A project defence is the last level to final year project writing. However at this stage most students get nervous may be because they are not well prepared or they are not sure of the questions that would be asked by the defence panel or their audience. There is always a case of students not been able to defend their project even though they wrote the project themselves. In defending research project, aside the familiarity with your research work, you must have an idea of likely questions that may be asked and as such be ready. You may find it challenging defending what you are not familiar with or have interest in. To have a good project defence, it is advised you have a firsthand knowledge of your research project. Go through the project work to get familiar with the research project. Therefore, since project writing involves undertaking an empirical investigation into an issue of social concern in the area of culture, gender, inequality, health and aging, population, politics, globalization, economic life, crime, the environment, etc., and is designed to give students the opportunity to put into practice earlier learning about statistical and research methods, you must also be abreast with all your findings and have a broad knowledge of your research work because it will help you a great deal in your defence devoid of anxiety and lack of confidence.
In defending your research project work you, must know your audience. Knowing your audience is to understand the caliber of people that will be in the defence room, the number and what is expected of you to deliver. Remember, the committee is on your side and want to see you do well. Try as much as you can not to cut short their expectations.
Furthermore, be concise and give clear information of your research work. you must remember you are only providing a brief overview of your research project, avoid unnecessary explanations and reading through your entire research project it can become boring to your audience and you are likely to be cut off by the committee.

Project Defence

Project defence is giving a presentation and vivid explanations to your research work and findings thereby letting your audience in on your objectives and findings on a particular research topic and making appropriate recommendations where necessary thereby adding to an already existing knowledge.

Seven (7) Project Defence Question

a) What are your project objectives?

Your project objectives are your reasons for the research which is mainly adopted from your research topic. Your objectives must be in agreement with your project topic. It is either you are finding the effect, impact or relationship of one variable to another. It is important that you’re familiar with your project objectives because it is what will tell your audience your reasons for carrying out the research and will also give an inkling of your literature review in chapter two.

b) How will you relate the variables in your project objectives?

To answer this question is to remember your chapter four. If your research work is one where you used correlation; then you can give the relationship between your dependent and independent variables same applies with other statistical tools used in research work.

c) What research method did you adopt?

The research method adopted largely depends on your topic if your topic is that which will require using a primary data which is quantity analysis or secondary data which is qualitative analysis and there are some project topics that you may require the combination of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Therefore, understanding your topic will help you determine what research method to adopt.

d) What statistical tool did you use to validate your hypothesis?

This question needs you to give the tools you used in validating the research hypothesis; for instance if your project topic is about determining the impact of one variable on the other, then you should use chi-square as a statistical tool. But if your project topic is on the effect, influence or relationship of one variable on the other, then you should use correlation or multivariate analysis as your statistical tool.

e) How do you justify your research findings?

When this question on justifying your research findings which is usually in chapter four unlike justification of study which is on chapter one. As you know in your chapter four there is a column for discussion of findings and in this discussion of findings for instance if you are looking at the relationship between A and B then you look at an empirical study or a literature a particular author has done research on that is closely related to your research work, then you can pick some of the empirical studies from other authors to back up your claim. For example, if there is a relationship between MR A and MR B then your justification of your research findings will go “this goes in accordance with the study Je Arya 2010 he discovered that there is 70-80% relationship between MR A and MR B. this is what justification of findings means when asked.

f) Is there any area you will want future research to be based on?

This question is also called suggestion of study. Looking at your project work, if your project topic is on the effect of single parenting on child personality development using akwa ibom as a case study for instance, if similar study can be carried out in another state like enugu or sokoto then you can say you would want similar a study on the effect of single parenting on child personality development to be carried out on those states.

h) What do you recommend?

Your recommendations are usually drawn from your research findings which are already written in your project work. All you need do is to make sure you master and remember those recommendations.