Research objectives give your study direction, but poorly written objectives can make the entire research process difficult to manage. Objectives that are too broad, unclear, or unrelated to the research problem may affect your research questions, methodology, data collection, and analysis.
The Common Mistakes When Writing Research Objectives to Watch For
Most weak objectives fail for one of five reasons, covered below. If you haven’t drafted your objectives yet, it’s worth reading how to choose a research topic and research aim vs objectives first, since a shaky topic or a blurred aim tends to produce shaky objectives no matter how carefully you word them afterwards. Each mistake below comes with a quick before-and-after, so you can check your own draft against it directly.
Making Objectives Too Broad
An objective should focus on a specific aspect of your research problem. Avoid trying to investigate too many issues in one objective.
Too broad:
To investigate education in universities.
Better:
To examine the effect of online learning on student engagement in selected universities.
Using Vague Words
Avoid objectives that use unclear terms such as “to understand,” “to learn,” or “to know.” These can be difficult to measure.
Instead, use specific action verbs such as examine, assess, determine, analyse, evaluate, or investigate.
Vague:
To understand digital leadership in organisations.
Better:
To examine the influence of digital leadership on employee performance.
Writing Objectives That Do Not Match the Research Problem
Every objective should contribute directly to addressing the problem your study identified. If an objective is unrelated to the problem statement, it may take your research in a different direction.
Unrelated:
A study on employee performance that includes an objective about customer satisfaction, with no stated link back to performance.
Better:
Every objective traces back to the same problem statement, even where each one looks at a different angle of it.
Having Too Many Objectives
More objectives do not necessarily mean better research. Too many objectives can make your study difficult to complete within the available time and resources.
Choose objectives that are relevant, realistic, and achievable.
Too many:
Six or seven objectives covering leadership, culture, technology, training, retention, and customer satisfaction in a single undergraduate dissertation.
Better:
Two to four objectives that stay inside the scope of the problem statement and can realistically be completed with the time and data available.
Making Objectives Impossible to Measure
Your objectives should lead to something that can be investigated using evidence or data. Avoid objectives that are based mainly on personal opinions or cannot be assessed through your chosen research methods.
Unmeasurable:
To explore whether digital leadership is a good thing.
Better:
To assess employees’ perceptions of digital leadership using a structured survey.
This is where the SMART framework helps: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. UC Davis’s guide to SMART research objectives breaks each part down clearly, and it’s worth running your own draft objectives against it before you take them to a supervisor.
A Simple Check
Before finalising your research objectives, ask:
- Does each objective address my research problem?
- Is it specific and clear?
- Can I investigate it using available data?
- Does it align with my research questions?
- Can I realistically achieve it within my study?
If your objectives pass this check, the next step is turning them into research questions. See research objectives and questions examples for how that pairing looks in practice across different fields, and how research questions guide your entire study for what happens once they’re set.
