Undergraduate Research Project Vivas in Physics: a resource for students

Introduction

The ability to explain scientific results to others is one of many skills expected of physics graduates. Explanations may take the form of a written report, a poster, or an oral presentation, but in this resource we focus on the oral, or viva voce (Latin for "by live voice"), examination. On this page, you will find advice on what to expect and how to prepare for a project viva/oral exam.

Why do we have project vivas/oral exams?

Oral exams/vivas account for a significant fraction of project work assessment (usually ~25%). The document 'A Short Guide to Oral Assessment' below provides a very good overview, but from a physics project perspective the main reasons are:

• • We can confirm that all individual members of a research pair/group have made a substantial contribution, and that the work presented in the report is the student's own.

  • It's a good way of confirming that the student understands their research project, and the physics it is based on.

  • It's the most effective way of assessing one of the key learning outcomes of a physics degree: that a student can effectively communicate their science understanding.

  • It's a dynamic form of assessment, and allows the student and the assessors to adapt in real time.

Also note that an oral exam has many similarities to a job interview. If you can perform confidently in your project viva, you will probably perform well in an interview situation.

What will my viva be like?

The following text is taken from the 3rd & 4th Year Handbook (2018/19 version), and provides a brief outline of the scope of the viva.

After they have read your report, the supervisor and 2nd marker will conduct an oral examination, where you will be asked to give a short (5 minute) informal overview of your work. After this, the assessors will ask questions based on the content of your report, and may ask you to clarify any ambiguities and justify any omissions. You may also be asked questions on the background physics appropriate to your project topic. Questions should normally be straightforward to answer if you carried out the work thoroughly and thoughtfully. The oral exam should last for about 30 minutes. The timetables for oral exams will be posted on the year noticeboards. It is your responsibility to confirm venues and times with project supervisors.

And here is the description from Chris Booth's project guidelines document:

Each oral examination will begin with an invitation to give a 5 minute informal presentation to the two examiners, giving an overview of the project work. (An oral presentation with perhaps a few sketches on the whiteboard will be perfectly adequate. A prepared PowerPoint presentation is not required.) This should be kept general at this stage and you must resist the temptation to become involved in the minutiae. (As a general guide, imagine you are at an interview for a post and a non-specialist asks you to describe, very briefly, what the project was about.)

In the main part of the examination you will be expected to show a good understanding of the problem, the content of the report and other relevant background physics.

It is an opportunity to clarify ambiguities and possible omissions in the report.

Questions will be those judged relevant to the project work and should normally be straightforward to answer if you carried out the work thoroughly and thoughtfully.

For PHY480 projects, here is the (very similar) text on project vivas taken from the document PHY480 Research Project in Physics & Astronomy - A Guide to Semester 2:

Each oral examination will begin with an invitation to present a 10 minute informal presentation to the two examiners giving an overview of the project work. This should be kept general at this stage and you must resist the temptation to become involved in the minutiae. As a general guide assume you are at an interview for a post and a non-specialist asks you to describe, very briefly, what the project was about. Note that this is a verbal presentation only, like a mini Ph.D. thesis viva. You will not be able to show powerpoint slides, etc, as you would not be able to in a Ph.D. viva.

In the main part of the examination you will be expected to show a good understanding of the problem, the content of the report and other relevant background physics. You should bring with you a copy of your report, as questions may refer specifically to it. You will be allowed to consult your report in answering questions.

It is an opportunity to clarify ambiguities and possible omissions in the report.

Questions will be those judged relevant to the project work and should normally be straightforward to answer if you carried out the work thoroughly and thoughtfully.

And here's what some of our students said about their viva experience, and how it compared to their expectations.

The viva description in the 3rd/4th year project guide is pretty accurate.

It was more relaxed/informal and less intimidating than I expected, but still quite intense.

I didn't explain everything I needed to in the first 5 minutes.

The viva went on for much longer than I expected. But time went by very quickly!

When you've been very involved in a project, it's easy to talk about it.

The questions weren't as bad as I expected. Sometimes they were hard, and I didn't feel prepared for all of them. Sometimes I needed to take a bit more time to process what they meant before coming up with an answer

Let's look at this in a bit more detail:

• Who is the second marker (also referred to as the "second examiner" or "co-assessor")?

The second marker is another member of the academic staff. Usually, they will have suitable experience of the research area covered by your project. They will have read, and will have a copy of, your project report. However, you should not expect them to have the sort of in-depth knowledge of your work that you and your supervisor have.

• What's meant by 'short informal overview'?

We want you to tell us about your project work. Set the context - what you're working on and why it matters. What is your science question? Justify the approach taken by your project work, and explain the key results. Do your results have any implications for future work? If you were working as part of a pair or larger group, what was your personal contribution to the work? Five (or ten) minutes is not a long time: don't try to give us a week-by-week summary of what you did. Instead, focus on the key points: what were you trying to do, why is it important, and what do you feel that you achieved?

Note that all project vivas start with this short overview (typically five minutes for a 3rd year viva, and ten minutes for a 4th year viva as the 4th year project is longer and more involved). Prepare this overview in advance. Think about the main points that you want to convey, and how best to explain them. Remember that although your supervisor will be one of the assessors, you should aim your overview at the co-assessor, who knows only what he or she has read in the report.

Unless you're explicitly told otherwise, don't expect to give a powerpoint presentation. Do bring any notes/figures that you think are useful in with you, and a copy of your report.

• Thirty minutes sounds like a long time!

It goes pretty fast. Don't be surprised if it overruns. Try to enjoy it? This may be one of only a few occasions where you can have a conversation about your project work with people who are genuinely interested in it!

• Does it have to happen in the middle of the exam period?

Supervisors and assessors need time to read and digest the project report between the submission deadline and the day of the viva, and final project marks need to be assembled in time for the main exam board meetings. So, project vivas inevitably fall into the standard exam periods, or sometimes the week following. That is (obviously) a stressful and busy time for students, but we do our best to schedule oral exams at least a full day clear of other exams. This is not always possible to achieve in practice, but we do try.

• I'm really, really nervous about giving presentations, and the idea of a viva is just so much worse.

Some students enjoy giving presentations and some students find them very nerve-racking. But the level of anxiety you feel isn't what makes a presentation good or bad. It's normal to be worried. It's normal to find the thought of a viva intimidating. We expect a lot of students to be visibly nervous, and we'll do our best to set you at ease and support you through the questions. You're not being assessed on your confidence, or how speedily you can answer a question. The first thirty seconds of any presentation are the hardest. Once you get past this point you're likely to have found some kind of rhythm, and adrenaline/existing in the moment will carry you through. Any lingering fear of the unknown will diminish - you're talking in front of people right now, and your body will realise that it isn't actually in imminent danger of death! You might not relax completely, but that initial pressure will probably ease off. So, one thing to focus on is increasing your level of confidence and comfort with that opening thirty seconds. Do practise your overview before the viva - especially that first part.

What should I include in my overview? How should it be structured?

Your initial overview needs to include the key points from your project. Think in advance about what you want to say. Five (or ten) minutes is very short, so concentrate on the essentials. (The rest is likely to come up during questioning later.)

• What were the aims of the project? You may need a short amount of time to set the work in context, but avoid lengthy explanation of background theory. (If the aims changed as the project progressed - and sometimes they do, for good reasons - you need to explain what changed, and why.)

• What is the project motivation? In other words, why is this a useful thing to have done? (This may belong before, after, or together with the aims. Try it different ways, and see what seems to flow best.)

• How did you go about tackling the task? State what you did, what you found out and what it actually means. This should be a broad-brush summary: avoid getting bogged down in details. If you worked as a pair or group, how did you divide the work, and why?

• What did you achieve? Did the project deliver on its original aims, and if not why not? If you encountered serious problems during the project, you can mention them, but concentrate on what you did achieve rather than what you didn't!

• What do you think you have gained from the project?

You should take your report in with you, and refer to it as necessary, especially for diagrams and graphs. (The viva is not a memory test.) You will have access to a white-board or pad of paper, which may be valuable in answering questions later, and you may use these during the overview. However, drawing diagrams takes time and anything essential should already be in your report!

What kind of questions can I expect?

Students who've not had a viva before are most worried about not being able to answer the viva questions. They are uncertain about the scope of questions that could come up, how well they will respond if it's not something they've prepared for, and feeling stupid if they bungle/don't understand a question.

Students who have had a viva before are still worried about questions, but not in the same way:

"The uncertainty of what I'm going to be asked and the lack of thinking time in an oral examination, I feel like I have to have an answer immediately in order to look like I know what I'm talking about"

"Seeming like I didn’t put in as much effort as I did just because I’m too nervous to explain/answer properly. Also going blank during the viva"

"I still worry about the kind of things they’ll ask! Ideally I think it would be useful to have a discussion with project supervisors where they could give some broad topics, though I guess it’s hard to pick a balance between not helping too much."

"Looking stupid/embarrassing yourself in front of very smart people"

So, what kind of questions can I expect?

A lot of this depends on the nature of your project. Examiners will try to probe how much you know, but the viva is also an opportunity to make up for any shortcomings of your written report - if something isn't clear in the written report (or just if it's not clear that you understand it!) then you can expect to be asked questions aimed at getting you to communicate what you meant and/or what the science in question means. Questions related to omissions are much harder for students to predict - if you already knew what wasn't in your report but should've been, then you probably wouldn't have left it out in the first place! If your opening overview doesn't show that you understand the context of your project and the motivation for your science, you can expect to be questioned in those areas. Similarly, the implications of your project work are a rich source of viva questions. If you consider you have been asked very difficult questions, that may be because the examiners have been impressed with your knowledge of the essentials and want to see how much extra you learned! But on the whole, try to think about what we're trying to assess: that this is your work, that you understand it fully, and have carried out your research scientifically. Remember, you know more about the project than anyone else, apart from (possibly!) your supervisor.

Note that it is quite normal not to be able to answer every single question you are asked. Do not feel that if you muff one question you have completely lost the plot. We are looking for evidence that you understand what you did, the underlying physics (or astronomy), and the motivation and context, but that's not the same as insisting that you know everything about everything! In many cases, a straightforward "I'm sorry, I don't really know" (or "I can't remember") is better than floundering around trying to look as though you know more than you do.

How will my viva performance be assessed?

It is hard to give a precise mark scheme! We are trying to assess:

• If you understood what you did, and why you did it.

• If your practice and analysis are correct (e.g. in terms of uncertainties) - obviously this will feed into the report mark, but the viva gives you an opportunity to justify what you did, or (if you have made a mistake, or not done things in the best possible way) to show that you understand the problem and can see how to improve.

• If you understand what your results mean, and can justify them.

• If you can communicate to the appropriate audience.

The mark scheme for 10 credit projects (PHY341/342 and PHY319 non-La Palma 10 credit astronomy projects) can be found here.

At the end of the viva, your project assessors will complete an appropriate template form, which is likely to be similar to one of those listed below:

• PHY319/341/342 assessment

• PHY394 assessment

• PHY480 Assessment

All of these assessment templates focus on the same three aspects of the oral exam: the quality of your overview, how well you understand your project work, and how well you understand the background context. How precisely these are weighted will vary between examiners and across projects. A particularly strong performance in one aspect may to some degree make up for weakness in another, but can only go so far. Keep the list of what we are trying to assess in mind: your scientific understanding, scientific practice, and scientific communication skills.

How should I prepare for my viva?

Students who've not had a viva before plan to:

• Read over my report, make sure I understand everything in it thoroughly.

• Practise my presentation.

• Try to figure out what sort of questions I'll be asked.

• Read and make notes on background physics/literature.

• Make short reference notes on my project.

Students who have had a viva before have a slightly different emphasis when it comes to preparing for the viva:

• Specifically look for gaps and ambiguities in my project report and prepare to answer questions about where I fell short.

• Practise presentation in front of other students, and get them to read my report and suggest questions.

• Talking to assessor to find what they were expecting in my explanations and how they expected me to time it. I read my reports in depth and asked others to read it and give me questions I could expect to be asked.

• Make sure I know all my sources and what I wrote in the report. Make sure I understand the background physics, and the current state of the field.

• As it was exam time, I didn't have as much time to prepare as I'd have liked.

And this is what they'd do differently in their next viva - some of this is related to preparation, and some to the viva experience in general:

• I'd like to be better prepared. I don't know if I'll have time for much more work, so I'd like to figure out what would be most useful.

• I didn't practise my presentation in front of anyone. Definitely going to practise in front of an audience next time.

• I'm going to talk to my supervisor and see if they have any advice on good topics to prepare. I'm going to be sure I know my sources well.

• Bring water with me!

• Try to stay calm and keep asking for clarifications instead of rambling on with a response that I’m uncertain about. Most times I can answer the question asked, I just had the wrong perspective at first so I gave a response that wasn’t as good as it could have been.

This is all very good advice, and there's not much we'd add to it! By leaving enough of a gap between writing the report and re-reading it in preparation for the viva, you may gain enough mental space to spot anything crucial that was omitted. Getting a friend to read your report (and doing them the same favour in return) can be a useful way of flagging up sections that aren't clear/correct, or aren't present at all, and thus predicting likely question topics. Familiarity with background material is a very good idea, and you should certainly be up to speed with all the ins and outs of your own work. We can usually tell when a student has not prepared at all - this is more common than you might expect, and doesn't do the students in question any favours. Some preparation is better than none, but if you're short on time go right back to the essentials: what is your project's major science question, why does it matter, and how have you gone about addressing it?

What aspects of the viva do students find the most challenging? What kind of support resources do students want?

We asked students who've been through project vivas in the past which aspects they found most challenging. This is a summary of what they told us:

• Having to think on your feet, stay calm, and not panic.

• Not knowing what sort of questions would come up, and feeling unsure of how to prepare.

• It's awful when you don't know the answer, or you're asked about something in way more depth than in your written report or something you never considered while doing the project.

• Answering some questions with the pressure of two people expecting an immediate response. It's also really hard when you just don't know the answer.

• Getting the 5 minute overview right.

• I know staff try to help us keep calm and relaxed, but I still found it really intimidating.

• Knowing what exactly is being assessed. I know it’s about defending your project but sometimes I struggle with figuring out what they want from a response to a question.

We also asked students what kind of resources they would find useful.

• Guidelines on the potential scope of questions

Students (understandably) worry a lot about the unknown. Hopefully this document has given you a slightly better idea of what sort of questions you can expect, but do discuss possible discussion topics/questions with your project supervisor and with other students, and do what you can to prepare. There's another nice document on PhD viva questions available on the School of Nursing and Midwifery web pages (source: Wellington, J et al ( 2005) Succeeding with your Doctorate, London : Sage) - obviously, that's more applicable for a much larger and longer research project, but it might give you an idea of what sort of directions viva questions can take.

• I'd like advice on how to answer questions, buy time, and deal with panic or long silences.

Even when students know what kind of questions could come up, it doesn't alleviate all their concerns, as shown by some of the comments above: Having to think on your feet, stay calm, and not panic. When you don't know the answer, or you're asked about something in way more depth than in your written report or something you never considered while doing the project. Answering some questions with the pressure of two people expecting an immediate response. It's also really hard when you just don't know the answer. Figuring out what they want from a response to a question.

Firstly, don't be afraid to take as long as you need to think! If you know what you're trying to figure out, or you just need more time to digest the question, say something along those lines, e.g. "I think I understand what you're asking. Just give me a minute to get my thoughts in order." If you think you understand the question but aren't certain of which direction your answer should take, ask for clarification. "Can I just clarify: do you want me to talk about aspect (X), or aspect (Y)/something else?"

Once you've taken the time to digest the question, it's also okay if you still don't get it. "I'm not sure what you're asking." You can show you're tried to understand the question by suggesting a possible interpretation: "Do you want me to talk about aspect (X), or aspect (Y)/something else?" again, or "It sounds like you're asking me to [Z]; is that right?" Confirming that you're on the right track can also be a good idea even if you think you know what's expected of you: sometimes students go off on a complete tangent! It's always better to make sure you are answering the question your assessors actually wanted the answer to, and time spent checking that everyone's on the same page is time well spent. Assessors are not deliberately asking trick questions: they will not penalise you for asking for clarification.

Sometimes, students get something wrong, or their minds go blank. We'll try to help you self-correct, and will often haul the conversation back to fundamental physics at that point. This isn't meant to imply that we don't think you understand your work at a high level; we're usually just trying to remind you of the underlying context, and trying to figure out exactly where the science has been either misunderstood or miscommunicated - and it's the latter rather than the former in many cases. What we like to see is students who can see their error (whether of understanding or communication) and then address it based on what they do know/understand. If you are struggling with that, our questions will be ones that will hopefully provide appropriate signposting/structure for you to show that you do have a good grasp of the physics in question.

Silences can be really, really uncomfortable for everyone, but don't try to eliminate them entirely. We'll try to draw you out, and give you a structured way to demonstrate your understanding. We don't expect you to have a snappy, glib answer to every question. We like to see you reflect on the discussion, and be thoughtful and considered in your answers.

We're also not trying to figure out what you don't know/understand. We're trying to give you a space to show us what you do know/understand. Sometimes, that means taking the conversation beyond the scope of what you've already considered/thought about. This aspect of a viva is where you get the scope to do better than you probably would on the basis of your report alone: to show us that you can consolidate and build on your existing physics understanding. This demonstrates higher-level understanding of a topic: to apply and construct new ideas & understanding. If you don't grasp an answer to a question right away, you can still do very well indeed by taking follow-up questions and building a response from those.

• Advice on how to structure my 5 minute overview well/how it's different from a normal presentation, and how best to share diagram/graph results.

Hopefully this is now covered in the sub-topic above! Note that if you realise on re-reading your report that it would have been useful to have included an extra figure, or that there is a mistake in one you did include, you can print out copies of the new or corrected figure and bring them with you. (A quick note here: it is really useful to number the pages in your report! That way, if you do want to refer to a diagram or graph in your report, you can say something like "The main results are shown in figure 6 on page 10." This saves a lot of time, both during the overview and in later questions.)

• I'd like to know more about the marking criteria.

Again - have a look at the assessment criteria sub-topic. If anything's still unclear, get in touch and we'll add to it.

• I'd like a practical practice session with other students to go over presentations and possible questions.

That's a really good suggestion. If you'd like support facilitating a group prep session at the start of the exam period, speak to project module leaders or staff in F10, and we'll see what we can figure out.

Additional advice for students with learning support plans

Presentations and oral examinations are nerve-wracking for most students, but can be particularly challenging for students with additional learning support needs. Many students will fall in one or more of the following three groups.

• Students with anxiety & related mental health disabilities

• Students with specific learning difficulties that affect cognitive processing speed and fluency of oral communication

• Students on the autism spectrum

The students in each of these groups are all unique individuals, and the level of difficulty that an oral exam presents can range from 'extremely challenging' to 'no difficulty at all'. That said, here are some of the issues that come up most frequently, and how they typically present in oral exam/presentation scenarios:

• Fight/Flight/Freeze.

Everyone's heard of fight or flight, but that's only two thirds of the picture. There's also 'Freeze'. Students will very rarely run out of the room in tears, or, heaven forbid, punch their examiner, but we have all seen students go into 'freeze' mode in a viva: protective posture, head low, limited eye contact, silence or monosyllabic answers.

How we help you: These are natural responses to a scary situation, and it's one reason why the first thing we ask of students is that they give us a brief overview of their project - that gives them time to get used to the oral exam environment, and for their body & mind to realise that they're not actually about to die of awfulness. If you do get really upset, there's nothing shameful in that, and if you need time out of the room or just a few minutes of quiet to regain your composure, that's absolutely fine! We understand that you are dealing with a physiological fear response, and will give you time to adapt. And tissues.

We'll also try to give you a good idea of what to expect from the viva, including a clear structure for what will happen. Some people on the autism spectrum find unstructured and unfamiliar experiences particularly stressful - we want to mitigate that stress by giving you the information you need.

How you can help yourself: Familiarity can help make these situations less threatening. Give yourself time to adapt. Breathe. If you are prepared for your five minute overview, that will be a less scary experience than it would be otherwise: as shown in the student comments above, it is really helpful to have practised your overview in front of a couple of friends. You're also likely to feel better rather than worse as time goes on - knowing that it will probably get easier might help you get through those first few minutes.

• 'Brain Fog'.

Chronic anxiety and depression often come hand in hand with brain fog. Thinking and creativity can be an uphill struggle, and a student may not display the mental agility they are capable of on a good day. Concentration levels can be reduced, and it can take longer to start/complete preparatory work. A student may appear to lack focus, or appear unprepared.

How we help you: if concentration/focus are flagged up on your LSP, we'll take that into account and try to ensure that you understand what the questions mean, and prompt you for more information where needed. We will try to be clearer/more specific.

How you can help yourself: ask for clarification where needed. Remind staff of your LSP, tell us what you did to prepare for the viva, and what you are finding difficult in the viva environment. If you need a break to compose yourself, please ask.

• Struggling to answer questions/not understanding the question.

This can take many different forms, for many different reasons. Some students answer questions too fast or without sufficient thought, in order to avoid an uncomfortable silence. Some students find it difficult to process oral information quickly. Some students find it hard to verbalise their physics understanding, and explain themselves clearly. Some students find it hard to develop their ideas and synthesise links between different aspects of physics when put on the spot.

How we help you: We don't want to rush you, but we will try to help if we think you're completely lost. Please ask for clarification if you're not sure what was meant by the question. If you say something unclear or wrong, we will ask for clarification as well. If you have got some of the physics wrong - especially if you did so unintentionally, or simply mis-spoke - don't worry! If cognitive processing speed is an issue flagged up on your learning support plan, appropriate preparation for your viva can be especially helpful. This specific aspect of some disabilities is a significant disadvantage for students in a viva environment, and in these cases it may be appropriate to give you advance notice of likely discussion topics.

How you can help yourself: Use simple statements to tell us that you're thinking about your answer, so we know you're not completely lost. Take your time giving answers. If you're not sure you understood the question, check first - 'are you asking me such-and-such?' Ask for any clarification you need. Check if there are specific aspects of your answer you should focus on, or ask if you should elaborate on anything afterwards. Prepare for your viva - make sure you've already had time to think about key topics in depth, so you don't have so much of a struggle to develop those ideas on the spot. Do bring in notes if you think these will help: the viva is not a memory test.

• General conversational discomfort/limited conversational repertoire.

The 'freeze' response described above can be similar to the natural conversational pattern/behaviour of some people on the autism spectrum. There may be other, entirely different, reasons that also result in students struggling to engage in conversation, or lacking fluency in their speech.

How we help you: If we know you find conversation/discussion challenging, for whatever reason, we will do our best to guide the conversation through clear and structured questions, and prompt you to elaborate on key points/provide more information where necessary. The style and fluidity of your language matters a lot less than the meaning of what you're saying.

How you can help yourself: Do as much preparation as you can, and think about possible questions/discussion points in advance. It can be hard to ask clarifying questions - is this what you meant? have I covered this in the right amount of depth? - but they can be helpful to you. Think of aspects of your project that you are comfortable talking about - things you enjoyed, challenges you overcame, moments of brilliant insights or just small things you're proud of achieving or aspects of the science you're particularly interested in - and you might find that they help you through conversational awkwardness.

• Additional conversational challenges for some students on the autism spectrum

Some students on the autism spectrum do not find it easy to identify and respond appropriately to non-verbal cues. Some students may interpret questions too literally. Some students may misinterpret a question, and may not have access to sufficient flexibility to adapt their train of thought quickly, or may miss/not respond to prompts from the assessors trying to get them back on track. Some students on the autism spectrum find it very hard to ask clarifying questions, or ask for other forms of help

How we help you: We will try to be as clear and specific as possible. We will try to keep the conversation on track, and will be understanding if it doesn't include the points we're after right away. We will try to give you appropriate targeted preparation advice.

How you can help yourself: Take your time answering questions. If you're asked the same question in a slightly different way, it may be because we were expecting your answer to go in a different direction - try not to repeat your previous answer if this happens, and ask for clarification if you're not sure what kind of response we do want. If you can, tell us in advance what things you are likely to find difficult. If you can, ask for preparation advice as well.

This is not an exhaustive list, and we welcome any additional suggestions for inclusion - particularly if we have not provided sufficient coverage & support of something on your learning support plan. We hope the language used in this section has hit the right balance between informative and inclusive, and will welcome any suggested corrections to make it better in that respect. The issues flagged up in this section are likely to be relevant to some - but not all - students with learning support plans. If you do not feel it applies to you, in whole or in part, please be assured that this part of the document is not intended to be a description of your specific situation, but is meant as a broad response to a large and varied pool of learning support needs.

Forthcoming Features:

• Mock viva video

• Encore link to a video presentation covering this information