I attended another viva exam recently. it is useful once again to record the main questions that were posed, as a guide for me to think about when the time for my own viva comes. The questions posed, in my words, were as follows:1. what were the main aims of your research?

2. How have your participants’ stories extended your own understanding of the phenomenon?

3. Has any of your findings challenged or changed your own knowledge around the topic (any surprises)?

4. Talk through around the process of this thesis being a heuristic study

5. If your research was to contribute in future developments of counselling training, what would those be?

6. Having completed this study, what is your contribution to qualitative research? what is the adding ingredient your bring?

7. This is a grounded but also passionate study: how did those two elements work together?

8. suggestion: PUT YOUR MAIN FINDINGS IN THE ABSTRACT!

9. suggestion: make some TABLES/signposting about your main findings for the reader’s convenience

10. suggestion: add few summaries as you complere one stage and go to another

11. The heuristic process: could you say a bit more around how you moved from the individual depictions to the composite one?

12. suggestion: make a table about how you nadled the data…to guide the reader through  the thesis

This viva exam flew gently and it was in a quite relaxed atmosphere. i see how important it is to find the appropriate examiners, sth that me and my supervisor have to think about in relation to my research