Knowing the likely project defense questions and answers will help in boosting your confidence and prepare you for the exercise.

After successfully completing your final year project, it is sacrosanct that your supervisor signs the approval page in the preliminary section for onwards preparation to defend a project. To a lot of students’ project defense appear the most difficult aspect; unknowing to them, it is in fact the easiest phase of the whole exercise.

The greatest fear of every student is how to defend a project and knowing the direction of questions from internal and external examiners (panel); this has been a major concern of students.

In this article, a list of likely questions asked during project defense will be unveiled. You don’t need to worry anymore, the questions & answers provided will serve as your weapon for combating questions thrown at you.

The main objective of this post is to further prepare you on how to defend a project while arming you with most likely questions and putting you ahead of your pears.

The project defense is a test of the authenticity of your work; all that is expected of you is to prove the originality of the document you’ve submitted. Once that’s achieved, you won their heart!

The underlisted are compulsory questions that is most likely to be thrown at you during defense.

Likely Questions and How to Answer Them

Question: Tell Us About Yourself?

This is the easiest question to answer; your examiners expect you to tell the following;

1. Your name
2. Reg No. and
3. Project topic

Quick answer: Tell them about yourself.

Question: Tell Us About Your Project?

You are to summarize your project (chapter one to five or six), in most cases you’ll be expected to do this in about 5minutes. To answer this question conveniently, just memorize your abstract before defense.

• Quick answer: Tell them your project topic and explain your abstract.

Question: What Problems Are You Trying to Solve?

Before taking up the study, you must have done preliminary research (literature review) on your topic and found problems associated with it. Your motivation would be to find solutions to the problems you identified. That problem you identified during literature review is what you should discuss.

• Quick answer: Discuss your statement of the problem.

Question: Have You Been Able to Find Solution to The Problem? If Yes, What Did You Do?

Here you should discuss the approach you undertook to attempt solving the problems.

• Quick answer: State your aim, objectives and tell them how you collected data from respondents directly affected by the problems, show how the data you collected was analyzed, then state your conclusion and recommendations.

Question: What Materials Did You Consult During Your Study?

You are to mention the materials you read or researched in the course of carrying out the study.

• Quick answer: State at least 5 references in your reference list.

Question: What Instrument Did You Use in Collecting Data?

Instruments are the tools you adopted for collecting responses from your respondents.

• Quick answer: Questionnaire, Interview, field visitation, experiment etc.

Question: Talk About the Research Methodology Applied?

You are expected to tell them your research design, population of study, sampling technique and sample size, sources of data, instrument of data collection and method of data collection.

Question: What Is Your Contribution to The Body of Knowledge?

The body of knowledge cuts across several fields. Every researcher is expected to add something new to an existing knowledge, hence the reason for this question.

You’re expected to mention any new approach applied in the course of the study or a new knowledge you’ve added to the study through constructive/intuitive effort or thorough research/investigation.

Question: What Gaps Did You Find?

Research gaps are missing information or something that was omitted in the literatures you reviewed.

The answer to this question should be on the last paragraph in summary of literature review.

Example: Available literatures relevant to this study were silent on the recreational parks in Lagos Mainland that have the most tendency of surviving if attended to and the most efficient maintenance management strategy that would accelerate and awaken recreational life in Lagos metropolis. This study intends to find answers to this gap and provide same for future studies.

Question: What Were Your Findings?

These are findings extracted from chapter 4 (data presentation and analysis).

• Quick answer: Just state at least 5 findings in your chapter 5.1

Question: What Recommendation Did You Proffer?

After stating your findings and conclusion, you’re expected to mention your recommendations in respect to possible solutions for problems found. These recommendations are what you’re to state.

• Quick answer: Mention at least 3 recommendations from chapter five

Question: What Is Your Population of Study?

The answer to this question should be in your chapter three “population of the study”

Example: Bankers, Teachers, staff of Federal Ministry of Education etc.

Question: What Were the Challenges You Faced?

Every research work comes with a challenge, it’s now up to you to manage the challenges and successfully complete your project.

• Quick answer: Itemize your limitation of the study

Question: What Was Your Reasons for Your Population of Study?

Your population of study are the group of people, individuals or items from which data are drawn. These are the ones directly or indirectly affected by the research problem under study.

Example: My reason for choosing lawyers as population of study is because by law, they are certified to give legal advice to citizens.

Question: How Did You Get Data?

You are to explain the procedure you undertook to collect data.

• Quick answer: I visited 16 law chambers along Allen Avenue where 25 staff were interviewed and 300 questionnaires distributed. The returned questionnaires and interviews thereafter formed the basis of data presentation and analysis.

Question: What form of data presentation did you adopt?

Example: The data collected for the study were presented in frequency tables while the analysis was done using percentages, ranking, mean deviation and standard deviation.

Question: What Approach Was Used to Test Hypothesis?

Example: The hypothesis was tested with The Pearson’s Correlation coefficient.

Question: Why Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient?

Example: The Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient was adopted in order to test and find the significant linear relationship between recreational parks and maintenance in Kaduna metropolis.

Question: What APA Format Did You Use?

There are more than one APA formats. The most used today are 6^th and 7^th edition

Quick answer: I used APA format 6^th Edition

Question: How Did You Get Your Sample Size?

Quick answer: I used Taro Yamane formulae to determine the sample size.

Question: What Sample Techniques Did You Use?

Quick answer: I adopted the stratified random sampling technique.