aims of a research project

• Aims and Objectives – A Guide for Academic Writing
• Doing a PhD

One of the most important aspects of a thesis, dissertation or research paper is the correct formulation of the aims and objectives. This is because your aims and objectives will establish the scope, depth and direction that your research will ultimately take. An effective set of aims and objectives will give your research focus and your reader clarity, with your aims indicating what is to be achieved, and your objectives indicating how it will be achieved.

Introduction

There is no getting away from the importance of the aims and objectives in determining the success of your research project. Unfortunately, however, it is an aspect that many students struggle with, and ultimately end up doing poorly. Given their importance, if you suspect that there is even the smallest possibility that you belong to this group of students, we strongly recommend you read this page in full.

This page describes what research aims and objectives are, how they differ from each other, how to write them correctly, and the common mistakes students make and how to avoid them. An example of a good aim and objectives from a past thesis has also been deconstructed to help your understanding.

What Are Aims and Objectives?

Research aims.

A research aim describes the main goal or the overarching purpose of your research project.

In doing so, it acts as a focal point for your research and provides your readers with clarity as to what your study is all about. Because of this, research aims are almost always located within its own subsection under the introduction section of a research document, regardless of whether it’s a thesis , a dissertation, or a research paper .

A research aim is usually formulated as a broad statement of the main goal of the research and can range in length from a single sentence to a short paragraph. Although the exact format may vary according to preference, they should all describe why your research is needed (i.e. the context), what it sets out to accomplish (the actual aim) and, briefly, how it intends to accomplish it (overview of your objectives).

To give an example, we have extracted the following research aim from a real PhD thesis:

Example of a Research Aim

The role of diametrical cup deformation as a factor to unsatisfactory implant performance has not been widely reported. The aim of this thesis was to gain an understanding of the diametrical deformation behaviour of acetabular cups and shells following impaction into the reamed acetabulum. The influence of a range of factors on deformation was investigated to ascertain if cup and shell deformation may be high enough to potentially contribute to early failure and high wear rates in metal-on-metal implants.

Note: Extracted with permission from thesis titled “T he Impact And Deformation Of Press-Fit Metal Acetabular Components ” produced by Dr H Hothi of previously Queen Mary University of London.

Research Objectives

Where a research aim specifies what your study will answer, research objectives specify how your study will answer it.

They divide your research aim into several smaller parts, each of which represents a key section of your research project. As a result, almost all research objectives take the form of a numbered list, with each item usually receiving its own chapter in a dissertation or thesis.

Following the example of the research aim shared above, here are it’s real research objectives as an example:

Example of a Research Objective

• Develop finite element models using explicit dynamics to mimic mallet blows during cup/shell insertion, initially using simplified experimentally validated foam models to represent the acetabulum.
• Investigate the number, velocity and position of impacts needed to insert a cup.
• Determine the relationship between the size of interference between the cup and cavity and deformation for different cup types.
• Investigate the influence of non-uniform cup support and varying the orientation of the component in the cavity on deformation.
• Examine the influence of errors during reaming of the acetabulum which introduce ovality to the cavity.
• Determine the relationship between changes in the geometry of the component and deformation for different cup designs.
• Develop three dimensional pelvis models with non-uniform bone material properties from a range of patients with varying bone quality.
• Use the key parameters that influence deformation, as identified in the foam models to determine the range of deformations that may occur clinically using the anatomic models and if these deformations are clinically significant.

It’s worth noting that researchers sometimes use research questions instead of research objectives, or in other cases both. From a high-level perspective, research questions and research objectives make the same statements, but just in different formats.

Taking the first three research objectives as an example, they can be restructured into research questions as follows:

Restructuring Research Objectives as Research Questions

• Can finite element models using simplified experimentally validated foam models to represent the acetabulum together with explicit dynamics be used to mimic mallet blows during cup/shell insertion?
• What is the number, velocity and position of impacts needed to insert a cup?
• What is the relationship between the size of interference between the cup and cavity and deformation for different cup types?

Difference Between Aims and Objectives

Hopefully the above explanations make clear the differences between aims and objectives, but to clarify:

• The research aim focus on what the research project is intended to achieve; research objectives focus on how the aim will be achieved.
• Research aims are relatively broad; research objectives are specific.
• Research aims focus on a project’s long-term outcomes; research objectives focus on its immediate, short-term outcomes.
• A research aim can be written in a single sentence or short paragraph; research objectives should be written as a numbered list.

How to Write Aims and Objectives

Before we discuss how to write a clear set of research aims and objectives, we should make it clear that there is no single way they must be written. Each researcher will approach their aims and objectives slightly differently, and often your supervisor will influence the formulation of yours on the basis of their own preferences.

Regardless, there are some basic principles that you should observe for good practice; these principles are described below.

Your aim should be made up of three parts that answer the below questions:

• Why is this research required?
• What is this research about?
• How are you going to do it?

The easiest way to achieve this would be to address each question in its own sentence, although it does not matter whether you combine them or write multiple sentences for each, the key is to address each one.

The first question, why , provides context to your research project, the second question, what , describes the aim of your research, and the last question, how , acts as an introduction to your objectives which will immediately follow.

Scroll through the image set below to see the ‘why, what and how’ associated with our research aim example.

Note: Your research aims need not be limited to one. Some individuals per to define one broad ‘overarching aim’ of a project and then adopt two or three specific research aims for their thesis or dissertation. Remember, however, that in order for your assessors to consider your research project complete, you will need to prove you have fulfilled all of the aims you set out to achieve. Therefore, while having more than one research aim is not necessarily disadvantageous, consider whether a single overarching one will do.

Research Objectives

Each of your research objectives should be SMART :

• Specific – is there any ambiguity in the action you are going to undertake, or is it focused and well-defined?
• Measurable – how will you measure progress and determine when you have achieved the action?
• Achievable – do you have the support, resources and facilities required to carry out the action?
• Relevant – is the action essential to the achievement of your research aim?
• Timebound – can you realistically complete the action in the available time alongside your other research tasks?

In addition to being SMART, your research objectives should start with a verb that helps communicate your intent. Common research verbs include:

Table of Research Verbs to Use in Aims and Objectives

Last, format your objectives into a numbered list. This is because when you write your thesis or dissertation, you will at times need to make reference to a specific research objective; structuring your research objectives in a numbered list will provide a clear way of doing this.

To bring all this together, let’s compare the first research objective in the previous example with the above guidance:

Checking Research Objective Example Against Recommended Approach

Research Objective:

1. Develop finite element models using explicit dynamics to mimic mallet blows during cup/shell insertion, initially using simplified experimentally validated foam models to represent the acetabulum.

Checking Against Recommended Approach:

Q: Is it specific? A: Yes, it is clear what the student intends to do (produce a finite element model), why they intend to do it (mimic cup/shell blows) and their parameters have been well-defined ( using simplified experimentally validated foam models to represent the acetabulum ).

Q: Is it measurable? A: Yes, it is clear that the research objective will be achieved once the finite element model is complete.

Q: Is it achievable? A: Yes, provided the student has access to a computer lab, modelling software and laboratory data.

Q: Is it relevant? A: Yes, mimicking impacts to a cup/shell is fundamental to the overall aim of understanding how they deform when impacted upon.

Q: Is it timebound? A: Yes, it is possible to create a limited-scope finite element model in a relatively short time, especially if you already have experience in modelling.

Q: Does it start with a verb? A: Yes, it starts with ‘develop’, which makes the intent of the objective immediately clear.

Q: Is it a numbered list? A: Yes, it is the first research objective in a list of eight.

Mistakes in Writing Research Aims and Objectives

1. making your research aim too broad.

Having a research aim too broad becomes very difficult to achieve. Normally, this occurs when a student develops their research aim before they have a good understanding of what they want to research. Remember that at the end of your project and during your viva defence , you will have to prove that you have achieved your research aims; if they are too broad, this will be an almost impossible task. In the early stages of your research project, your priority should be to narrow your study to a specific area. A good way to do this is to take the time to study existing literature, question their current approaches, findings and limitations, and consider whether there are any recurring gaps that could be investigated .

Note: Achieving a set of aims does not necessarily mean proving or disproving a theory or hypothesis, even if your research aim was to, but having done enough work to provide a useful and original insight into the principles that underlie your research aim.

2. Making Your Research Objectives Too Ambitious

Be realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have available. It is natural to want to set ambitious research objectives that require sophisticated data collection and analysis, but only completing this with six months before the end of your PhD registration period is not a worthwhile trade-off.

3. Formulating Repetitive Research Objectives

Each research objective should have its own purpose and distinct measurable outcome. To this effect, a common mistake is to form research objectives which have large amounts of overlap. This makes it difficult to determine when an objective is truly complete, and also presents challenges in estimating the duration of objectives when creating your project timeline. It also makes it difficult to structure your thesis into unique chapters, making it more challenging for you to write and for your audience to read.

Fortunately, this oversight can be easily avoided by using SMART objectives.

Hopefully, you now have a good idea of how to create an effective set of aims and objectives for your research project, whether it be a thesis, dissertation or research paper. While it may be tempting to dive directly into your research, spending time on getting your aims and objectives right will give your research clear direction. This won’t only reduce the likelihood of problems arising later down the line, but will also lead to a more thorough and coherent research project.

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Research Aims, Objectives & Questions

The “Golden Thread” Explained Simply (+ Examples)

By: David Phair (PhD) and Alexandra Shaeffer (PhD) | June 2022

The research aims , objectives and research questions (collectively called the “golden thread”) are arguably the most important thing you need to get right when you’re crafting a research proposal , dissertation or thesis . We receive questions almost every day about this “holy trinity” of research and there’s certainly a lot of confusion out there, so we’ve crafted this post to help you navigate your way through the fog.

Overview: The Golden Thread

• What is the golden thread
• What are research aims ( examples )
• What are research objectives ( examples )
• What are research questions ( examples )
• The importance of alignment in the golden thread

What is the “golden thread”?  

The golden thread simply refers to the collective research aims , research objectives , and research questions for any given project (i.e., a dissertation, thesis, or research paper ). These three elements are bundled together because it’s extremely important that they align with each other, and that the entire research project aligns with them.

Importantly, the golden thread needs to weave its way through the entirety of any research project , from start to end. In other words, it needs to be very clearly defined right at the beginning of the project (the topic ideation and proposal stage) and it needs to inform almost every decision throughout the rest of the project. For example, your research design and methodology will be heavily influenced by the golden thread (we’ll explain this in more detail later), as well as your literature review.

The research aims, objectives and research questions (the golden thread) define the focus and scope ( the delimitations ) of your research project. In other words, they help ringfence your dissertation or thesis to a relatively narrow domain, so that you can “go deep” and really dig into a specific problem or opportunity. They also help keep you on track , as they act as a litmus test for relevance. In other words, if you’re ever unsure whether to include something in your document, simply ask yourself the question, “does this contribute toward my research aims, objectives or questions?”. If it doesn’t, chances are you can drop it.

Alright, enough of the fluffy, conceptual stuff. Let’s get down to business and look at what exactly the research aims, objectives and questions are and outline a few examples to bring these concepts to life.

Research Aims: What are they?

Simply put, the research aim(s) is a statement that reflects the broad overarching goal (s) of the research project. Research aims are fairly high-level (low resolution) as they outline the general direction of the research and what it’s trying to achieve .

Research Aims: Examples  

True to the name, research aims usually start with the wording “this research aims to…”, “this research seeks to…”, and so on. For example:

“This research aims to explore employee experiences of digital transformation in retail HR.”   “This study sets out to assess the interaction between student support and self-care on well-being in engineering graduate students”  

As you can see, these research aims provide a high-level description of what the study is about and what it seeks to achieve. They’re not hyper-specific or action-oriented, but they’re clear about what the study’s focus is and what is being investigated.

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Research Objectives: What are they?

The research objectives take the research aims and make them more practical and actionable . In other words, the research objectives showcase the steps that the researcher will take to achieve the research aims.

The research objectives need to be far more specific (higher resolution) and actionable than the research aims. In fact, it’s always a good idea to craft your research objectives using the “SMART” criteria. In other words, they should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound”.

Research Objectives: Examples  

Let’s look at two examples of research objectives. We’ll stick with the topic and research aims we mentioned previously.  

For the digital transformation topic:

To observe the retail HR employees throughout the digital transformation. To assess employee perceptions of digital transformation in retail HR. To identify the barriers and facilitators of digital transformation in retail HR.

And for the student wellness topic:

To determine whether student self-care predicts the well-being score of engineering graduate students. To determine whether student support predicts the well-being score of engineering students. To assess the interaction between student self-care and student support when predicting well-being in engineering graduate students.

  As you can see, these research objectives clearly align with the previously mentioned research aims and effectively translate the low-resolution aims into (comparatively) higher-resolution objectives and action points . They give the research project a clear focus and present something that resembles a research-based “to-do” list.

Research Questions: What are they?

Finally, we arrive at the all-important research questions. The research questions are, as the name suggests, the key questions that your study will seek to answer . Simply put, they are the core purpose of your dissertation, thesis, or research project. You’ll present them at the beginning of your document (either in the introduction chapter or literature review chapter) and you’ll answer them at the end of your document (typically in the discussion and conclusion chapters).  

The research questions will be the driving force throughout the research process. For example, in the literature review chapter, you’ll assess the relevance of any given resource based on whether it helps you move towards answering your research questions. Similarly, your methodology and research design will be heavily influenced by the nature of your research questions. For instance, research questions that are exploratory in nature will usually make use of a qualitative approach, whereas questions that relate to measurement or relationship testing will make use of a quantitative approach.  

Let’s look at some examples of research questions to make this more tangible.

Research Questions: Examples  

Again, we’ll stick with the research aims and research objectives we mentioned previously.  

For the digital transformation topic (which would be qualitative in nature):

How do employees perceive digital transformation in retail HR? What are the barriers and facilitators of digital transformation in retail HR?  

And for the student wellness topic (which would be quantitative in nature):

Does student self-care predict the well-being scores of engineering graduate students? Does student support predict the well-being scores of engineering students? Do student self-care and student support interact when predicting well-being in engineering graduate students?  

You’ll probably notice that there’s quite a formulaic approach to this. In other words, the research questions are basically the research objectives “converted” into question format. While that is true most of the time, it’s not always the case. For example, the first research objective for the digital transformation topic was more or less a step on the path toward the other objectives, and as such, it didn’t warrant its own research question.  

So, don’t rush your research questions and sloppily reword your objectives as questions. Carefully think about what exactly you’re trying to achieve (i.e. your research aim) and the objectives you’ve set out, then craft a set of well-aligned research questions . Also, keep in mind that this can be a somewhat iterative process , where you go back and tweak research objectives and aims to ensure tight alignment throughout the golden thread.

The importance of strong alignment 

Alignment is the keyword here and we have to stress its importance . Simply put, you need to make sure that there is a very tight alignment between all three pieces of the golden thread. If your research aims and research questions don’t align, for example, your project will be pulling in different directions and will lack focus . This is a common problem students face and can cause many headaches (and tears), so be warned.

Take the time to carefully craft your research aims, objectives and research questions before you run off down the research path. Ideally, get your research supervisor/advisor to review and comment on your golden thread before you invest significant time into your project, and certainly before you start collecting data .  

Recap: The golden thread

In this post, we unpacked the golden thread of research, consisting of the research aims , research objectives and research questions . You can jump back to any section using the links below.

As always, feel free to leave a comment below – we always love to hear from you. Also, if you’re interested in 1-on-1 support, take a look at our private coaching service here.

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39 Comments

Thank you very much for your great effort put. As an Undergraduate taking Demographic Research & Methodology, I’ve been trying so hard to understand clearly what is a Research Question, Research Aim and the Objectives in a research and the relationship between them etc. But as for now I’m thankful that you’ve solved my problem.

Well appreciated. This has helped me greatly in doing my dissertation.

An so delighted with this wonderful information thank you a lot.

so impressive i have benefited a lot looking forward to learn more on research.

I am very happy to have carefully gone through this well researched article.

Infact,I used to be phobia about anything research, because of my poor understanding of the concepts.

Now,I get to know that my research question is the same as my research objective(s) rephrased in question format.

I please I would need a follow up on the subject,as I intends to join the team of researchers. Thanks once again.

Thanks so much. This was really helpful.

I know you pepole have tried to break things into more understandable and easy format. And God bless you. Keep it up

i found this document so useful towards my study in research methods. thanks so much.

This is my 2nd read topic in your course and I should commend the simplified explanations of each part. I’m beginning to understand and absorb the use of each part of a dissertation/thesis. I’ll keep on reading your free course and might be able to avail the training course! Kudos!

Thank you! Better put that my lecture and helped to easily understand the basics which I feel often get brushed over when beginning dissertation work.

This is quite helpful. I like how the Golden thread has been explained and the needed alignment.

This is quite helpful. I really appreciate!

The article made it simple for researcher students to differentiate between three concepts.

Very innovative and educational in approach to conducting research.

I am very impressed with all these terminology, as I am a fresh student for post graduate, I am highly guided and I promised to continue making consultation when the need arise. Thanks a lot.

A very helpful piece. thanks, I really appreciate it .

Very well explained, and it might be helpful to many people like me.

Wish i had found this (and other) resource(s) at the beginning of my PhD journey… not in my writing up year… 😩 Anyways… just a quick question as i’m having some issues ordering my “golden thread”…. does it matter in what order you mention them? i.e., is it always first aims, then objectives, and finally the questions? or can you first mention the research questions and then the aims and objectives?

Thank you for a very simple explanation that builds upon the concepts in a very logical manner. Just prior to this, I read the research hypothesis article, which was equally very good. This met my primary objective.

My secondary objective was to understand the difference between research questions and research hypothesis, and in which context to use which one. However, I am still not clear on this. Can you kindly please guide?

In research, a research question is a clear and specific inquiry that the researcher wants to answer, while a research hypothesis is a tentative statement or prediction about the relationship between variables or the expected outcome of the study. Research questions are broader and guide the overall study, while hypotheses are specific and testable statements used in quantitative research. Research questions identify the problem, while hypotheses provide a focus for testing in the study.

Exactly what I need in this research journey, I look forward to more of your coaching videos.

This helped a lot. Thanks so much for the effort put into explaining it.

What data source in writing dissertation/Thesis requires?

What is data source covers when writing dessertation/thesis

This is quite useful thanks

I’m excited and thankful. I got so much value which will help me progress in my thesis.

where are the locations of the reserch statement, research objective and research question in a reserach paper? Can you write an ouline that defines their places in the researh paper?

Very helpful and important tips on Aims, Objectives and Questions.

Thank you so much for making research aim, research objectives and research question so clear. This will be helpful to me as i continue with my thesis.

Thanks much for this content. I learned a lot. And I am inspired to learn more. I am still struggling with my preparation for dissertation outline/proposal. But I consistently follow contents and tutorials and the new FB of GRAD Coach. Hope to really become confident in writing my dissertation and successfully defend it.

As a researcher and lecturer, I find splitting research goals into research aims, objectives, and questions is unnecessarily bureaucratic and confusing for students. For most biomedical research projects, including ‘real research’, 1-3 research questions will suffice (numbers may differ by discipline).

Awesome! Very important resources and presented in an informative way to easily understand the golden thread. Indeed, thank you so much.

Well explained

The blog article on research aims, objectives, and questions by Grad Coach is a clear and insightful guide that aligns with my experiences in academic research. The article effectively breaks down the often complex concepts of research aims and objectives, providing a straightforward and accessible explanation. Drawing from my own research endeavors, I appreciate the practical tips offered, such as the need for specificity and clarity when formulating research questions. The article serves as a valuable resource for students and researchers, offering a concise roadmap for crafting well-defined research goals and objectives. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced researcher, this article provides practical insights that contribute to the foundational aspects of a successful research endeavor.

A great thanks for you. it is really amazing explanation. I grasp a lot and one step up to research knowledge.

I really found these tips helpful. Thank you very much Grad Coach.

I found this article helpful. Thanks for sharing this.

thank you so much, the explanation and examples are really helpful

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Formulating Research Aims and Objectives

Formulating research aim and objectives in an appropriate manner is one of the most important aspects of your thesis. This is because research aim and objectives determine the scope, depth and the overall direction of the research. Research question is the central question of the study that has to be answered on the basis of research findings.

Research aim emphasizes what needs to be achieved within the scope of the research, by the end of the research process. Achievement of research aim provides answer to the research question.

Research objectives divide research aim into several parts and address each part separately. Research aim specifies WHAT needs to be studied and research objectives comprise a number of steps that address HOW research aim will be achieved.

As a rule of dumb, there would be one research aim and several research objectives. Achievement of each research objective will lead to the achievement of the research aim.

Consider the following as an example:

Research title: Effects of organizational culture on business profitability: a case study of Virgin Atlantic

Research aim: To assess the effects of Virgin Atlantic organizational culture on business profitability

Following research objectives would facilitate the achievement of this aim:

• Analyzing the nature of organizational culture at Virgin Atlantic by September 1, 2022
• Identifying factors impacting Virgin Atlantic organizational culture by September 16, 2022
• Analyzing impacts of Virgin Atlantic organizational culture on employee performances by September 30, 2022
• Providing recommendations to Virgin Atlantic strategic level management in terms of increasing the level of effectiveness of organizational culture by October 5, 2022

Figure below illustrates additional examples in formulating research aims and objectives:

Formulation of research question, aim and objectives

Common mistakes in the formulation of research aim relate to the following:

1. Choosing the topic too broadly . This is the most common mistake. For example, a research title of “an analysis of leadership practices” can be classified as too broad because the title fails to answer the following questions:

a) Which aspects of leadership practices? Leadership has many aspects such as employee motivation, ethical behaviour, strategic planning, change management etc. An attempt to cover all of these aspects of organizational leadership within a single research will result in an unfocused and poor work.

b) An analysis of leadership practices in which country? Leadership practices tend to be different in various countries due to cross-cultural differences, legislations and a range of other region-specific factors. Therefore, a study of leadership practices needs to be country-specific.

c) Analysis of leadership practices in which company or industry? Similar to the point above, analysis of leadership practices needs to take into account industry-specific and/or company-specific differences, and there is no way to conduct a leadership research that relates to all industries and organizations in an equal manner.

Accordingly, as an example “a study into the impacts of ethical behaviour of a leader on the level of employee motivation in US healthcare sector” would be a more appropriate title than simply “An analysis of leadership practices”.

2. Setting an unrealistic aim . Formulation of a research aim that involves in-depth interviews with Apple strategic level management by an undergraduate level student can be specified as a bit over-ambitious. This is because securing an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook or members of Apple Board of Directors might not be easy. This is an extreme example of course, but you got the idea. Instead, you may aim to interview the manager of your local Apple store and adopt a more feasible strategy to get your dissertation completed.

3. Choosing research methods incompatible with the timeframe available . Conducting interviews with 20 sample group members and collecting primary data through 2 focus groups when only three months left until submission of your dissertation can be very difficult, if not impossible. Accordingly, timeframe available need to be taken into account when formulating research aims and objectives and selecting research methods.

Moreover, research objectives need to be formulated according to SMART principle,

 where the abbreviation stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

Examples of SMART research objectives

At the conclusion part of your research project you will need to reflect on the level of achievement of research aims and objectives. In case your research aims and objectives are not fully achieved by the end of the study, you will need to discuss the reasons. These may include initial inappropriate formulation of research aims and objectives, effects of other variables that were not considered at the beginning of the research or changes in some circumstances during the research process.

John Dudovskiy

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How to Write the Dissertation Aims and Objectives – Guide & Examples

Published by Grace Graffin at January 27th, 2023 , Revised On October 9, 2023

Aims and objectives are among the essential aspects of a dissertation. If you write aims and objectives effectively, they can act as a foundation to give your research clarity and focus.

This article will provide you with all the necessary information regarding aims and objectives, their differences, writing tips , and the common mistakes you should avoid while writing them.

The aim is often a single sentence or a short paragraph that describes your dissertation’s main goal and intent. It tells what you hope to achieve at the end. You should write the aim so that it becomes identifiable when it is achieved with the completion of your dissertation .

The aim is written in a subsection of the introduction to clarify the overall purpose of the dissertation .

Example: It is often observed that employees in culturally diverse workplaces struggle to work effectively in a team. A probable cause of this issue is bullying at the workplace. This research investigates the impact of bullying on employee job satisfaction at culturally diverse workplaces and the resulting loss of employee productivity. This research will use surveys and case study analysis to analyze the impact of bullying on employees.

The objectives in a dissertation describe the ways through which you intend to achieve the research aim. They are specific statements that break down the aim into several smaller key sections of the overall research. Suitable objectives can help you stay focused and conduct research in the direction of your aim.

The number of objectives should be realistic; usually, between three to six, and each one should be possible to achieve. The following example shows the objectives for the previously-mentioned dissertation aim.

1. identification of the behaviors that are considered as bullying 2. exploring the factors that cause bullying at a culturally diverse workplace 3. analyzing the relationship between bullying and job satisfaction of employees 4. providing suitable recommendations on minimizing the bullying at the workplace

The objectives of a dissertation should be SMART.

• Specific: should be precise, focused, and well-defined
• Measurable: the progress should be measurable, and you should be able to determine when you have achieved an objective.
• Achievable: you should be able to carry out the required action within your available resources
• Relevant: should be related to the dissertation aim
• Time-bound: should be possible within the available time

Differences between aims and objectives

Aims and objectives are often mixed, but there are clear differences between them.

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How to write aims and objectives?

There is no particular way or standard to write the aims and objectives. Different researchers have different writing styles, and often it can be influenced by your research supervisor. However, you should follow certain basic principles while writing aims and objectives in a dissertation.

Writing the aim statement

The aim statement should cover the following essential elements.

• Why is the research necessary? (covers the underlying problem on which the study is to be conducted)
• What is the research about? (description of the research title)
• How are you going to conduct it? (a brief statement of intended research methods)

An appropriate aim clearly defines the research purpose without confusing the reader. If you struggle to explain your research and its importance in simpler terms, you should consider refining your research to clarify it further.

Writing objectives

The objectives describe how you would achieve your research aim. You can do this through the following steps,

• The first one to two objectives can be applied to the literature review . (Verbs to be used: investigate, examine, study)
• One objective can be applied to the methodology portion. (Verbs to be used: collect, select, demonstrate, estimate)
• Two to three objectives can cover the critical evaluation or discussion chapters (Verbs to be used: analyze, compare, evaluate)
• The final objective will cover the conclusion or recommendation portion. (Verbs to be used: conclude, recommend)

Instead of writing like a paragraph, the objectives should be written as a numbered list to give them more clarity.

How many aims and objectives should be there?

It depends upon the topic of your research and mainly upon your supervisor’s requirements. Generally, a dissertation has a single broad statement as the research aim. However, it is acceptable to include a main aim along with two to three subsidiary aims.

Similarly, the number of objectives should be realistic and sufficient to measure the progress regarding the achievement of the research aim. Their number can generally vary from three to six depending upon the aim.

Common mistakes to avoid while writing research aims and objectives

• Writing a broad research aim

Writing a broad research aim is a common mistake, and it often becomes difficult to achieve. It may create a problem when you are asked to prove how you have achieved your aims during your  viva defense . It would be best to narrow your study to a specific area in the early stages of the dissertation.

• Formulating overlapping research objectives

The objectives should be written such that they are measurable and distinct from each other. If they overlap, it makes it difficult to structure your dissertation properly in specific chapters.

• Setting unrealistic aims

Students often get over-ambitious while describing the research aim and face problems afterward in achieving those aims. You should avoid this mistake and be realistic about what you can achieve in the available time and resources.

Aims and objectives are the sections that require significant time and attention to avoid future hassles while conducting research and writing your dissertation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to set dissertation aims and objectives.

To set dissertation aims and objectives, define your research goals clearly. Aims state what you want to achieve, while objectives outline specific, measurable steps to reach those goals. Ensure they align with your research question and contribute to your study’s significance.

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A Guide to Writing Research Objectives and Aims

• Post author: Research Zone
• Post published: September 6, 2021
• Post category: Academic Advice / Writing Thesis
• Post comments: 1 Comment

Introduction

In determining the success of your research project, it is crucial to understand your research objectives and aim. However, it is, unfortunately, an aspect that many students struggle with, resulting in poor performance. As a result of their importance, if you suspect even the slightest possibility that you belong to this group of students, we strongly recommend that you read this article in its entirety.

In this article, we describe what research aim and objectives are, what distinguishes them from each other, and how to write them correctly.

What is Research Aim?

Research aims describe the purpose or main goal of a project. It help your reader to understand the focus of your research and gives them an idea of what you are trying to accomplish. Research aims are found in their own subsection under the introduction section of all research documents, regardless of whether they are dissertations or research papers.

In most situations, a research aim is expressed as a broad statement of the main goal of the study and doesn’t need to be more than one sentence. The exact format of the outline will vary depending on your preference, but it should all explain the purpose (context), your objective (the actual aim), and how you plan to accomplish it (highlights of your objectives).

What are Research Objectives?

Research aim defines what your study is going to answer, but research objectives outline how it’s going to answer it.

Those objectives break down each component of your research project into smaller portions, each representing a key section of it. Thus, almost all dissertations and theses are organized into numbered lists, with each item getting its own chapter.

Understanding the difference between research objectives and aim

The above explanation should make clear the difference between aim and objectives, but to clarify:

• Aim focus on what a project proposes to achieve; objectives focus on how the project will achieve its goal.
• The research objectives are more specific than the research aims.
• Objectives focus on the short-term and immediate outcomes of a project while aim focus on its long-term outcomes.
• It would be best to write an objective as a numbered list; research aim can be written in one sentence or short paragraph.

How to Write the Aim and Objectives of Research?

It is important to note that there is no definitive way to write clear objectives and aim for research. Researchers typically formulate their goals and objectives in so many different ways, and your supervisor may often influence the formulation based on their preferences.

Nevertheless, there are a few basic principles you should observe to ensure good practice; these principles are listed below.

Research Aim

The aim should include three parts, which address the following questions:

• Why is this research necessary?
• What is the purpose of this study?
• How will you accomplish it?

It is easier to accomplish writing your research aim by addressing each question using its own sentence, although you can combine sentences for each or write multiple sentences for each question, the important thing is to address each one individually.

The first question, why, provides context to your research project, the second question, what describes the aim of your research, and the last question, how, acts as an introduction to your objectives which will immediately follow.

Research Objectives

Each of your research objectives should have the following:

• Specific: Is the action you intend to take unclear, or is it focused and well-defined?
• Assessable: What method will you use to measure your progress and determine when you have accomplished your goal?
• Obtainable: Do you have the necessary support, resources, and facilities to execute the project?
• Relevant: Does the action you propose support the achievement of your research aim?
• Timebound: Are you realistically able to complete the action within the given timeframe?

Properly formulating the aims and objectives of your thesis, dissertation, or research paper is an integral part of its success. Your goals and objectives will determine what your research ultimately looks like in terms of scope, depth, and direction. You will gain clarity in your research and in the minds of your readers if you establish clear aims and objectives, with your aim stating what you wish to achieve, and your objectives indicating how you will do that. Moreover, you will have a clearer direction for your research if you take the time to establish your research objective and aim. This will lead to fewer future issues, but also to a more thorough and cohesive research project.

Feel free to reach out to us here if you need assistance in writing your objectives or aim for your thesis or research. You can also click here to learn more about the services provided.

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A Complete Guide to Write Research Aims and Objectives

The importance of making a good quality aim and objectives of a research is paramount in the success of the research.

In this post, you will learn:

• What is research aim?
• What are research objectives?
• How to differentiate between research aim and research objective
• Examples of research aims and objectives
• Key points to remember while writing research aim and objectives
• Do’s and Don’ts

What Is Research Aim?

The research aim is the primary focus of the research and determines what the research serves to do. It defines the purpose of the research and tells the audience what the research aims to achieve.

Because research aims are so important for the study, a sun heading in the introductory chapter is usually dedicated to them. They are written in a paragraph form and define the main purpose of conducting the research on a topic.

Example of a good quality research aim

Research about the effects of climate change on the mental health of young adults can be worded as follows:

“The effects of climate change information on the minds of young adults are under researched. This research aims to find the effects that climate change information has on the mental health of young adults. By studying the effects of the intensity and frequency of the consumption of climate change news and forecasts among young adults, this study aims to see how climate change information is influencing their mental health.”

The above research aim is focused and clear and presents the reader with a clear understanding of the purpose of the research.

What Is Research Objective?

Research aims are related to research objectives. The research aim determines the overall purpose of the study, and the objectives determine in what ways that purpose will be achieved. The purpose of the research aim is separated into subsections. However, If any you need to order IT Research Paper help services then you have to take a survey on the net. These subsections are smaller steps that define the objectives of the research.

Research objectives are usually written in the form of a list. These small bits of steps can be checked off as the research progresses. They are written in chronological order, starting with the first objective that needs to be achieved and ending with the final one.

Example of research objectives

Taking the example of the research aim above, we can divide it into smaller sections to create specific aims of the research.

• Understand the concepts of climate change and mental health
• Understand the relationship between climate change and mental health
• Determine the frequency and intensity of climate change news consumption among young adults
• Determine the frequency and intensity of news affects the mental health of young adults
• Develop recommendations for clinical practice in the field

From this example, you can see how the research aim was broken down into smaller, specific objectives that were then listed down.

Differentiate Research Between Aims & Objectives

Although the two concepts are related, they are not the same. The differences between research aim and research objectives are:

• The way they are worded are different: Research aim is worded in a wide scoped way, while research objectives are worded as specific, narrowed down tasks.
• The focus of the two are different: research aim focuses on the overall purpose while research objectives focus on how to achieve that purpose.
• The purpose of the two are different: research aims are concerned with the overall findings of a research, which are long-term, while research objectives serve to define the short term aims of the research.
• The way they are presented are different: research aims are written in a small paragraph form while the objectives are written in the form of a list.

3 Key Points To Remember While Drafting Research Aim

The ways of writing a research aim varies with the researcher, but there are certain points to keep in mind to write a good quality research aim:

1. Answer the “why” question of the research: A research aim needs to provide an answer for why the study is being conducted. It needs to describe, in a small sentence or phares, why the research is important to conduct.

Taking the example of the research aim above, we can see that it answers the why question:

“The effects of climate change information on the minds of young adults are under researched”.

2. Answer the “what” question of the research: this is the main purpose of the research aim, as it signifies the main aim of the research.

From the example above, the “what” question is answered as follows:

“This research aims to find the effects that climate change information has on the mental health of young adults.”

3. Lastly, the research aim needs to answer the “how” question. In a simple sentence or a few phrases, it should outline the main way in which you are planning to achieve the aim.

From the example above, the “how” question is answered as follows:

“By studying the effects of the intensity and frequency of the consumption of climate change news and forecasts among young adults, this study aims to see how climate change information is influencing their mental health.”

Checklist of research aim:

• Tells the purpose of research
• Tells why the research is important
• Tells how the aim will be achieved
• Is clear and concise

5 Key Points To Remember While Drafting Research Objective

An easy way to determine the quality of your research objectives is to apply the SMART method to them:

• You need to make sure that the objectives are worded as specific tasks you need to achieve. They should not be vague.
• You should ensure that the objectives are measurable, meaning that they allow you to see how much of them have been achieved and how much are left to work on.
• The objectives need to be achievable, meaning you should have the resources to work on them.
• They need to be relevant to getting to your research aim.
• They need to be achievable in the time you have available for your research project.

In the example above the objectives follow the above mentioned criteria. While making your own objectives, make sure to evaluate them using the points above to ensure your objectives are good quality.

Checklist of research objectives

Do’s and Don’ts of research aims and objectives

What to do and what to avoid in writing aims and objectives

The Takeaway

• The research aim is the primary focus of the research.
• Research aims are related to research objectives
• The objectives determine in what ways that purpose will be achieved.
• Research aim needs to answer the “what”, “why” and “how” questions of the research.
• Research objectives need to be SMART.

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Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between research aims and objectives.

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

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• Write Your Specific Aims Page

The specific aims page, especially the aims themselves, are the crux of your grant application. Use the following tips to write a strong, clear specific aims page. Use the Specific Aims Page Checklist to assess your writing and to ensure that you have included all of the necessary components.

Create a ‘Funnel Shape’ Conceptually

Create a focused lead paragraph that has a "funnel shape" conceptually. Lead the reader from the general to the specific, so that by the time your specific aims appear, it's clear what gap in the literature you're addressing and how this new knowledge will fit into the field. This introduction should also indicate how this proposal builds upon your previous data.

Example: "The mechanism by which cirrhosis of the liver occurs in a subset of patients with Cystic Fibrosis is unknown. Our data over the past 3 years has demonstrated that gene X is a candidate modifier gene by crossing Cystic Fibrosis knockout mice with gene X deficient mice. This proposal will build upon these results and test the hypothesis that Gene X is a modifier gene through its fibrogenic activation properties."

Write a Clear, Testable Hypothesis

Strive to create one clear hypothesis first that will be tested through your specific aims . Know the difference between specific aims and long-term goals .

Note: Depending on the grant you are seeking, this rule may not be possible or desirable. For example, if you are applying for an R01 grant in health services/outcomes research, the typical grant in this area has a data collection project at its core that often addresses more than one goal . Therefore, the nature of the project is often briefly described in the last sentence of the introduction, rather than in the specific aims.

Example: "We will conduct a multi-center, prospective, longitudinal study of 1000 patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancies in order to..."

Do: "Three cloves of garlic per day cure colon cancer through activation of the caspase death pathway in tumor cells."

Don't: "There are various chemicals within garlic that have different effects on all cells including tumor cells."

Tips on Writing Specific Aims

• Make Aims Concise and Highly Focused
• Ensure Clear Results
• Write Aims that Test Single Hypothesis
• Indicate Why, What and How
• Avoid Sub-Aims

Your specific aims  is the crux of your proposal so make sure they are concise and highly focused. Get them critiqued, and rewrite until the aims are solid and provide a foundation for the rest of your proposal.

Ensure that your specific aims will provide clear results and that they test your hypothesis . Do: Hypothesis: "Three cloves of garlic per day cure colon cancer through activation of the caspase death pathway in tumor cells." Specific Aims: "1. Test in vitro in T84 colon cancer cells and in vivo in a mouse model of colon cancer that garlic activates the caspase death pathway. 2. Activation of this caspase pathway leads to tumor regression."

Don't: Hypothesis: "There are various chemicals within garlic that have different effects on all cells including tumor cells." Specific aims: "1. We will explore whether incubating different cell types in vitro with garlic affects cell survival. 2. Garlic proteins will be extracted and analyzed by mass spectroscopy."

Write specific aims that test a single, overarching hypothesis , and not individual aims connected to their own hypotheses. Note: Depending on the grant you are seeking, this rule may not be possible or desirable. For example, if you are applying for an R01 grant in health services/outcomes research, the typical grant in this area has a data collection project at its core that often addresses more than one goal . Therefore, the nature of the project is often briefly described in the last sentence of the introduction, rather than in the specific aims.

Example: "We will conduct a multi-center prospective, longitudinal study of 1000 patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancies in order to..."  

Convey specific aims that indicate why you want to do the work, what you want to do, and how you will do it.

Include no more than three aims and no sub-aims , if possible. Generally, you should not have four or more aims with sub-aims and/or their own hypotheses .

NIH K GRANT SPECIFIC AIMS PAGE RUBRIC

The rubric below provides recommendations for a Specific Aims page of a NIH K grant application . In addition to overall considerations, this rubric is broken up into four parts that correspond to the four sections of a Specific Aims page: the introduction paragraph, the body paragraph(s), the specific aims themselves, and the closing, or impact paragraph.

Use this rubric after you’ve completed a Specific Aims page draft to ensure that you have included all the necessary components. Review the completed rubric and carefully note any unchecked boxes. Review the resources linked throughout this document and use them to improve your Specific Aims page.

Please Note:  While this rubric is meant to be a comprehensive resource, we acknowledge that there is no singular correct way to write a grant application and in some cases, deviation from this rubric may be warranted.

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5.1 Goals of the Research Project

Learning objectives.

• Understand and describe the differences among exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory research.
• Define and provide an example of idiographic research.
• Define and provide an example of nomothetic research.
• Identify circumstances under which research would be defined as applied and compare those to circumstances under which research would be defined as basic.

A recent news story about college students’ addictions to electronic gadgets (Lisk, 2011) Lisk, J. (2011). Addiction to our electronic gadgets. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2011/03/01/hm.election.addiction.cnn?iref=allsearch describes findings from some current research by Professor Susan Moeller and colleagues from the University of Maryland ( http://withoutmedia.wordpress.com ). The story raises a number of interesting questions. Just what sorts of gadgets are students addicted to? How do these addictions work? Why do they exist, and who is most likely to experience them?

Sociological research is great for answering just these sorts of questions. But in order to answer our questions well, we must take care in designing our research projects. In this chapter, we’ll consider what aspects of a research project should be considered at the beginning, including specifying the goals of the research, the components that are common across most research projects, and a few other considerations.

One of the first things to think about when designing a research project is what you hope to accomplish, in very general terms, by conducting the research. What do you hope to be able to say about your topic? Do you hope to gain a deep understanding of whatever phenomenon it is that you’re studying, or would you rather have a broad, but perhaps less deep, understanding? Do you want your research to be used by policymakers or others to shape social life, or is this project more about exploring your curiosities? Your answers to each of these questions will shape your research design.

Exploration, Description, Explanation

You’ll need to decide in the beginning phases whether your research will be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory. Each has a different purpose, so how you design your research project will be determined in part by this decision.

Researchers conducting exploratory research Research that aims to satisfy a researcher’s curiosity about a topic or test the feasibility of a more extensive study. are typically at the early stages of examining their topics. These sorts of projects are usually conducted when a researcher wants to test the feasibility of conducting a more extensive study; he or she wants to figure out the lay of the land, with respect to the particular topic. Perhaps very little prior research has been conducted on this subject. If this is the case, a researcher may wish to do some exploratory work to learn what method to use in collecting data, how best to approach research subjects, or even what sorts of questions are reasonable to ask. A researcher wanting to simply satisfy his or her own curiosity about a topic could also conduct exploratory research. In the case of the study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets, a researcher conducting exploratory research on this topic may simply wish to learn more about students’ use of these gadgets. Because these addictions seem to be a relatively new phenomenon, an exploratory study of the topic might make sense as an initial first step toward understanding it.

In my research on child-free adults, I was unsure what the results might be when first embarking on the study. There was very little empirical research on the topic, so the initial goal of the research was simply to get a better grasp of what child-free people’s lives are like and how their decision to be child free shapes their relationships and everyday experiences. Conducting exploratory research on the topic was a necessary first step, both to satisfy my curiosity about the subject and to better understand the phenomenon and the research participants in order to design a larger, subsequent study.

Sometimes the goal of research is to describe or define a particular phenomenon. In this case, descriptive research Research that aims to describe or define. would be an appropriate strategy. A descriptive study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets, for example, might aim to describe patterns in how use of gadgets varies by gender or college major or which sorts of gadgets students tend to use most regularly.

Researchers at the Princeton Review conduct descriptive research each year when they set out to provide students and their parents with information about colleges and universities around the United States ( http://www.princetonreview.com ). They describe the social life at a school, the cost of admission, and student-to-faculty ratios (to name just a few of the categories reported). Although students and parents may be able to obtain much of this information on their own, having access to the data gathered by a team of researchers is much more convenient and less time consuming.

Market researchers also rely on descriptive research to tell them what consumers think of their products. In fact, descriptive research has many useful applications, and you probably rely on findings from descriptive research without even being aware that that is what you are doing.

Finally, sociological researchers often aim to explain why particular phenomena work in the way that they do. Research that answers “why” questions is referred to as explanatory research Research that aims to identify causes and effects. . In this case, the researcher is trying to identify the causes and effects of whatever phenomenon he or she is studying. An explanatory study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets might aim to understand why students become addicted. Does it have anything to do with their family histories? With their other extracurricular hobbies and activities? With whom they spend their time? An explanatory study could answer these kinds of questions.

There are numerous examples of explanatory social scientific investigations. For example, in a recent study, Dominique Simons and Sandy Wurtele (2010) Simons, D. A., & Wurtele, S. K. (2010). Relationships between parents’ use of corporal punishment and their children’s endorsement of spanking and hitting other children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34 , 639–646. sought to discover whether receiving corporal punishment from parents led children to turn to violence in solving their interpersonal conflicts with other children. In their study of 102 families with children between the ages of 3 and 7, the researchers found that experiencing frequent spanking did, in fact, result in children being more likely to accept aggressive problem-solving techniques. Another example of explanatory research can be seen in Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee’s research (2011; American Sociological Association, 2011) Faris, R., & Felmlee, D. (2011). Status struggles: Network centrality and gender segregation in same- and cross-gender aggression. American Sociological Review, 76 , 48–73; the American Sociological Association wrote a press release summarizing findings from the study. You can read it at http://asanet.org/press/Press_Release_Popular_Kids_More_Likely_to_Torment_Peers.cfm . The study has also been covered by several media outlets: Pappas, S. (2011). Popularity increases aggression in kids, study finds. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/11737-popularity-increases-aggression-kids-study-finds.html on the connections between popularity and bullying. They found, from their study of 8th, 9th, and 10th graders in 19 North Carolina schools, that as adolescents’ popularity increases, so, too, does their aggression. This pattern was found until adolescents reached the top 2% in the popularity ranks. After that, aggression declines.

Idiographic or Nomothetic?

Once you decide whether you will conduct exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory research, you will need to determine whether you want your research to be idiographic or nomothetic. A decision to conduct idiographic research Exhaustive, detailed descriptions or explanations of a singular or very small number of individuals, phenomena, or groups. means that you will attempt to explain or describe your phenomenon exhaustively. While you might have to sacrifice some breadth of understanding if you opt for an idiographic explanation, you will gain a much deeper, richer understanding of whatever phenomenon or group you are studying than you would if you were to pursue nomothetic research. A decision to conduct nomothetic research General, broad descriptions or explanations of many individuals, phenomena, or groups. , on the other hand, means that you will aim to provide a more general, sweeping explanation or description of your topic. In this case, you sacrifice depth of understanding in favor of breadth of understanding.

Let’s look at some specific examples. As a graduate student, I conducted an in-depth study of breast cancer activism (Blackstone, 2003). Blackstone, A. (2003). Racing for the cure and taking back the night: Constructing gender, politics, and public participation in women’s activist/volunteer work . PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. To do so, I joined an organization of local activists and participated in just about every aspect of the organization over a period of about 18 months. Perhaps it goes without saying, but over the course of a year and a half of participant observation, I learned quite a bit about this organization and its members. In other words, the study revealed the particular idiosyncrasies of the group, but it did not reveal much about the inner workings of other breast cancer activist organizations. Armed with an in-depth understanding about this single group, the study made a contribution to knowledge about how activists operate. For one thing, the organization I observed happened to be one of the largest and most well known of its type at the time, and many other organizations in the movement looked to this organization for ideas about how to operate. Understanding how this model organization worked was important for future activist efforts in a variety of organizations. Further, the study revealed far more intimate details of the inner workings of an activist organization than had it, say, instead been a survey of the top 50 breast cancer organizations in the United States (though that would have been an interesting study as well).

My collaborative research on workplace sexual harassment (Uggen & Blackstone, 2004), Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2004). Sexual harassment as a gendered expression of power. American Sociological Review, 69 , 64–92. on the other hand, aims to provide more sweeping descriptions and explanations. For this nomothetic research project, we mailed surveys to a large sample of young workers who look very much like their peers in terms of their jobs, social class background, gender, and other categories. Because of these similarities, we have been able to speak generally about what young workers’ experiences with sexual harassment are like. In an idiographic study of the same topic, the research team might follow a few workers around every day for a long period of time or conduct a series of very detailed, and lengthy, interviews with 10 or 15 workers.

Applied or Basic?

Finally, you will need to decide what sort of contribution you hope to make with your research. Do you want others to be able to use your research to shape social life? If so, you may wish to conduct a study that policymakers could use to change or create a specific policy. Perhaps, on the other hand, you wish to conduct a study that will contribute to sociological theories or knowledge without having a specific applied use in mind. In the example of the news story on students’ addictions to technological gadgets, an applied study of this topic might aim to understand how to treat such addictions. A basic study of the same topic, on the other hand, might examine existing theories of addiction and consider how this new type of addiction does or does not apply; perhaps your study could suggest ways that such theories may be tweaked to encompass technological addictions.

In Chapter 1 "Introduction" , we learned about both applied and basic research. When designing your research project, think about where you envision your work fitting in on the applied–basic continuum. Recognize, however, that even basic research may ultimately be used for some applied purpose. Similarly, your applied research might not turn out to be applicable to the particular real-world social problem you were trying to solve, but it might better our theoretical understanding of some phenomenon. In other words, deciding now whether your research will be basic or applied doesn’t mean that will be its sole purpose forever. Basic research may ultimately be applied, and applied research can certainly contribute to general knowledge. Nevertheless, it is important to think in advance about what contribution(s) you hope to make with your research.

Key Takeaways

• Exploratory research is usually conducted when a researcher has just begun an investigation and wishes to understand her or his topic generally.
• Descriptive research is research that aims to describe or define the topic at hand.
• Explanatory research is research that aims to explain why particular phenomena work in the way that they do.
• Idiographic investigations are exhaustive; nomothetic investigations are more general.
• While researchers may start out having some idea about whether they aim to conduct applied or basic research, it is also important to keep in mind that applied research may contribute to basic understandings and that basic research may turn out to have some useful application.
• Describe a scenario in which exploratory research might be the best approach. Similarly, describe a scenario in which descriptive and then explanatory research would be the preferred approach.
• Which are you more drawn to personally, applied or basic research? Why?

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Title: why tabular foundation models should be a research priority.

Abstract: Recent text and image foundation models are incredibly impressive, and these models are attracting an ever-increasing portion of research resources. In this position piece we aim to shift the ML research community's priorities ever so slightly to a different modality: tabular data. Tabular data is the dominant modality in many fields, yet it is given hardly any research attention and significantly lags behind in terms of scale and power. We believe the time is now to start developing tabular foundation models, or what we coin a Large Tabular Model (LTM). LTMs could revolutionise the way science and ML use tabular data: not as single datasets that are analyzed in a vacuum, but contextualized with respect to related datasets. The potential impact is far-reaching: from few-shot tabular models to automating data science; from out-of-distribution synthetic data to empowering multidisciplinary scientific discovery. We intend to excite reflections on the modalities we study, and convince some researchers to study large tabular models.

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NSF funds groundbreaking research project led by Northeastern to ‘democratize’ artificial intelligence

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Computer science professor David Bau is the lead principal investigator of National Deep Inference Fabric, a revolutionary new project involving industry and academic partners aimed at unlocking the secrets of AI.

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Groundbreaking research by Northeastern University will investigate how generative AI works and provide industry and the scientific community with unprecedented access to the inner workings of large language models.

Backed by a $9 million grant from the National Science Foundation , Northeastern will lead the National Deep Inference Fabric that will unlock the inner workings of large language models in the field of AI.

The project will create a computational infrastructure that will equip the scientific community with deep inferencing tools in order to develop innovative solutions across fields. An infrastructure with this capability does not currently exist.

At a fundamental level, large language models such as Open AI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini are considered to be “black boxes” which limits both researchers and companies across multiple sectors in leveraging large-scale AI.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the NSF, says the impact of NDIF will be far-reaching.

“Chatbots have transformed society’s relationship with AI, but how they operate is yet to be fully understood,” Panchanathan says. “With NDIF, U.S. researchers will be able peer inside the ‘black box’ of large language models, gaining new insights into how they operate and greater awareness of their potential impacts on society.”

Even the sharpest minds in artificial intelligence are still trying to wrap their heads around how these and other neural network-based tools reason and make decisions, explains David Bau, a computer science professor at Northeastern and the lead principal investigator for NDIF.

“We fundamentally don’t understand how these systems work, what they learned from the data, what their internal algorithms are,” Bau says. “I consider it one of the greatest mysteries facing scientists today — what is the basis for synthetic cognition?”

David Madigan, Northeastern’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, says the project will “help address one of the most pressing socio-technological problems of our time — how does AI work?”

“Progress toward solving this problem is clearly necessary before we can unlock the massive potential for AI to do good in a safe and trustworthy way,” Madigan says.

NDIF aims to democratize AI

In addition to establishing an infrastructure that will open up the inner workings of these AI models, NDIF aims to democratize AI, expanding access to large language models. 

Northeastern will be building an open software library of neural network tools that will enable researchers to conduct their experiments without having to bring their own resources, and sets of educational materials to teach them how to use NDIF. 

The project will build an AI-enabled workforce by training scientists and students to serve as networks of experts, who will train users across disciplines.

“There will be online and in-person educational workshops that we will be running, and we’re going to do this geographically dispersed at many locations taking advantage of Northeastern’s physical presence in a lot of parts of the country,” Bau says. 

Research emerging from the fabric could have worldwide implications outside of science and academia, Bau explains. It could help demystify the underlying mechanisms of how these systems work to policymakers, creatives and others. 

“The goal of understanding how these systems work is to equip humanity with a better understanding for how we could effectively use these systems,” Bau says. “What are their capabilities? What are their limitations? What are their biases? What are the potential safety issues we might face by using them?”   

Putting AI through an MRI machine 

Large language models like Chat GPT and Google’s Gemini are trained on huge amounts of data using deep learning techniques. Underlying these techniques are neural networks, synthetic processes that loosely mimic the activity of a human brain that enable these chatbots to make decisions. 

But when you use these services through a web browser or an app, you are interacting with them in a way that obscures these processes, Bau says. 

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“They give you the answers, but they don’t give you any insights as to what computation has happened in the middle,” Bau says. “Those computations are locked up inside the computer, and for efficiency reasons, they’re not exposed to the outside world. And so, the large commercial players are creating systems to run AIs in deployment, but they’re not suitable for answering the scientific questions of how they actually work.”  

At NDIF, researchers will be able to take a deeper look at the neural pathways these chatbots make, Bau says, allowing them to see what’s going on under the hood while these AI models actively respond to prompts and questions. 

Researchers won’t have direct access to Open AI’s Chat GPT or Google’s Gemini as the companies haven’t opened up their models for outside research. They will instead be able to access open source AI models from companies such as Mistral AI and Meta. 

“What we’re trying to do with NDIF is the equivalent of running an AI with its head stuck in an MRI machine, except the difference is the MRI is in full resolution. We can read every single neuron at every single moment,” Bau says.  

But how are they doing this? 

Significant computational power required

Such an operation requires significant computational power on the hardware front. As part of the undertaking, Northeastern has teamed up with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which is building data centers equipped with state-of-the-art graphics processing units (GPUs) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NDIF will leverage the resources of the NCSA DeltaAI project. 

NDIF will partner with New America’s Public Interest Technology University Network, a consortium of 63 universities and colleges, to ensure that the new NDIF research capabilities advance interdisciplinary research in the public interest.  

Northeastern is building the software layer of the project, Bau says. 

“The software layer is the thing that enables the scientists to customize these experiments and to share these very large neural networks that are running on this very fancy hardware,” he says. 

Northeastern professors Jonathan Bell, Carla Brodley, Bryon Wallace and Arjun Guha are co-PIs on the initiative.

Guha explains the barriers that have hindered research into the inner-workings of large generative AI models up to now. 

“Conducting research to crack open large neural networks poses significant engineering challenges,” he says. “First of all, large AI models require specialized hardware to run, which puts the cost out of reach of most labs. Second, scientific experiments that open up models require running the networks in ways that are very different from standard commercial operations. The infrastructure for conducting science on large-scale AI does not exist today.”

NDIF will have implications beyond the scientific community in academia. The social sciences and humanities, as well as neuroscience, medicine and patient care can benefit from the project.

“Understanding how large networks work, and especially what information informs their outputs, is critical if we are going to use such systems to inform patient care,” Wallace says. 

NDIF will also prioritize the ethical use of AI with a focus on social responsibility and transparency. The project will include collaboration with public interest technology organizations.

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3.1: Goals of the Research Project

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Learning Objectives

• Understand and describe the differences among exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory research.
• Define and provide an example of idiographic research.
• Define and provide an example of nomothetic research.

A rnews story about college students’ addictions to electronic gadgets (Lisk, 2011)Lisk, J. (2011). Addiction to our electronic gadgets. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/hea...tion.cnn?iref= allsearch describes findings from some research by Professor Susan Moeller and colleagues from the University of Maryland ( http://withoutmedia.wordpress.com ). The story raises a number of interesting questions. Just what sorts of gadgets are students addicted to? How do these addictions work? Why do they exist, and who is most likely to experience them?

Sociological research is great for answering just these sorts of questions. But in order to answer our questions well, we must take care in designing our research projects.

One of the first things to think about when designing a research project is what you hope to accomplish, in very general terms, by conducting the research. What do you hope to be able to say about your topic? Do you hope to gain a deep understanding of whatever phenomenon it is that you’re studying, or would you rather have a broad, but perhaps less deep, understanding? Do you want your research to be used by policymakers or others to shape social life, or is this project more about exploring your curiosities? Your answers to each of these questions will shape your research design.

Exploration, Description, Explanation

You’ll need to decide in the beginning phases whether your research will be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory. Each has a different purpose, so how you design your research project will be determined in part by this decision.

Researchers conducting exploratory research are typically at the early stages of examining their topics. These sorts of projects are usually conducted when a researcher wants to test the feasibility of conducting a more extensive study; he or she wants to figure out the lay of the land, with respect to the particular topic. Perhaps very little prior research has been conducted on this subject. If this is the case, a researcher may wish to do some exploratory work to learn what method to use in collecting data, how best to approach research subjects, or even what sorts of questions are reasonable to ask. A researcher wanting to simply satisfy his or her own curiosity about a topic could also conduct exploratory research. In the case of the study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets, a researcher conducting exploratory research on this topic may simply wish to learn more about students’ use of these gadgets. Because these addictions seem to be a relatively new phenomenon, an exploratory study of the topic might make sense as an initial first step toward understanding it.

In my research on child-free adults, I was unsure what the results might be when first embarking on the study. There was very little empirical research on the topic, so the initial goal of the research was simply to get a better grasp of what child-free people’s lives are like and how their decision to be child free shapes their relationships and everyday experiences. Conducting exploratory research on the topic was a necessary first step, both to satisfy my curiosity about the subject and to better understand the phenomenon and the research participants in order to design a larger, subsequent study.

Sometimes the goal of research is to describe or define a particular phenomenon. In this case, descriptive research would be an appropriate strategy. A descriptive study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets, for example, might aim to describe patterns in how use of gadgets varies by gender or college major or which sorts of gadgets students tend to use most regularly.

Researchers at the Princeton Review conduct descriptive research each year when they set out to provide students and their parents with information about colleges and universities around the United States ( http://www.princetonreview.com ). They describe the social life at a school, the cost of admission, and student-to-faculty ratios (to name just a few of the categories reported). Although students and parents may be able to obtain much of this information on their own, having access to the data gathered by a team of researchers is much more convenient and less time consuming.

Market researchers also rely on descriptive research to tell them what consumers think of their products. In fact, descriptive research has many useful applications, and you probably rely on findings from descriptive research without even being aware that that is what you are doing.

Finally, sociological researchers often aim to explain why particular phenomena work in the way that they do. Research that answers “why” questions is referred to as explanatory research . In this case, the researcher is trying to identify the causes and effects of whatever phenomenon he or she is studying. An explanatory study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets might aim to understand why students become addicted. Does it have anything to do with their family histories? With their other extracurricular hobbies and activities? With whom they spend their time? An explanatory study could answer these kinds of questions.

There are numerous examples of explanatory social scientific investigations. For example, in a study, Dominique Simons and Sandy Wurtele (2010)Simons, D. A., & Wurtele, S. K. (2010). Relationships between parents’ use of corporal punishment and their children’s endorsement of spanking and hitting other children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34 , 639–646. sought to discover whether receiving corporal punishment from parents led children to turn to violence in solving their interpersonal conflicts with other children. In their study of 102 families with children between the ages of 3 and 7, the researchers found that experiencing frequent spanking did, in fact, result in children being more likely to accept aggressive problem-solving techniques. Another example of explanatory research can be seen in Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee’s research (2011; American Sociological Association, 2011)Faris, R., & Felmlee, D. (2011). Status struggles: Network centrality and gender segregation in same- and cross-gender aggression. American Sociological Review, 76 , 48–73; the American Sociological Association wrote a press release summarizing findings from the study. You can read it at asanet.org/press/Press_Releas...ment_Peers.cfm . The study has also been covered by several media outlets: Pappas, S. (2011). Popularity increases aggression in kids, study finds. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/11737-pop...udy-finds.html on the connections between popularity and bullying. They found, from their study of 8th, 9th, and 10th graders in 19 North Carolina schools, that as adolescents’ popularity increases, so, too, does their aggression.This pattern was found until adolescents reached the top 2% in the popularity ranks. After that, aggression declines.

Idiographic or Nomothetic?

Once you decide whether you will conduct exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory research, you will need to determine whether you want your research to be idiographic or nomothetic. A decision to conduct idiographic research means that you will attempt to explain or describe your phenomenon exhaustively. While you might have to sacrifice some breadth of understanding if you opt for an idiographic explanation, you will gain a much deeper, richer understanding of whatever phenomenon or group you are studying than you would if you were to pursue nomothetic research. A decision to conduct nomothetic research , on the other hand, means that you will aim to provide a more general, sweeping explanation or description of your topic. In this case, you sacrifice depth of understanding in favor of breadth of understanding.

Let’s look at some specific examples. As a graduate student, I conducted an in-depth study of breast cancer activism (Blackstone, 2003).Blackstone, A. (2003). Racing for the cure and taking back the night: Constructing gender, politics, and public participation in women’s activist/volunteer work . PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. To do so, I joined an organization of local activists and participated in just about every aspect of the organization over a period of about 18 months. Perhaps it goes without saying, but over the course of a year and a half of participant observation, I learned quite a bit about this organization and its members. In other words, the study revealed the particular idiosyncrasies of the group, but it did not reveal much about the inner workings of other breast cancer activist organizations. Armed with an in-depth understanding about this single group, the study made a contribution to knowledge about how activists operate. For one thing, the organization I observed happened to be one of the largest and most well known of its type at the time, and many other organizations in the movement looked to this organization for ideas about how to operate. Understanding how this model organization worked was important for future activist efforts in a variety of organizations. Further, the study revealed far more intimate details of the inner workings of an activist organization than had it, say, instead been a survey of the top 50 breast cancer organizations in the United States (though that would have been an interesting study as well).

My collaborative research on workplace sexual harassment (Uggen & Blackstone, 2004),Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2004). Sexual harassment as a gendered expression of power. American Sociological Review, 69 , 64–92. on the other hand, aims to provide more sweeping descriptions and explanations. For this nomothetic research project, we mailed surveys to a large sample of young workers who look very much like their peers in terms of their jobs, social class background, gender, and other categories. Because of these similarities, we have been able to speak generally about what young workers’ experiences with sexual harassment are like. In an idiographic study of the same topic, the research team might follow a few workers around every day for a long period of time or conduct a series of very detailed, and lengthy, interviews with 10 or 15 workers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Exploratory research is usually conducted when a researcher has just begun an investigation and wishes to understand her or his topic generally.
• Descriptive research is research that aims to describe or define the topic at hand.
• Explanatory research is research that aims to explain why particular phenomena work in the way that they do.
• Idiographic investigations are exhaustive; nomothetic investigations are more general.
• Describe a scenario in which exploratory research might be the best approach. Similarly, describe a scenario in which descriptive and then explanatory research would be the preferred approach.

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PKP Publication Facts Label makes big news

• May 6, 2024
• By Famira Racy

The Publication Facts Label (PFL) will be used to bring together information about article and journal scholarly publishing standards through verification, and to communicate that verification to the public.

This post contains an interview with project partner Laura Moorhead, as well as a case study published in Learned Publishing , and two outputs at Nature : an interview with PKP Founder John Willinsky in Nature Index, and the Daily Briefing “Question of the Week” with poll results.

Public access, and research integrity, are at the heart of the Publication Facts Label (PFL), a PKP initiative aimed at opening conversations about industry-wide standards, and serving as a go-to checkpoint for assessing journal and publication integrity.

The PFL is part of the 5-Point Journal Integrity Initiative (JII): A New Standard for Public Access to Research . The label is a plug-in in the form of an information modal (or pop-up) that is similar in conception to the Nutrition Facts Label . Researchers, journalists, and the general public will be able to use the PFL to learn about:

• the article’s peer-reviewers;
• the article’s author statements (i.e., competing interests, data availability, external funding);
• the journal’s article acceptance rate, days to publication, indexing, and editorial board;
• comparisons to other articles and journals.

Below is a snapshot of the PFL’s evolution following intensive focus group reviews and revisions.

We are moving forward in the age of scholarship and research for the greater public good. At the same time, we, at PKP, feel a responsibility to develop tools to inform, educate, and facilitate the public in assessing publication integrity. Why should we feel this responsibility?

One example is the potential mis-labeling of journals and publications as “predatory” in the wake of the open access movement. If scholars and researchers can mis-identify publications as predatory, then it makes sense that the public, including students, science communicators and journalists can, too.

Interview with Laura Moorhead

To help illuminate the JII, and how the PFL could influence professions like journalism, PKP interviewed project partner Laura Moorhead, professor at San Francisco State University’s Journalism Department. Laura commented on one major reason why the PFL is needed:

First you need access, but then you need to somehow judge what your your accessing, and what you’re looking at. And I think with so much being available online, there is the question of what is accurate, what’s incorrect, what’s misinformation, and how do you gauge what you’re looking at. And that’s where I think this project, and in particular the label, comes into play.

Case Study in Learned Publishers

To further share the PFL conception and rationale with the scholarly publishing community, John Willinsky and Daniel Pimentel had their case study, The Publication Facts Label: A public and professional guide for research articles , published in the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers’ journal of Learned Publishers .

Two key takeaways in the article are that, beyond the goals already outlined, the goals include (1) “to educate readers about the standards that set scholarly publishing apart on the very trustworthiness of the information,” and that (2) “the larger goal is to explore whether there might be interest and appetite for the application of such a device across scholarly publishers and platforms.”

For these goals to be met, the project creators are calling for an organization to bring together publishers to set standards for the PFL in the future. Crossref, ORCID, and DOAJ are already involved at an early stage as a first step in this direction.

Researchers want a ‘nutrition label’ for academic paper facts — Nature Index

As John put it,

Unlike the nutrition-facts label, which was mandated by the US government, the publication-facts label is the result of voluntary concern about research integrity in the publishing industry.

This interview with John Willinsky, published in Nature Index , covers questions such as: why have the PFL, how was the label created, how is the label being tested, and how journals would be compelled to use the label.

Nature Daily Briefing “Question of the Week” Reader Poll Results

Nature’s interest in the PFL does not stop at interviewing John — they also wanted to know what their readership thought about “paper nutrition labels.” More than 3000 people responded to the reader poll , with results indicating a vast majority (73%) think the PFL would be useful.

The poll results came with some examples of why readers voted the way they did, its usefulness, what should be included, some concerns, and why they thought it might not be necessary.

Stay tuned to PKP’s News Blog to get updates on the JII and the PFL. Please consider engaging with PKP’s social media channels to share your interest in, support of, or concerns with the PFL.

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SEAI announces €20m for clean energy projects in Ireland

by Vish Gain

59 minutes ago

Image: © Mantis Design/Stock.adobe.com

Margie McCarthy of SEAI said that transforming energy research using collaborative approaches is paramount to Ireland’s energy revolution.

The Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland (SEAI) has announced nearly €20m in research funding for projects that focus on innovation to support Ireland’s green energy transition.

In an announcement today (7 May), the Irish Government body said that it expects to invest almost €20m thanks to an increased budget for a multi-year pipeline of research and development projects for a clean energy future.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, TD said that new technologies and approaches are “urgently required” to help us develop a sustainable, secure and affordable energy system.

“Research and innovation are vital to accelerating Ireland’s decarbonisation pathway with the delivery of more effective technological solutions,” Ryan said. “I am delighted to launch this call which will support many projects focused on researching and innovating solutions that will enhance our energy system, society and economy.”

Since 2018, more than 240 projects have been successful in SEAI funding calls in the areas of wind energy, bioenergy, energy systems integration, energy efficiency, energy markets, smart grids, transportation, energy policy, community engagement and geothermal energy.

Now, the latest call for applications welcomes individual or group projects from all research disciplines and across the public and private sectors.

Margie McCarthy, director of research and policy insights at SEAI, said that transforming energy research using collaborative approaches is “paramount” to Ireland’s energy revolution.

“We need to act now if we are to meet our 2030 and 2050 climate targets set out by government, and SEAI is committed to finding solutions to get there, by removing barriers, enhancing capacity and overcoming challenges through this RD&D funding,” said McCarthy.

“We need new technologies, new approaches and behavioural change and we are calling on the Irish energy research community to find new ways to enhance energy management and efficiency and reduce fossil fuel usage for the benefit of our country now and for years to come.”

Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on  Spotify , on  Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

Related: emissions , SEAI , climate , energy , research , funding and investment

Vish Gain is a journalist with Silicon Republic

[email protected]

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IN PROGRESS | Highlighting Local Voices in Global Change Through Diverse Media

IGC Capstone Project  | Interfaces of Global Change

Highlighting local voices in global change through diverse media, student members:.

• Carla López Lloreda , Biological Sciences
• Rebekah Riddle ,   School of Public and International Affairs
• Abir Jain , Fish and Wildlife Conservation 
• Casey McLaughlin , Biological Sciences
• Oluwaseyi Dasho , Geoscience

Faculty Mentors:

• Dr. Leighton Reid ,   School of Plant and Environmental Sciences

In Progress (Initiated March 2024)

There are many marginalized voices missing in global change research, management, and education. Especially those from places that are at the forefront of climate change, such as small islands, coastal areas, countries with lower economic resources, and places with historic environmental destruction. Importantly, these voices tend to be missing in mainstream media and in educational settings.

Initially, we want to give voice to scientists of different disciplines who work locally in their own countries and regions and have experience working on topics such as environmental justice, global change, and environmental degradation. We aim to get a sense of what their personal experience has been and hopes for improvement are. We will do this by undertaking interviews with diverse scientists that we will then turn into a popular science article with illustrations.

We hope to not only highlight these stories, but also to increase the diversity of scientists that students see in education, which increases self-confidence and interest in science and exposes others who may not have opportunities to directly interact with science research to this work.

The Interfaces of Global Change IGEP provides PhD students with a unique intellectual focus and training.

Each igc fellow gains depth in their specific scientific area of expertise (e.g. biology or engineering), while simultaneously gaining breadth in the multifaceted realm of global change and the science-policy interface..