Jargon Buster
Research objective
- What does this mean?
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The underlying and overriding aims and purposes of a research or analysis exercise – that is, what you specifically want to find out. Thus examples of research objectives include things such as:
‘Identifying the profile of people attending a particular exhibition’
‘Finding the average age of a regular attender’
‘Locating key hotspots within a venue’s catchment area’
or ‘Assessing the effectiveness of a new marketing tool’.
Being specific about the research objective that applies is vital for from it flows the type of research survey to be used, the approaches to be taken in analysing the results, and how the findings are reported.
- How did we get this definition?
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A research objective (also called a ‘research problem’ by Hussey and Hussey [1997]) is a statement of the exact things a research exercise is intended to find out (see page C36).
As such, this is the crucial starting point from which flows the type of research to be done, the sample to be used, and the research instrument, survey or questionnaire to be put into action.
Audience data consultant Stuart Nicolle observes (and warns) that:
‘Any researcher will tell you that the key to a successful piece of research is to clearly set out what it is that you want to find out. Too many people want to “know more about my audience” and whilst this is an admirable thing to do, the possibilities are too endless to use this as a starting point!’
- Related and similar definitions
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Thus examples of research objectives include things such as:
‘Identifying the profile of people attending a particular exhibition’
‘Finding the average age of a regular attender’
‘Locating key hotspots within a venue’s catchment area’
or
‘Assessing the effectiveness of a new marketing tool’.
Being specific about the research objective that applies is vital because from it flows the type of research survey to be used, the approaches to be taken in analysing the results, and how the findings are reported.
Hence this is very much an issue of doing things in the right order. And it is inadvisable to first devise a survey or questionnaire before then deciding what the whole point of a research exercise is intended to be.