Research Objectives,

Hypotheses/Questions,
Significance, Justification
and Scope.

.
Identification of Research
Topic???.
A problem itself

Research Objectives,
Hypotheses/Questions,
.
Significance, Justification
and Scope.
ANALYSIS AND STATEMENT OF
PROBLEM.
Recap of a Research Problem
 Background to Setting Research Objectives
Research is an integral part of many occupations, making it a valuable
career skill.
Research objectives, which are specific outcomes that you aim to
achieve through research, can drive your projects and help you
achieve your overall goals.
If your job involves conducting research, knowing how to develop
research objectives is a crucial skill.
 What are Research Objectives?
Research objectives are the outcomes that you aim to achieve by
conducting research.
 Many research projects contain more than one research objective to
achieve their overall goals.
The purpose of research objectives is to drive the research project,
including data collection, analysis and conclusions.
Research objectives help to focus the research and key variables, guiding
through the research process.
Research objectives appear early in a research proposal.
 How to write Research Objectives.
Identifying your research objectives is crucial to conducting a successful
research project.
There are three simple steps that you can follow to identify and write
your research objectives;
Step : 1. Pinpoint the major focus of your research.
Make sure to clearly describe what you aim to achieve through your
research. This can be attained through reading your focused literature and
finding gaps in existing research.
 Once you find a gap that you want to fill through your research project,
you can start narrowing down a focus for your research project and
setting an overall goal that you want to achieve through your research.
 Writing Research Objectives Cont’d
• Step:2. Break down your research focus into research objectives
Once you know the primary goal of your research project, you can break it
down into smaller steps and separate objectives.
Choose one general objective which aims to achieve the overall goal of the
study.
Then, use the specific objectives to describe how you can achieve your
general objective. eg, your general objective could be, “To determine how
work environment affects performance." Your specific objectives might
be,
“To determine whether sunlight improves performance," and
“To measure how performance changes when work environment changes."
 Writing Research Objectives Cont’d
• Step: 3. Write your research objectives in the SMART format
• Writing strong research objectives using the SMART format. This
format can make objectives clearer and easier to understand, which can
make you more likely to achieve them. The objectives should meet
these criteria:
Specific: Be specific about your desired outcomes. Your objectives
should be clearly written and leave no room for confusion. This can
help you keep them narrow and focused.
Measurable: Making your objectives measurable is essential to
achieving them. You can create metrics to measure your progress
toward achieving your objectives.
 Writing Research Objectives Cont’d
• Step: 3 Continued
Achievable: Be sure to create objectives that you can realistically
achieve to help you avoid getting overwhelmed by unrealistic
expectations. Make sure you have the resources and budget to
accomplish your objectives.
Relevant: Make your objectives relevant to your research and your
overall goals. This can help you stay motivated and on track throughout
your research project.
Time-based: You can establish deadlines to help you keep your
research process on track. You can set a major deadline for your entire
project as well as smaller deadlines for each objective.
 Tips for writing your research objectives
Be concise
Objectives should be written as concisely as you can. Try to remove
unnecessary words and filler to make your objectives as easy to understand as
possible. Keep each individual objective to only one sentence. This can make
it easier to use your objectives to guide your research process.
Keep your number of objectives limited
• It's also important to write only a few specific research objectives. Try to
limit your number of objectives to five or less to help you avoid getting
overwhelmed by trying to accomplish a long list of objectives.
• You can also choose one general objective and a few other specific, pointed
objectives.
 Tips for writing your research objectives
Use action verbs
Using action verbs can help you measure whether you’ve accomplished
your research objective, and it can also make your objectives feel more
actionable and engaging. Some action verbs you could consider using are;
Assess
Determine
Examine
Compare
Explain
Describe
Explore
 Examples of Research Objectives
To assess students’ abilities in each of the scientific reasoning
competencies based on students’ gender, type of institution and sub-groups.
To compare student engagement levels in each of the engagement
construct based on students’ gender, type of institution and sub-groups.
To examine the effects of student engagement constructs on learning
approaches.
To determine the extent to which teacher concerns mediate the relationship
between curriculum reform strategies and the quality of implementation of
the CBC by teachers.
To explore the relationships between curriculum reform strategies, teacher
concerns, and the quality of curriculum implementation at school level.
 Tips for writing your research objectives
Be realistic

• Another tip for writing research objectives is to keep them realistic. Make sure you
can achieve them with the time and resources you already have. Unrealistic
objectives can make you feel overwhelmed and discouraged, so it's important to
create objectives that you can realistically achieve.

Ask for feedback

• You can also improve your research objectives by asking a mentor or colleague to
review your research objective drafts. This can help you spot any errors you might
have missed and make your objectives more understandable to other people.
 Tips for writing your research objectives ….Cont.….!

Proofread and review your objectives

• It's also important to proofread and review your objectives to make

sure they're free of typos and other errors. Check your spelling and
grammar to ensure that your objectives appear professional and
perfectly accurate.
 Purpose and specific objectives

Develop the General objective and Specific objectives of

the study above.

 Purpose of the Study and Research Objectives
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing students’
completion of postgraduate studies in selected universities of Uganda.
Specific Objectives
i. To establish the current strategies for effective research supervision in the
completion of postgraduate studies in selected universities in selected
Uganda.
ii. To examine the relationship between research supervision and students’
completion of postgraduate studies in selected universities of Uganda.
iii. To assess the relationship between students’ perceived academic
psychological state and their completion of postgraduate studies in selected
universities of Uganda.
iv. To analyse the relationship between resources availability and students’
completion of postgraduate studies in selected universities of Uganda.
 Research Question and Hypothesis
A research question is the question the research study sets out to
answer.
Hypothesis is the statement the research study sets out to prove or
disprove theory prediction.
 The main difference between hypothesis and research question is
that hypothesis is predictive in nature whereas research question is
inquisitive in nature.
 What is a hypothesis?
A hypothesis is a prediction about the relationship between two or more
variables.
It can be described as an educated guess about what happens in an
experiment. Researchers usually tend to use hypotheses when significant
knowledge is already available on the subject.
After the hypothesis is developed, the researcher can develop data, analyse
and use them to support or negate the hypothesis.
Hypotheses are usually used in experimental quantitative research studies to
test a specific theory or model.
A complete hypothesis always includes the variables, population and the
predicted relationship between the variables..
 Examples of Hypotheses in Quantitative research
Board selection has no statistically significant effect on organizational
performance in selected agencies in the MoFPED in Uganda.
There is no statistically significant relationship between on-the-job
training and employee performance at MoFA.
There is no significant relationship between the curriculum reform
strategies and the quality of implementation of the curriculum.
There is no statistically significant relationship between users’ attitudes
and ICT integration in the management of secondary schools in Kanungu
District, Uganda
 Research Hypotheses

1. There is no statistically significant relationship between research supervision

and students’ completion of undergraduate studies in selected universities of
Uganda.

2. There is no statistically significant relationship between students’ perceived

academic psychological state and students’ completion of undergraduate
studies in selected universities of Uganda.

3. There is no statistically significant relationship between resources availability

and students’ completion of studies in selected universities of Uganda.
 What is a Research Question
A research question is the question a research study sets to answer.
However, a research study can have more than one research question. The
research methodologies, tools used to collect data, etc. all depend on the
research question.
Research questions are often used in qualitative research, which seek to
answer open-ended queries hence a wide range of results can be reported.
 Research question can also be used in quantitative studies when there is
little previous research on the subject.
A properly constructed research question should always be clear and
concise.
It should include the variables, population and the topic being studied.
 Examples of Research Questions
1. What are the current strategies for effective research supervision in the
completion of undergraduate studies in selected universities of Uganda?

2. What is the relationship between students’ research supervision and

students’ completion of undergraduate studies in selected universities of
Uganda?

3. What is the relationship between students perceived academic

psychological state and students’ completion of postgraduate studies in
selected universities of Uganda?
 Hypothesis Versus Research Question
Hypothesis is predictive Research Question is inquisitive in
nature

A tentative prediction about the The question a research study sets to

relationship between two or more answer.
variables

Can be used if there is significant Can be used if there is little previous

knowledge or previous research on this research on the subject.
subject.

Mainly used in quantitative studies Mainly used in qualitative studies.

Does not allow a wide range of Allows a wide range of outcomes.
outcomes
Exercise 1. Generate a Purpose to the study/ general objective,
and specific objectives and hypotheses to your study
Exercise 2: Generate a Main Research question
and Sub-Question for your proposal
 Justification of the study in your proposal
• A justification Statement is a section of the research proposal that
notifies the urgency why the study needs to be conducted .

• It highlights the rationale for conducting the study.

 Justification
• The major inspiration to conduct this study was prompted by the desire to
gain insights into the less-known phenomenon of the extent of effectiveness
of Board governance practices in Organisational performance in the Public
sector, and how the stakeholders in these agencies perceive the
implementation and effectiveness of the mandatory governance frameworks
built on the pillars of transparency, accountability, openness, fairness and
good citizenship.
• The realities of the implementation have continued to attract some debates
from a range of stakeholders in these agencies (Trotter, et al., 2018;
Tumwebaze, et al., 2018; Mwesigwa, 2021) leaving an unanswered question
on whether boards in the public sector actually matter. Despite such debates,
the government has sustained its policy stance towards instituting boards for
different agencies.
Purpose for a justification in your proposal
• Create urgency for your study.
• Indication of the importance of your study to the Scholarly Community.
• Call for the attention of the readers of your work in the community
 Component of a justification research
statement.

Importance
• Reason for conducting of the study • How the study will
the study. • Aimed at the be useful to the
• Its generated from a community at large.
beneficiaries of the
problem statement. study.
• i.e Why they should
support your study Utility of the
Motivation
study
 Examples of Justification Statement

The motivation of this study lies in the urgent

need to document the attributable risk of
Nephrotic syndrome and its mainstay treatment
Motivation to the occurrence of stunting so as to develop
evidence based protocols for monitoring,
preventing and managing growth stunting
among children with Nephrotic syndrome.
 Justification statement cont’d

There is currently a paucity of published studies

on magnitude and demographical clinical and drug
related distribution of stunting in nephrotic
syndrome in low income countries. Findings will
Importance provide a valuable reference to the scientific
community and body of knowledge at large as far
as the epidemiology of stunting in nephrotic
syndrome is concerned.
 Justification Statement

Findings of this study will provide a

critical appraisal of the current protocols
for monitoring growth of children on
Utility
long-term steroid therapy and will
generate recommendations to improve
these protocols.
 Significance of the study in your proposal.
It presents the importance of your research.

It gives you an opportunity to prove the study’s impact on your field
of research; the new knowledge it contributes , and the people who
will benefit from it.
It gives you space to explain to your readers how exactly your
research will contribute to literature of the field you are studying.
It explain why your research is worth conducting,
 Steps in writing a significance statement.
• Step 1. Use your research problem as the starting point. This gives clues
to what outcome your research will achieve and who will benefit from it.
• Step 2. State how your research will contribute to the existing literature
in the field. Then write how your research tackles those unexplored areas.
• Step 3. Explain how your research will benefit society, How the results
will change something in your community.
• Step 4. Indicate how your study may help future studies in the field. That
is, how your research will be part of the literature you are studying and
how it will benefit future researchers. You may indicate that through the
data and analysis of you’re your findings.
Example;

This study is designed to make a contribution by providing answers to the question “To what
extent does the effectiveness of Board governance practices influence Organisational
performance within the selected public agencies in MoFPED in Uganda?” It is anticipated to
make a significant contribution to gaining an in-depth understanding of how Board
governance practices influence Organisational performance within the context of public
sector. This will make sense of the implementation realities of the mandatory governance
frameworks in public sector agencies in MoFPED in Uganda.

The anticipated theoretical and practical knowledge gained from the study is expected to
provide useful information to policy makers for making evidence-based governance policy
improvement. This will enhance the effectiveness of Boards in driving Organisational
performance in the public sector.
 Scope of the research project.
• When writing a proposal, dissertation or a thesis, It is important to
highlight the scope of your study.

What is a scope of a research study?

• It refers to the parameters under which the study will be operating.

• It also refers to the boundaries that the researcher’s sets on the study
and can be said to be within the researchers’ control.
 How to write a Scope of a Research Project

Refers to the main purpose of the

study
Why
How the study will be conducted.
The subjects to be investigated and
How What
the theoretical constructs

Scope
The location of the study
Who Where
Target population

When
The time frame/ study duration
 Group Work (1week)
Think of a feasible challenge in the construction
industry, formulate the ‘Chapter 1’ of a comprehensive
stepwise and coherent proposal to address that challenge
identified.
 End
Thank you for listening

Questions?????