Objectives, and why your results are organised by them
One objective, one analysis, one paragraph of results.
An objective is a single thing you will find out, written so that you could tick it off. A primary objective is the one the study exists to answer and the one your sample size is calculated for. Secondary objectives are worth reporting but were not what the study was powered to detect.
Why it matters
Your results chapter is organised by objective, not by the order you happened to run the tests. Each objective produces its own table, its own figure and its own paragraph. An examiner reads your objectives and then checks that every one of them is answered — and that you have not quietly answered a different question.
An example
Primary: To compare the mean reduction in VAS pain score between the supervised and home exercise groups at twelve weeks.
Secondary: To compare the change in knee range of motion between the two groups.
Secondary: To determine the proportion of participants achieving a clinically important reduction in pain (≥ 2 points).
Common mistakes
- Writing objectives after collecting the data, to fit what was found.
- More than one primary objective — then the sample size answers none of them.
- Objectives that do not name a comparison or a measurement.
Read next
- A research question you can actually answer — The difference between a topic and a question, and why the question decides everything that follows.
- Sample size, and the four numbers it needs — Power, alpha, effect size and variability — and where each one comes from.
Chavery Research Companion applies this to your own study: it asks the questions in plain language, checks the assumptions against your data, recommends the test, and writes the sentence that reports it. Start free — planning and the master chart cost nothing.