-Research defines the goal in terms of a clear statement of the problem. At this juncture, there is a need to focus on the goal specified so that it is manageable. -A focused restatement of the problem is stated as the purpose of your research. -This is an important statement because with this statement, you inform the reader about your entire study, signalling the research design to be used, the participants to be involved, the locality of the study, the procedure for data collection, the type of data analysis you will be using and the type of results you are anticipating. -The purpose of the research is further refined into objectives for the study, which in turn are then narrowed into specific research questions or hypotheses.