What are the aims and objectives of a social science dissertation?
We need to talk about aims and objectives!
Aims. Objectives. Those two words that have many dissertation students saying, “Oh shit, yeah, totally forgot about them”. This is your reminder!
In this blogpost, we will be covering:
What aims and objectives actually are.
How to develop a set of aims.
How to set objectives.
What are aims and objectives?
Put very simply. Aims are what you want to achieve, objectives are what you will do to achieve them.
Aims are about the bigger picture, they are about the outcomes of your research, they’re about what will change as a result of you doing this project. They are about the difference that your project will make.
Objectives are more detailed. They are about the process you will follow, the things you will do, the steps you need to complete in order to achieve your aims. It helps to think about your objectives like a series of stepping stones across a stream, and the aim is what lies on the other side.
How to develop a set of aims
What do aims look like? How many of them do you actually need? How do you capture the bigger picture stuff?
Well you start by using words like these:
Advance | Assemble | Build | Compose | Construct | Create | Develop | Devise | Discover | Establish | Generate
For example, if your dissertation title is “Life after lockdown: To what extent do coffee shops help tackle loneliness among mothers of preschool children?”, one of your aims might be: “To generate insights into how coffee shops help tackle loneliness among mothers of preschool children in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
Another example, if your dissertation title is, “How important are coffee shops for dating? Experiences of young people living in Manchester city centre”, one of your aims might be, “To establish the value of Manchester city centre coffee shops for young people who are dating”.
In terms of the number of aims, you certainly shouldn’t have more than three and I think there’s a strong case to be made for only having one. Yes, this is a controversial position, I know!
However, the reason I don’t think you should have any more than one aim is because this forces you to focus and really think hard about exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve.
I’ve found that when students have more than one aim, they start straying across into objectives and presenting them as aims. If you have been told you absolutely have to have more than one aim, start with one and then think about what that could be broken down into, but make sure you’re using words like those above so you don’t wander into objective territory.
How to set objectives
Earlier, I said it helps to think about your objectives like a series of stepping stones across a stream. That helps you get to grips with the overall idea of objectives but when you’re developing your own objectives, I want you to think sandwich.
Your objectives should be laid out like a sandwich, with a meaty filling of in depth, advanced objectives in between two simpler, more basic, white bread type objectives.
This is a good way of demonstrating a logical progression in your research strategy, differentiating between the straightforward things you will be doing at the beginning of your research, the more advanced, in-depth activities that will follow on from the basic foundation you have built, and the “So what?” questions that follow on from that.
Here are some of the words you might want to use for those two pieces of bread and the meat.
Being specific in your language is important for your research objectives. Don’t use vague terms like, “do”, “study”, “look at” or “learn about”. These words and terms are not detailed enough, and it will be hard for you – and the person reading your study – to ascertain exactly what this is going to involve. If you find yourself writing words like this, ask, “What does doing actually involve?”, “What do I mean by study?”, “What am I going to achieve by looking at this thing?”, “What is involved in learning about, what does this look like?”.
Can you see how we can build up your objectives in this way? One thing this exercise forces you to do is to think about other ways of explaining what you’re doing. It encourages you to use different words and ways of expressing what you want to do, which in turn, makes you more confident in talking and writing about it.
Next steps
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How to write your research proposal
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