Oral Exam Questions

Question 1

1. What did you do? Why did you do it?

Question 2

2. What were your most important findings?

Question 3

3. Why was your research important and why does it matter?

Question 4

4. Who paid for this work and who will benefit?

Question 5

5. Why did you select this particular question on which to focus?

Question 7

7. Did your thinking evolve during the study and why?

Question 8

8. What were some preconceptions you held before the study that you
   have now abandoned?

Question 9

9. What were your large unexpected results and did you have any
   problem with confirmation bias in their interpretation?

Question 10

10. How have you changed as a researcher during this research? Was
    this anticipated by you in advance? Do you see the opportunity for
    further growth in this same vein?

Question 11

You reference researcher X in your thesis, how does their work
relate to yours?

Question 12

12. In what ways has your field progressed during your period of
    research?

Question 13

13. What schools of research thought are contrary to your findings?
    Who would object?

Question 14

14. You don’t mention the work of X much. Why did you not cite
    them?

Question 15

15. How did you confine or bracket the limits of your study?

Question 16

16. To what extent can your findings be extrapolated? What is your
    study’s universe?

Question 17

17. Did you find any serious problems with your analysis? What were
    they?

Question 18

18. Can you talk us through your design and analysis in terms a 12th
    grader would understand?

Question 19

19. What other data would you really really like to have for your study?

Question 20

20. What were your most important findings? Are there other findings
    that are very important to others but not to you?

Question 21

21. Could you have interpreted your results in any other way(s)?

Question 22

22. Can you expand on these XYZ points?

Question 23

23. What makes your thesis original? Is it a significant original
    contribution to the field?

Question 24

24. What are the empirical, theoretical, and conceptual implications of
    your findings?

Question 25

25. What are some important follow-up questions to your thesis?

Question 26

26. How do scientists guard against favorite hypotheses, bias, or
    subjectivity?

Question 27

27. What is plagiarism? Is this the same as misattribution?

Question 28

28. What are the primary components of good policy?

Question 29

29. Explain “wicked problems” as a specific concept compared to
    complex problems.

Question 30

30. Give five discrete categories of errors found in publications.

Question 31

31. What is the “Myth of the non-consumer”?

Question 32

32. Are you sure?

Question 33

33. Are you really sure?

Question 34

34. How can humans improve the world? Hurt the world?

Question 35

35. Name five famous female scientists.

Question 36

36. Why are microcosm experiments completely worthless?

Question 37

38. How did you come to be before us today?

Question 38

39. Why do you want a PhD (or MSc)?

Question 39

40. What is the one single question you most worried about being
    asked?

Question 40

41. If you were doing your project over, what would you change?

Question 41

42. Name seven top journals in your field. Which did you find the most
    or least helpful with your study?

Question 42

43. Who are your closest competitors for advancing this type of
    information?

Question 43

44. What is your greatest point of pride in this project?

Question 44

45. Where will you publish your work? If it is rejected, what is your
    fall-back plan?

Question 45

46. Is your field going in the right direction?

Question 46

47. Justify your study.

Question 47

48. Did you consider any alternatives? What were they?

Question 48

49. Starting with the introduction, list, in order, the major parts of a
    scientific paper.

Question 49

50. What is an impact factor and how is it calculated?

Question 50

51. What is the annual budget of your university? Where does the
    money come from?

Question 51

52. What do you want to be after graduation? What do you need to
    know to succeed in that?

Question 52

53. Give the approximate title of one journal article you have read that
    was written this year?

Question 53

55. Name three international organizations in your field of study.

Question 54

56. What are some principles or guidelines of good data

management?

Question 55

57. What scientific funding recommendation would you give to

political leaders?

Question 56

58. What does your research prepare you to accomplish?

Question 57

59. Suppose your entire thesis research fails to find anything
    significant. What would you do?

Question 58

61. Is truth a social construct?

Question 59

62. If humans disappeared from the earth today, what would change in
    the environment?

Question 60

63. When and why will the rate of knowledge accumulation plateau
    out?

Question 61

64. Is there a relationship between quality of knowledge and quantity
    or knowledge?

Question 62

65. Who are the leaders in your field? Name two or three and tell us
    briefly of their contributions.

Question 63

66. Name one current controversy in your field. What is your stance on
    this?

Question 64

67. When did you last completely back up your data including your
    computer’s hard drive?

Question 65

1. Explain the importance of epistemology for your methodology.

Question 66

2. Select a social problem and provide three perspectives on it:
   Feminist, Structuralist, and Constructivist. Show clearly how they
   differ in their foci.

Question 67

4. Provide arguments in support of and in opposition to Garrett
   Hardin’s tragedy of the commons concept.

Question 68

5. Why is social theory important?

Question 69

6. How do post-modern theorists challenge empirical work?