Never Smile at a Crocodile: A bad Viva Voce by the rule book

This is a narrative, the objective of which is to open aconversation about some aspects of how doctoral degrees areexamined. The focus here is on a viva voce which was conducted for amature candidate who had been registered for his doctorate for some10 years and who came close to failing this examination.Thenarrative presented is a description of a viva voce examinationwhich was conducted by the rule book and resulted in what isdescribed here as an outcome which the degree candidate and hissupervisors regarded as unfortunate. There was no misconduct on thepart of anyone but some mistakes were made by the degree candidateduring the examination in that the candidate did not answer well thequestions put to him and the examiners did not attempt to correcthim or assist him with his nervousness, which was quite apparent. Asa result, the candidate’s examination performance was regarded byall to be poor. The problem which caused this unfortunate event, itis argued, lay in the lack of concentration on the part of thedegree candidate and the absence of what John Maynard Keynes oncereferred to as the goodwill of the examiners, which was in shortsupply (Checkland, 1981). This narrative and the accompanyingreflections reveal how delicate the viva voce process actually isand why in its current form it may need a thorough review. The paperconcludes with the suggestion that the viva voce needsreform.