Research objectives are the specific steps your study will take to fulfil its aim. Each objective is one discrete action: one thing you are committing to find out or do. The verb you choose matters because it determines what your research is promising to deliver.

What Research Objective Verbs Should You Use?

When you say “to explore”, you are telling the reader that your approach is open-ended. You do not know what you will find, and you will let the data shape the findings. It is often a qualitative verb, although it can also be used for exploratory quantitative surveys.

“Identify” is more focused. You are saying that something specific exists and your job is to find it and name it. “Understand” goes deeper: you are interpreting something rather than simply finding or naming it. It is a strong qualitative verb, but it is also a big promise because your analysis needs to deliver genuine interpretive depth.

“Describe” is more modest. You are characterising something clearly and thoroughly without claiming to explain why it happens. “Determine” is more decisive and commonly quantitative, signalling that your data will give you a clear answer. “Compare” means examining two or more things side by side, and it requires you to specify what you are comparing and on what basis.

“Assess” or “evaluate” imply judgement against a standard or set of criteria.

Some verbs are too vague to be useful in an objective. “Analyse”, “investigate” and “explain” can all create problems. “Analyse” does not tell the reader what kind of analysis you will conduct. “Investigate” is often too broad for one objective. “Explain” can imply causation, which many small-scale studies, particularly qualitative ones, are not designed to demonstrate.

Think of your research objective verb as a contract. Each objective promises the reader one specific kind of output.

How Do You Use Different Verbs In Research Objectives?

Consider a study about asylum seekers’ access to the NHS in the UK. One possible aim is:

To investigate the structural and logistical barriers — such as registration, documentation, and language support — that asylum seekers encounter when attempting to access NHS care.

The objectives could then be:

1. To explore asylum seekers’ understanding of their entitlement to NHS healthcare services.

2. To identify the administrative and documentation barriers that prevent asylum seekers from registering with a GP.

3. To describe the geographical and logistical challenges asylum seekers face in physically accessing NHS facilities.

4. To compare the registration processes across different types of NHS provision — GP practices, walk-in centres, and A&E departments — from the perspective of asylum seekers.

Each verb is doing different work. “Explore” is open-ended and discovery-oriented. “Identify” searches for something specific. “Describe” characterises the challenge without explaining why it happens. “Compare” examines different types of provision side by side.

Notice that every objective also specifies the population and phenomenon. “Asylum seekers” appears in each one. This gives your objectives their anchoring and shows the marker that you know exactly who your research is about and what you are doing with them.

Should You Use SMART Research Objectives?

Some institutions encourage students to write research objectives using SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. The framework can feel reassuring because it provides a clear checklist, but research objectives work differently from organisational goal setting.

Most research objectives do not need to contain elements such as “measurable” or “achievable” within their phrasing. How measurable your findings are depends on your data collection and analysis methods. Whether your research is achievable depends on your methodology, resources, access to participants and ethical considerations. These are covered elsewhere in your proposal.

Timeliness is also assumed: your objectives will be completed by the end of the research. You do not need to write “by the end of the research” into every objective.

The element of SMART that genuinely matters for research objectives is specificity. Your objectives should be specific enough that a reader knows exactly what you are promising to do.

Should You Put Your Research Methods Into Your Objectives?

Another practice is embedding research methods into objectives. For example, instead of writing:

To identify the administrative and documentation barriers that prevent asylum seekers from registering with a GP.

You might write:

To interview five to eight GP practice managers or reception staff to identify institutional knowledge gaps, administrative bottlenecks, and gatekeeping friction points that occur during the registration process.

The second version is very specific, but it has put the methodology into the objective. “Interview five to eight GP practice managers” gives the method, sample size and participant type, while the methodology section will cover these elements anyway.

A reader should be able to glance at your objectives and understand what your study does, rather than how it does it. The “how” belongs in the methodology.

This also keeps the objectives easier to read. When every objective has to specify the method, sample and analytical approach, the section can become dense and repetitive.

How Can You Check Whether Your Research Objectives Are Good?

There are three checks to apply to your objectives.

Check one: do your objectives add up to your aim? Read your aim and then your objectives. Do they cover what the aim committed to? Does each objective serve one distinct aspect of that aim? If the connection is unclear, the proposal can read like two separate research studies.

Check two: is your vocabulary consistent? Be particularly careful with your population and phenomenon. If your aim refers to “asylum seekers” but your objectives refer to “refugees” or “migrants”, the reader may not know who the research is actually about. The same applies to your phenomenon. “Experience”, “perception” and “satisfaction” are not interchangeable.

Pick your terms and use them consistently. Repetition in a research proposal is not a stylistic flaw. It can signal precision and consistency.

Check three: are your objectives splintering? Your objectives should not start pulling the research in directions that the aim did not signpost. If your aim concerns structural barriers to NHS access, an objective about asylum seekers’ mental health may take the study in a different direction. Check whether your objectives collectively serve the aim and whether your background and literature review establish why each objective is relevant.

Check whether your objectives add up. Check your vocabulary. Watch for splintering.