When going for a PhD viva, do consider seriously all these issues.
- First and foremost, you must have answers for why you want to solve the problem that you have identified. In PhD, the research problem must be grounded on a thorough critical literature review related to the real world needs. It must be relevant and significant to be solved. Relevant for others researchers to follow suit, and significant to the field and society. It differs from short term problem in the real world that are immediate in nature. It does not look for long term solution in searching for the answers. Basically, if I can solve the defective quality problem in the production within a few days, it is not PhD. They are those difficult requiring fundamental understanding of the many factors or variables involved in the search for possible answers. Kaizen Projects to improve worker posture are not PhD level. Beware of this, please.
- Secondly, a thorough literature review. I believe that literature review will and must do these 4 things. Compare, contrast, find weaknesses, and strengths of earlier works. The first thing is to compare the extant literature of the different issues and topics involved in your research. For example, you need to compare the different definitions of quality by different people. You also need to examine the definitions used to classify and define SMEs. They depend on the different situations and scenarios researchers did their studies. You have to review all those and decide and defend the one you have selected. When determining the various frameworks for implementing TQM, you first need to define what a framework is. Then, you need to review with the intention to compare and contrast. You must find strengths and weaknesses of the various frameworks that have been proposed and developed till today. Then, you want to give a summary of your suggested framework. Explain and justify why you have selected the variables, the factors, the elements, etc. You can even conduct a literature review on the research method employed by different people in your topic of research. For example, someone used surveys to find out the extent of TQM implementation or sustainable manufacturing practice. On the other hand, some researchers used case studies and qualitative interviews. They collected expert opinions to answer questions about sustaining operational excellence in an organization. So, a literature review is an extensive assessment and evaluation of the existing literature on your topics. It covers methods and findings of previous researchers. This review will help you decide how to proceed with your work and fill the gap you have found. it is easy when you found the hang of it.
- The third thing is research method, which forms your chapter 3. You must have clear research objectives. Then, you need a clear way of finding answers to those objectives. It means that you must have robust, repeatable, reproducible methods to find out the answers. It is akin to doing an experiment. For example, you need to prove that material X will affect process YZ. Then, you must design or suggest the research methods to answer this. You need the tools, the instruments, the experimental setup, and the analysis methods. Others include the questioning tool, the survey instruments, the proof of validity, and accuracy. Quantitative based methods must be proven mathematically sound. Qualitative methods must also have repeatability reproducibility shown and proven. How? Dozen of books and papers that must be reviewed for you to decide and based your research. Search and re-search until you understand.
- Having collected the data, you must be able to show proof of sound analysis. so, in Chapter 3, you have the analysis method, how did you analysed your data. I believe that the actual analysis done and the results that you got should be written in Chapter 4. Examiners are looking for answers to your research questions and objectives. So, explicitly, write down the results, answering to the research questions and objectives. Present the results logically based on the objectives. Otherwise, examiners will find it difficult to understand your thesis and presentations.
- And, finally, all the findings, conclusions and future works, limitations must be explained to the examiner.
Viva is only giving evidence whether you
1. know in detail what you did, 2. present clearly and succinctly your answers to all the research questions and objectives, 3. ensure all answers/findings were correctly interpreted and obtained from the analysis, and 4. present all these in a structured manner and to convince all to the examiners that you have contributed to the body of knowledge. THEN, YOU DESERVE A PhD. All the best
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