Mock PhD Viva and Factor Analysis @ OUM

May 23, 2010

About 25 PhD students both junior and senior were present at Open University Malaysia main campus in KL to attend 2 mock PhD viva session by Lum and Tajul Arrifin. The session was chaired by Associate Prof. Dr. Nagarajah Lee from the Faculty of Education of OUM.

Lum presenting his mock viva in front of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nagarajah Lee (seated front right) and 25 other students

Part of the students who attended the mock viva

First presenter Lum started his presentation at 9.00am. It was about perception of employees on PMS and its impact on their job satisfaction. He gave a 40 minutes presentation followed by another 30 minutes of Q&A session from the floor guided by Dr. Nagarajah. 10 minutes break followed before our next presenter Tajul Ariffin.

Tajul Ariffin's presentation was about the interaction between Real Estate Market with Conventional & Islamic capital market.

The objective of the mock presentation is for the presenters to present their research findings and at the same time to prepare for actual viva. For the audience it was another lesson to guide them towards the lonely journey of achieving their PhDs.

Good questions were asked by the chair and the floor during the mock viva session. Dr. Nagarajah Lee advised all PhD students to look our for the What, Why and How when presenting their viva. He highlighted in particular the Problem Statement which should answer why the problem is critical and important. He also urged students to highlight clearly the dependent variable in the study. Most importantly students must mention why the proposed research is worth doing and what is the value of the research.

He also advised students to be careful with the analysis tool used. Students should not confused ANOVA with Paired Sample Test for example. ANOVA is used to compare the mean score of different populations. It can also be carried to find whether there consistency in the mean score of the various groups.

PhD Mock Viva at OUM

A mock viva was held at OUM main campus on April 25, 2010. It was part of a series of meeting organized by the CGS department of OUM to assist current PhD students to understand the process of going through the lonely journey before they can really obtain their doctoral degree.

Prof. Ghazali (standing, left) and Richard Ng (standing, right) before the start of the mock viva

Prof. Ghazali was doing the introduction before the start of the mock viva


Richard Ng presenting his slides during the mock viva

The mock viva cum meeting session was chaired by OUM PhD Coordinator, Prof. Ghazali and was attended by Prof. Junaidah as the mock external examiner, Prof. Karl Wagner from Applied Science University, Germany, who is also the supervisor for Richard Ng. About 20 PhD students from all over the country attended the session as well.

Part of the PhD students who attended the session

Prof. Karl in blue shirt sitting beside the window

It was a very fruitful mock viva session where the presenter, Richard Ng as well as other students have benefited from the session. After the mock viva, Prof. Junaidah gave a presentation on how to prepare the PhD thesis.

Here are some of the feedback from Sumathi, one of the PhD students who have volunteered to take note during the mock viva: (Thanks to you Sue)

Here are the points that I managed to jot down:

1)H5 = reject the null hypotheses, who are not……(incomplete sentence)

2)Introduction: address the gap of knowledge, it should be addressed in the beginning, Must tell the reader, what triggered the study.

3)Research question present first before literature review. How did you derive the hypotheses. Some thing missing in the models, summarise the importance in the models. Certain variables are important and therefore researcher cannot pick and choose. Do justify.

4)You have presented all the models including the previous studies done. To include local and overseas universities.

5)Methodology – Highlight on adapted instruments. How do you derive 140 to 59, which you dropped and took. Reliability test, no factor analysis result.

6)Hypotheses, to be written in research hypotheses. Not null.

7)Instruments used not from educational setting, make some adjustment or else justify to the faculty of study.

8) A lot of hypotheses, quoting only 1 variable to another. Multiple regression, should highlight the r2 and explain what r2 means.

9) Sampling, big sample i.e. 3,500 students. Explain how 3,500 students segregated at each level, how many students you wanted. Is 300 students okay at each level of year. Each level COULD be different number.

10) Compare the construct of the 4 different levels of students. Do a cross tab at each level.

11) Scale used to be highlighted.

12) Page 25, the table has no number (there is a mistake – the dotted line…..if significant is less than 0.05 used)

13) Some whispers between you and Prof. Ghazali I could not hear. This I managed to capture…he said to identify problem statement, the attrition rate.

14) Question impose by Ms. Lim – why case study only at OUM (it is not a problem), why not other college and institutions. What is the benchmarking, why.not go to other universities to find out

15) In the background of study, justify OUM is the ‘study’. Eg. there are no other university in similar.

16) Research objective, only 1 objective and several sub objectives

17) Definition of risk and non risk. How do you categories risk and non-risk and WHY.

18) CGPA – one of the variables.


After the presentation, Prof. Dr. Junaidah explained on technical report writing.

There are 6 characteristics in effective technical writing:

a) clarity

b) accuracy

c) comprehensiveness

d) accessibility

e) conciseness (less wordy, more contents)

f) correctness (eg. grammar, punctuation, format standard)


The two main components for technical report writing process:

i) audience (technical person/ manager/ general readers)

ii) Purpose (what do you want this document to accomplish)...explain, inform, illustrate, to review, investigate

Devise a strategy on how to explain.