You have your aims and objectives in place as required for your thesis. But, do you actually know what the difference between them is?
A lot of scholars get confused between aims and objectives, either at the proposal writing stage or during the first chapter of their thesis, as this is where they are usually put to use.
If you think, you can use the dictionary, and get the meaning of these two words, to be able to completely comprehend their use in the thesis, then you are mistaken as it may give you a very vague distinction and would fail in telling you what exactly to put in these two subheads, in your thesis.
AIMS: Aims are usually what you hope to do, and your overall intention that is related to the project. In aim, you should be clear about what do you aspire to be by the end of the research? It is a broad statement that is surely ambitious but not unrealistic. It is broad, because it talks about the larger picture and not something that needs to be done at smaller stepping stones.
OBJECTIVES: There can be many objectives for a particular study. Rather, we always have more than one objective in a study. These are the stages or the steps that will take you towards achieving your aim. You must know the importance of objectives very well, as they add the tangibility spectrum into your study, by specifying clearly how you are going to do achieving what you have aimed to do. Compared to aims, objectives have to more precise. If you make vague or ambiguous objectives, you may not be able to progress your research at the implementation stage. In addition, make sure that the objectives are practical, doable and achievable. This has to be done in light of all the resources that are available to the researcher, and the constraints within which the research has to be conducted. Another word for objectives is that, they can be project milestones as they guide the way through how the entire research is going to get completed? If and when you have many objectives, they should be distinct from each other. The end of each objective should pave the way for the next one.
Remember that your aims are few and it is ok to have more objectives. Establish connect between both, while you are concise and succinct at the same time.