Many students see the project defense as one of the most important days of their lives, as well as one of the most terrifying. With both internal and external examiners on the panel asking you questions, the prospect of failing this stage is daunting.
“For most students, writing their project is not the difficult part; facing the panel and answering their questions is.”
You must be aware of the types of questions they will ask you and how well you must react in order to get through that situation.
Below are few but important questions and best ways to answer to it
Here’s a rundown of the kinds of questions you’ll get and how to respond to them.
- What drew you to this topic?
This may be the first question you’re asked, and you’ll want to be prepared, when they ask about the study’s motives. The best way to answer is to Discuss the research issue that drew you to the subject in the first place.
- Describe your research project in a few sentences.
The panel would want you to justify your research to them, and in order to do so, you must have a thorough understanding of your research project. Essentially, you should be able to replicate the abstract.
- What is the scope of the research?
In this section, you briefly describe the specific aspects of your project topic that were covered.
- What is the study’s significance?
To handle this situation, explain how your research will benefit other researchers, teachers and students, organizations (such as the case study used), scholars, and legislators.
- Did you fill any gaps in your research?
In this section, you should discuss how your study addressed the existing problems/concerns that prompted you to conduct the research.
- What are the variables in your study?
This question is posed to see if you really understand what your research project entails. To demonstrate that you understand the definition of your research subject, explain your independent and dependent variables, Identify, describe, and clarify the variables in your project subject.
- What research methods did you employ and why
This is typically the third chapter of your project report. To answer this question, carefully describe the research design procedure you used for the study. Discuss the data collection methods and sampling techniques used in the study. This is also where you clarify why you chose the particular method of research you did.
Have you used the questionnaire method, for example? If yes, how many people did you ask and how did you get in touch with them? If you utilized the survey testing form, you can state that there was no interviewer bias, that it was cost-effective, that it allowed you (the researcher) to obtain data from a sample without affecting the study’s population, and so on. The objective is to make it clear which method you employed.
- Why do you believe your study is trustworthy and valid?
Simply educate the audience/panel of assessors that the study’s risks to research reliability (participant error, participant bias, research misjudgment, and researcher bias) did not occur. You might alternatively mention that you made sure that the threats were kept to a bare minimum.
And that the results of your research can be applied to other similar contexts, groups, or case studies.
- What are the drawbacks you’ve run into?
There is no such thing as a great research project. At least one weakness is almost always found. To respond to this issue, discuss the flaws that were beyond your control. You will discuss how limitations such as a short time period for the study, a lack of research studies/materials on the subject, a lack of available data, a mixture of lectures, exams, and project research, a small sample size and selection, and so on influenced the analysis of the research, data.
- What data sources were used in the research?
Simply state the data collection methods used in the analysis in this section. You should specify whether you used primary sources like questionnaires, interviews, or observations, or secondary sources like textbooks, journals, papers, and so on. If you used both primary and secondary sources, speak about it briefly.
- What are your recommendations/suggestions based on your findings?
This is where you discuss the significance and consequences of your analysis, as well as the different ways other researchers can enhance or refine the study, as well as how your new Theory can contribute to the body of knowledge, and finally how the insights gleaned from your study will improve practice, improve operating processes, solve problems, improve policy making, and so on.
Avoid making decisions based on your results that aren’t confirmed by your findings. Do not make recommendations based on your personal beliefs.
- What is your project’s strongest point?
Since the defense will only last 10 to 15 minutes, the questioners may not have enough time to ask you in any detail. They’ll want to get right to the point and ask you about the most important aspects of your study. Be prepared to respond.
- What would you change in your studies if you had the chance?
The limitations of your research will provide the answer to this issue. You can respond with things like:
Despite the constraints I was dealing with (such as the limited time period for the study or a lack of adequate funds), this is what I was able to do, but if I had more time and resources, I would have done more, As a result of this, I discovered a flaw in this type of data collection, which I’ll work on next time.
- Do you have any questions for us?
You should inquire if there are any changes they would like you to make to your study. So that you can take notes, ask them to outline the main revisions.
- Do you have any final thoughts?
Thank the panel of examiners and assure them that the revisions/corrections they suggested (such as rewriting the conclusion, tables/graphs that aren’t in the right format, something you said during the defense that they want you to include in the report, or other issues they noticed you missed) would be implemented and shown to your supervisor.