Aims and objectives – knowing the difference and understanding their relationship

The words ‘aim’ and ‘objective’ have quite similar meanings, and indeed in common parlance we often use them pretty much interchangeably. Other alternative words that we sometimes use in this context include ‘goal’, ‘intention’, ‘target’ and ‘ambition’. In a research proposal though, it’s essential to understand the important distinction between aims and objectives, and to appreciate how they sit alongside each other in your description of your putative research project.

Project aims

When it comes to a research project, the aim is normally a fairly broad and general statement of aspiration or intent. The earliest an aim is likely to be realised is at the end of the project, and it may well be the case that it has to be longer-term than the project’s duration. A statement of a project’s aim should encapsulate what you want to achieve in a way that people in the real world can understand and relate to; in other words, it should go a long way to answering the critical ‘what’s the point?’ question.

In my view, a project will often have two main aims, which can be ordered hierarchically. Firstly, the project’s overarching aim will relate directly to the problem that the research has been designed to address. This is certainly the case for any proposed project where the identified impact relates ultimately to a societal or economic problem (I use the term ‘problem’ in a broad sense – i.e. something that needs addressing, alleviating or sorting out in some way). So a research project’s overarching impact aim might be, say, to improve outcomes for people who have been diagnosed with a particular cancer.

This is great, and clearly very worthwhile, but in reality there is unlikely to be any actual amelioration of cancer outcomes on completion of the project or even fairly shortly afterwards. And it may be that cancer outcomes never actually improve as a direct result of the project in question. We have to be realistic here – while the overarching impact aim is typically a fairly long-term ambition, we must also be able to state a project aim that is somewhat shorter term and whose achievability is not too heavily tied up in factors that may be beyond our control. To give an indication of how the research will build towards the overarching goal, we generally need to state what the specific aim of the project is, against which the project’s success or failure could be judged. So a research project’s specific aim might, for example, be to validate the efficacy of a potential new early-detection test for a particular cancer that is normally diagnosed at a late stage, leading to poor clinical outcomes.

The specific aim will usually be closely linked to the project’s main research question or hypothesis. In the above example, the hypothesis might be that the presence of certain levels of a particular biomarker in a person’s blood is a reliable indicator of the early stages of a given type of cancer.

It’s often useful to state the overarching and specific aims of a project together, either as a compound aim statement or using adjacent sentences. Once again using the above example, this might take a form similar to one of the following:

This project aims to improve outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer by determining whether the presence of elevated levels of (a biomarker) in the blood provides a reliable means of early detection, thereby reducing late-stage diagnosis rates and improving survival outcomes.
 

This project’s overarching aim is to improve outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer by increasing early-diagnosis rates. Specifically, it will address this goal by testing whether the presence of elevated levels of (a biomarker) in the blood may be used as a basis for reliable early detection.

So how many aims should you state for your project? One may be sufficient, perhaps a composite of a ‘big-picture’ overarching aim and a more ‘drilled-down’ specific aim. Or it may be the case that it’s appropriate to articulate one or two subsidiary aims, related to but separate from your primary aim. There’s no official limit on the number of aims, but include too many and your project risks starting to look unfocused and/or over-ambitious. Alarm bells should probably ring if you have more than three aims.
    

Project objectives

Project aims represent an excellent means for a reviewer to determine quickly whether the focus of your proposed research seems to be important and worthwhile. But on their own, they can be a bit ‘motherhood and apple pie’. Sure we want to improve cancer outcomes – who doesn’t? And if there might be a way of developing a new test for earlier detection of a particular type of cancer then why not explore its potential? On their own, though, the aims give no indication as to the credibility of a project in terms of its feasibility, appropriateness and chances of success. Funders want to back research that addresses important problems, but they want to pick the projects that seem most likely to succeed.

Objectives are different from aims in a research proposal. Where the aim states what you want to achieve, the objectives set out the main steps that you’ve identified you’ll need to take in order to achieve it. In other words, they summarise the how. All objectives should map clearly to your aim/s, and an evaluator who reads your proposal should reasonably conclude that if you succeed in meeting all of the project’s objectives then there’s a decent chance you’ll achieve your aim/s.

It’s often stated that every project objective should be SMART:

• Specific – state precisely what you’re going to do
• Measureable – if you can’t measure it, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?
• Achievable – you’ll need to be able to accomplish all of your objectives; ambition is good, but over-ambitiousness raises a red flag
• Relevant* – does it relate directly to and support delivery of the project’s aim?
• Time constrained – objectives are shorter term than aims; can you achieve the objective within the lifetime of your project and according to the project schedule you’ve set, taking into account the possibility of delays?

* the ‘R’ in SMART is sometimes defined as ‘Realistic’ – but I think that overlaps too much with ‘Achievable’ 

Leaving aside the charge that someone has focused more here on coming up with a pithy acronym than on setting out a definitive list of the five most important characteristics of a project objective, the SMART approach will certainly help you to define a set of appropriate objectives for your project and its aim/s. It’s always a worthwhile exercise to test each of your project objectives against the SMART criteria to make sure they hit the mark. Aside from anything else, an evaluator may well do this too.

Because I’m not a biomedical scientist (nor indeed any sort of academic researcher) I won’t make a fool of myself by attempting to dream up some suitable objectives to match the aim of my hypothetical cancer-biomarker project above. But I do know a tiny bit about feasibility studies – small-scale versions of a larger clinical trial that are designed to establish whether it’s actually practicable to carry out the full-scale trial. In a hypothetical example of such a study, the aim might look something like this:

To evaluate the feasibility of trialling hyperbaric oxygen therapy alongside conventional treatment for patients with idiopathic osteonecrosis of the femoral head, as a means of reducing pain and improving mobility.

A (non-definitive) list of research objectives designed to address this project aim might reasonably include the following:

• Determine the infrastructure needed for a full-scale clinical trial
• Test the proposed trial design
• Evaluate and qualitatively explore practical considerations and compliance of clinicians in using the therapy
• Assess appropriateness of the training manual and consistency of training provided to participating clinicians
• Quantify the number of patients required for a full definitive trial
• Assess the efficacy of processes for patient recruitment and consent – and determine common reasons for non-participation
• Assess the quantity and potential patterns of missing data
• Test the feasibility of collecting the proposed outcome measures for a full trial
• Decide whether a fully-powered trial is appropriate

You’ll note that the above example objectives begin with an ‘action’ word, for example ‘determine’, ‘quantify’, ‘evaluate’. Each one is a concise statement of intent.

Be careful not to mix up research objectives with project objectives. It may be that you will need to complete face-to-face interviews with 20 patients and five clinicians, but that’s very much a project objective and it doesn’t really capture a meaningful research goal. Cover project objectives and milestones in the sections dealing with project management and timelines.

Do also make sure that none of your objectives simply re-states your aim, perhaps in similar or even near-identical terms. Remember – the aim is the ‘what’ of your project, the objectives are the high-level ‘how’, so they really shouldn’t ever be the same.

So how many objectives should you have? To some extent this should answer itself, depending on what you want to achieve and the methodology you’ve selected to achieve it. If you’re going to split your project into work packages, every work package should deliver at least one objective, and every objective must be addressed by a work package. You might list as few as three to five research objectives, or it could sometimes be necessary to list as many as ten. Much more than this though and you might want to take a reality check – have you perhaps included some project objectives, or possibly just tried to break things down too far?

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and are in no way endorsed by my employer. Factual information and guidance are provided on a 'best-endeavour' basis and may become out of date over time. No responsibility can be taken for any action or inaction taken or not in respect of the content of this blog.