Econ012c dissertation Exercises for Tutorial Developing a research question

Identify the main variables of the study (In research objectives the researcher decides about the main variables of the study. The variables are the measurable concepts or quantities that will majorly impact your research. The variables should be well-defined in this phase of the research. You should decide about the dependent variables, independent variables as well as the control variables, if the research is an experimental research)

Identify the direction of the relationship (Some research studies have hypothesis; in hypothesis testing studies the researcher should define the direction in which s/he wants to test the variables. This is only done in hypothesis testing studies; in other studies the researcher only mentions the variables)

Objectives are usually headed by infinitive verbs such as

- To identify

- To establish

- To describe

- To determine

- To estimate

- To develop

- To compare

- To analyse

- To collect