For PhD supervisors: Handling the oral examination/viva

In my seminars with supervisors, this question can be relied upon to raise heated discussion. It seems to engage supervisors’ deeply seated values of what a research degree means and implies, with opposing viewpoints being stated and defended aggressively and emotionally. Some supervisors take the view that for any qualification to be worth the paper it is written on, nothing must occur which could be construed as collusion. Others argue that, by the time their students are examined, they are ready, and so steps must be taken to prevent quirks of any sort contaminating the result. A better articulation of these views might be that students have the right to be examined fairly, and supervisors have a duty to ensure that they are, which is not collusion.

A related issue must be how to go about selecting a suitable external examiner. Regulations on this vary across institutions. However, supervisors usually have some form of input to the selection and it is generally agreed that supervisors' minimal responsibility is to identify potential examiners:

whose own work shows that they are not likely to be violently opposed to the student’s methodological approach
whose own work shows that they are not likely to be violently opposed to the student’s ideological approach
who do not have reason to want to score points off the supervisor or the department
are known not to be unfair or erratic in their judgement.

Students benefit from advice on how to conduct themselves during the oral examination/viva. Also a mock examination /viva is invariably helpful.

edited extract from no 2 in the Guides series

Resolving Common Dilemmas in Supervision

by Pat Cryer

* This term is a shorthand for "research degree supervisor", and applies to varying extents to all research degrees: PhD, DPhil. MPhil and even undergraduate and masters' projects.


	Oral examinations / vivas

Oral examinations / vivas