Developing Your Research Aim and Objectives

Developing a research aim and objectives sits at the core of 7CO04 Business Research in People Practice, and this video addresses Assessment Criterion 1.1 by examining what it means to justify terms of reference for a business project. The video focuses on constructing an overarching aim — expressed as a single, directional statement — alongside a set of objectives that together map the full scope of an investigation into a people practice issue with strategic organisational relevance. Particular attention is given to the language used to frame a research aim, including the role of opening action verbs such as "to investigate", "to explore", "to examine", "to evaluate" and "to determine", and the video includes a worked example centred on leadership development and employee retention to illustrate how these elements come together in practice.

The video examines the SMART framework as a tool for constructing research objectives — covering specificity, measurability, achievability, relevance and time-bound parameters — and addresses how objectives should be logically sequenced to move from understanding a current situation through to evidence-based recommendations. A second worked example, involving declining employee engagement within a business unit, is used to show how individual objectives should each contribute a distinct element to the overall aim while collectively achieving it. The video also introduces a diagnostic test for evaluating whether a set of objectives is complete: assessing whether their collective achievement would necessarily fulfil the stated aim, and identifying where gaps or redundancies exist.

Beyond the mechanics of construction, the video discusses the characteristics that distinguish a credible research aim at Level 7, including strategic relevance to genuine organisational need, achievability within available resources and timeframes, and the ability to speak to both academic and practitioner audiences. The treatment of terms of reference in this video is grounded specifically in people practice research contexts, keeping the focus on business issues related to the management of people rather than research design in the abstract.