Common PhD viva question categories
Every viva is different, but most cover similar ground. These are the areas examiners typically explore — and what Defensia uses as a starting point, grounded in your specific thesis.
Research contribution
What does this thesis contribute to the field that did not exist before? How significant is that contribution?
"What is the central claim of your thesis?"
"How does your contribution advance the field beyond existing work?"
"What would researchers not know without your thesis?"
Methodology
Why did you choose this approach? What alternatives did you consider? How did you ensure rigour?
"Why did you choose this research design?"
"How did you address potential bias in your data collection?"
"What would you do differently if you ran this study again?"
Engagement with the literature
How does your work relate to existing research? Can you justify what you included and excluded?
"How does your work relate to [specific author or study]?"
"Why did you not engage with [area of literature]?"
"Where does your work agree or disagree with the current consensus?"
Limitations
What are the constraints of your work? How do they affect your conclusions?
"What are the main limitations of your study?"
"How do those limitations affect the validity of your findings?"
"What would a larger or differently designed study add?"
Results and interpretation
What do your findings actually show? How confident are you in your interpretation?
"Can you summarise your key findings?"
"Could your results be interpreted differently?"
"How robust are your findings to alternative explanations?"
Originality
What is genuinely new about your work? How do you demonstrate that it is your own intellectual contribution?
"What is the most original aspect of your research?"
"How does your theoretical framing differ from existing approaches?"
Future work
Where should this research go next? What questions does your thesis open up?
"What are the most important next steps for this research?"
"If you had more time, what would you pursue first?"
Decisions and trade-offs
Why did you make the choices you made? Can you defend them under scrutiny?
"Why did you frame the research question this way rather than another?"
"What did you leave out, and why?"
"Looking back, would you change any of your major decisions?"
Why thesis-specific questions matter
Generic viva questions like "what is your research contribution?" are useful — they help you think through the categories examiners care about. But the hard part isn't knowing the category. It's answering that question for your specific thesis, under questioning, with follow-ups.
When an examiner asks "why did you use thematic analysis rather than grounded theory?" they're asking about a decision you made, in your thesis, in the context of your research question. That question only makes sense if the examiner has read your work — and the practice only helps if the AI has too.
Defensia indexes your full thesis. Every question it asks is grounded in what you actually wrote — your methodology, your literature choices, your findings, your specific arguments. The questions feel like questions from someone who has read your thesis, because in a meaningful sense, they are.
From question to follow-up
Defensia doesn't give you a list — it runs a conversation.
Methodologist
Examiner speaking
EXAMINER
"Your methodology chapter describes a thematic analysis approach. Can you explain why you chose inductive coding rather than applying an existing theoretical framework to your data?"
YOUR ANSWER
"I chose inductive coding because my research question was exploratory — I was examining patterns in participant experience that hadn't been categorised before, so applying a predetermined framework would have constrained the analysis…"
FOLLOW-UP
"How did you establish rigour in that process? Did you use member checking or inter-rater reliability measures?"
SESSION FEEDBACK