Inclusive Data Research Skills for Arts and Humanities/What should a research goal be?

What a research goal is not.

In most cases, researchers set goals that are synonymous with a research objective, which is something that sets the destination for the research project itself. These could be thought of as “What does the research aim to achieve.”

A research objective needs to follow certain constraints and be agreed upon by all research team members. This could also be a more general statement of the Research Question or hypothesis, generally setting out the direction of travel. This kind of research goal can be helpful as it can help the research team determine what the research outputs and outcomes could be.

There is a danger with setting out your destination when starting a research project. As the research object is separate from the research questions, the research objective might anticipate the findings of the project, rather than being open to a range of outcomes from the Research question of hypothesis.

Research Outputs can be thought of as (what are the endpoint and work backwards). What is the research trying to achieve?

- Social impact

- Economic impact

- Innovation

- Pedagogy

Your research proposal doesn’t need to address all of these!

Research Goals as part of a Research Journey

Thinking more about something more like a research journey, the research goal is something a little different.  Most research goals answer the questions ‘what’ or ‘how’ of the research; “What will we find out?” “How will we conduct the research”.

Instead, think of the research goal as a question of ‘Why” and, more specifically “, Why is this important?”.  It is even possible to think of the research goal as, more importantly “, Why is this research important to you?”

Pushing back against the objective stance in research, your research goal can be a way of thinking about what makes the research personal to you as a researcher. This can mean that different members of the research project might have different research goals, and that is fine, even good. The research goals can recognise, that as well as researchers, you are also an individual, a person.

Your research goal might be:

“Working with a new researcher or research group.”

“Working with a new partner”

“Learning a new technique or tool, or exploring a new discipline.”

“Conducting research in a new geographic area.”

Why Research Goals?

Approaching the research goal in this way, is that you can sperate your success (and a personal evaluation of success) away from outputs you as a researcher might have less control over (paper publications, conference presentation, or even answering the research question). As part of your research journey, your research goals is about moving forward on that journey.