The difference between an aim and an objective is not a matter of taste, and the verb you choose in an objective is not decoration. The verb commits you to a design. “Explore” commits you to qualitative work. “Determine the relationship between” commits you to a correlational design and a specific statistic. Committees notice when the verb and the methodology chapter disagree.
This article gives you thirty objectives written out in full across ten South African disciplines, grouped by the verb that drives them, with the design and analysis each one obliges you to deliver. Use it as a bank to choose from, not a list to copy.
Aim versus objectives, settled in three sentences
The aim is one sentence saying what the study is for. There is one of them and it is broad. The objectives are the numbered steps by which you will achieve it, usually three to five, each narrow enough that a reader can see the activity behind it.
A useful test: an aim can survive without a method attached; an objective cannot. If your objective does not imply what you will actually do, it is a second aim wearing a number.
The verb table
Before the examples, the mechanism. Pick the row that matches what you can actually do, then write the objective in that verb.
| Verb | What it commits you to | What the examiner then expects |
|---|---|---|
| Explore / Investigate | Qualitative design, open questions | Interviews or focus groups; thematic or content analysis |
| Describe / Profile | Descriptive design, quantitative or qualitative | Frequencies, percentages, distributions; no causal language |
| Determine the relationship between | Correlational design | A named correlation or regression, assumptions checked |
| Compare | Comparative design, two or more defined groups | A named between-groups test, groups defined before analysis |
| Assess the effect of | Experimental or quasi-experimental design | Manipulation or a defensible natural comparison; control for confounding |
| Evaluate | Evaluation design against stated criteria | The criteria named in advance, not derived from the findings |
| Develop / Propose | Design or model-building study | A stated development process and some form of validation |
| Validate | Psychometric or instrument study | Dimensional evidence, not reliability alone |
| Analyse (documents, law, policy) | Doctrinal or documentary design | A stated corpus and selection rule |
The single most common proposal correction in this area is an objective that says “determine the impact of” when the study cannot manipulate anything and has no comparison group. If you cannot establish an effect, say “determine the relationship between” or “describe the association between” and keep your credibility.
Thirty objectives, by discipline
Each objective below is written the way it would appear as a numbered item under “1.4 Research objectives”. They are shapes to adapt: the population, setting and variables have to become yours, and nothing here is attributed to any real study.
Education
- To describe the assessment practices used by intermediate-phase teachers in [district], as reported by the teachers themselves.
- To explore how intermediate-phase teachers account for the gap between the assessment policy they describe and the practices they report using.
- To determine the relationship between reported access to subject-specific professional development and teachers’ self-reported confidence in implementing the curriculum.
Nursing
- To describe the demographic and professional profile of professional nurses working in [category of facility] in [province].
- To explore how professional nurses describe their decision-making when a referral pathway is unavailable.
- To compare reported adherence to the facility protocol between nurses with and without formal postgraduate qualification in the relevant speciality.
Psychology and industrial psychology
- To validate the factor structure of [named instrument] in a multilingual South African employee sample.
- To determine the relationship between perceived organisational support and reported turnover intention in that sample.
- To compare mean scores on each confirmed subscale between employees completing the instrument in a first and an additional language.
Commerce, management and human resources
- To describe the retention practices currently used by small and medium enterprises in [sector and location] that have no formal human resource function.
- To determine the relationship between employee engagement and intention to remain in those enterprises.
- To evaluate those practices against criteria drawn from the retention literature, stated in advance.
Accounting and auditing
- To describe the extent and nature of [disclosure category] in the integrated reports of [defined population of listed companies] for the [year] financial year.
- To compare the extent of that disclosure between companies in [sector A] and [sector B].
- To analyse the reporting framework provisions against which that disclosure is prepared.
Public administration
- To describe the audit outcomes of [defined set of municipalities] over [period], using the published reports.
- To compare outcomes between municipalities matched on revenue base and staff establishment.
- To explore how municipal officials in those municipalities account for the difference.
Law
- To analyse the statutory framework governing [subject] in South African law as it stands at [date].
- To analyse the treatment of [principle] in the judgments of the superior courts over [period], on a stated selection rule.
- To compare that treatment with the position in [one named comparator jurisdiction], confined to [defined aspect].
Public health and community health
- To describe the distribution of [indicator] across [defined sub-districts] using the routine data system.
- To determine the association between [exposure] and [outcome] in that dataset, adjusting for [named confounders].
- To assess the effect of [programme] on [outcome] using the pre- and post-implementation periods as the comparison.
Information systems and computer science
- To describe how [defined user group] currently performs [task] without the proposed system.
- To develop a prototype [artefact] addressing the requirements identified in objective 1.
- To evaluate the prototype against [named usability or performance criteria] with [defined participants].
Engineering and the built environment
- To characterise [material or asset condition] in [defined sample of assets] under South African exposure conditions.
- To determine the relationship between the measured condition and the values predicted by [named model].
- To propose a recalibration of the model parameters for the local condition, and to quantify the resulting change in predicted remaining service life.
The alignment check an examiner runs
Examiners rarely read objectives on their own. They read them against three other things, and the check takes about ninety seconds.
- Against the research questions. There should be a one-to-one correspondence, or a stated reason why not. Four questions and three objectives raises the obvious question about the fourth.
- Against the methodology chapter. Each objective must have a visible route to an answer — an instrument, a sample and an analysis. An objective with no method behind it is the single most common reason a proposal is returned.
- Against the results and conclusion. Each objective should be answerable from the findings, in order. If objective 3 never reappears, delete it or add the analysis.
Do this check yourself with a table: four rows, four columns, objective in the first. If a row has a blank cell, you have found a problem before your committee did.
Six ways objectives go wrong
- Two objectives that are one objective. “To describe X” and “to determine the extent of X” are the same study twice. Merge them.
- An objective that is really a task. “To review the literature” and “to distribute questionnaires” are activities, not objectives. They belong in the methodology.
- Causal verbs without a causal design. “To determine the impact of” in a cross-sectional survey. Use relationship or association language.
- Objectives that outgrow the sample. Five objectives on a study with fifteen interviews. Cut to what the data can carry.
- Evaluation with no criteria. “To evaluate the effectiveness of” without saying effective against what. Name the criteria in the objective or immediately after it.
- An objective added to please a supervisor and never mentioned again. The alignment check will find it. So will the examiner.
Where this sits
Objectives follow directly from the problem statement, and if they feel hard to write that is usually a sign that the problem is not yet sharp. Start there with our six worked problem statements by discipline, then place the objectives in the proposal using the step-by-step proposal guide. How many objectives is reasonable depends on the level, which the honours, master’s and doctoral comparison sets out.
Two disciplines have their own treatment on this site: the research problem, questions and hypotheses for a marketing dissertation and the research problem and questions for a law dissertation. Once the verb is chosen, it determines the test, and which statistical test to use takes it from there.
Frequently asked questions
How many objectives should a dissertation have?
Three to five is the common range at master’s level, and an honours research report often has three. More than five usually means several are tasks rather than objectives.
What is the difference between an aim and an objective?
The aim is the single broad purpose of the study. Objectives are the numbered steps that achieve it, each narrow enough to imply an activity.
Do objectives have to match my research questions exactly?
They should correspond one to one unless you have a reason not to. Where the numbers differ, an examiner will ask why, so answer it in the text before they do.
Can I use “impact” in an objective?
Only if your design can establish an effect, which means a manipulation or a defensible comparison. In a cross-sectional survey, use relationship or association instead.
Should objectives be in the present or future tense?
Convention is the infinitive: “To describe…”, “To determine…”. Keep every objective in the same form.
Where do objectives go in the dissertation?
In the introduction chapter, immediately after the problem statement and usually beside the research questions. They then reappear in the methodology, the results and the conclusion.
Can I change my objectives after data collection?
Minor rewording to match what you actually did is normal and honest. A substantive change may require your supervisor’s agreement and, if the study design changed, fresh ethics approval.
Do qualitative studies have objectives?
Yes, and the verbs are different: explore, describe, understand, interpret. Avoid quantitative verbs like determine the relationship, which imply measurement you are not doing.
What if one objective needs a method the others do not?
That is fine and common in mixed-methods work, provided the methodology chapter says so explicitly and the two strands are integrated somewhere.
Can I copy an objective from this list?
Use the shape and the verb. The population, setting, variables and period have to be yours, and the bracketed placeholders are there to make that obvious.
Write the objectives once, properly
Objectives take an afternoon and govern the next year of work. Getting the verb right now saves a methodology rewrite later. Tesify helps you draft and align them across the whole document, with the research staying 100% written by you.