage notes that two verbs in one sentence usually means two objectives hiding in one.
5. Add who, where and when."To estimate the share of household income" became "To estimate the share of annual household income that homestays provide to families in two blocks of Darjeeling district over one tourist year".
6. Check each one against a method.For every objective, write down how you will collect and analyse the data. If you cannot, the objective is not ready.
7. Read the list as a whole.Do they cover the aim, without overlaps, in the time you have?

Without a place, a group and a time, an objective is still a topic. That is why the fifth step improves most first drafts the most.

A common test for objectives is SMART. Guides expand the letters slightly differently, but the idea is the same. Researcher.Life notes that SMART applies mainly to specific objectives, since the general one is meant to be broad.

The verb does a lot of the work. Editage and Discover PhDs both group verbs by purpose:

Nobody can tell when you have understood enough, but anyone can tell whether you have compared two groups.

Here are Tanushree's first drafts beside the versions her guide accepted.

The third row is a common mistake. "To conduct a survey" describes a task, not what it is for. Grad Coach gives the same warning about objectives such as "to interview 20 managers". The survey belongs in your methodology. The objective is what the survey will tell you.

Her fifth draft, "to suggest ways to improve homestay tourism", is a common kind of objective in Indian synopses. Dr. Chhetri let her keep a version of it, on one condition: the suggestions had to come from her own findings. It became "To recommend measures, based on the findings, that could help families run homestays".

The same pattern works in other fields:

• Nursing: To assess the level of knowledge about gestational diabetes among pregnant women attending a district hospital antenatal clinic.
• Education: To compare the reading scores of Class 3 children taught in their home language with those taught in English in four government schools.
• Engineering: To determine the compressive strength of concrete blocks made with 10, 20 and 30 percent of the cement replaced by fly ash.

In a research paper or a dissertation, the aim and objectives usually come at the end of the introduction, right after the problem statement. Researcher.Life adds that the main objective should also appear in the abstract.

Indian synopsis formats give objectives a heading of their own, but where it sits varies. Christ University's PhD synopsis guidelines, for example, list "Objectives of the study" after the review of related literature, followed by variables, operational definitions and hypotheses. Other universities put aims and objectives right after the introduction. Use your own university's format, and ask your guide if it is not clear. For the rest of the document, see how to write a research proposal.

Number your objectives. Discover PhDs notes that in a thesis each objective often gets its own chapter, as in Tanushree's plan:

In the conclusion, answer each objective in turn. Editage points out that the final thesis must describe the research actually carried out, so if an objective changed, say so and why. Agree any change with your guide first.

At the research committee, one member asked Tanushree how she would measure income from families who keep no written accounts. She had an answer ready, because objective two already named what she would record and for how long. The committee approved the synopsis, and a month later she took the shared jeep up to Kurseong for her first round of visits, starting with her cousins.