Microsoft Word research method fm doc

 
5.4 Formulation of the research objectives 
The formulation of objectives will help us to: 
• Focus the study (narrowing it down to essentials) 
• Avoid collection of data that are not strictly necessary for understanding and solving 
the identified problem 
• Organize the study in clearly defined parts 
The explicit formulation of study objectives is an essential step in the planning of a study. It is 
said that “a question well-stated is a question half-answered”, but a question that is poorly 
stated or unstated is unlikely to be answered at all. 
How should we state our objectives? 
We have to make sure that our objectives: 
• Cover the different aspects of the problem and its contributing factors in a coherent 
way
and in a logical sequence 
• Are 
clearly expressed
in measurable terms 
• Are 
realistic
considering local conditions 
• Meet the purpose of the study 
• Use 
action verbs
that are specific enough to be measured 
 
Examples of action verbs are: 
- to determine 
- to compare 
- to verify 

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Research methodology 
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- to calculate 
- to describe 
- to find out 
- to establish 
 
Avoid the use of vague non-action verbs such as; 
- to appreciate 
- to understand 
- to study 
- to believe
Research objectives can be stated as: 
• Questions - the objectives of this study are to answer the following questions …. 
• Positive sentence - the objectives of this study are to find out, to establish, to 
determine, … 
• Hypothesis - the objective of this study is to verify the following hypothesis (examples 
are given below) 
 
Based on the type of the study problem, it might be possible to develop explanations for the 
problem that can be tested. If so, we can formulate hypotheses in addition to the other study 
objectives. 
A hypothesis is a prediction of a relationship between one or more variables and the problem 
under study. That is, It specifies the relationship among variables. These variables are to be 
statistically tested at a later stage. In order to measure the relationship among variables to be 
studied the dependent and independent variables need to be identified. A few examples are 
given below: 
1. The health of children living in rural villagization projects is better than those living in 
traditional rural communities. 
2. To examine whether there is any significant difference between district “A” and district “B” 
with respect to their malaria prevalence rates

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3. An increase in the frequency of face washing is followed by a reduction in trachoma 
prevalence 
One of the most important problems usually observed among students is the tendency of 
stating too many study objectives which are not appropriately addressed (or sometimes will 
be forgotten) in the sections that follow. It should be noted that it is on the bases of these 
specific objectives that the methods, results and discussion sections will be presented. For 
example, sample size calculations for each stated objective and identifying (selecting) the 
most appropriate sample size that will answer the required research questions is not covered 
in the development of most research proposals. This is also true during the write up of the 
completed research work. It is not uncommon to come across a situation in which some of 
the specific objectives are not addressed in the results section at all. It is therefore advisable 
to limit the number of specific objectives. In most practical situations, the number of specific 
objectives should not exceed three.