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facts that come to mind. The examiner might follow up something written on
an exam paper or essay to try to judge the candidate’s clarity and depth of
knowledge on a subject. Nowadays you are most likely to experience a viva when
you come to do a research master’s or a PhD where the viva is based around the
candidate’s dissertation, and it forms a central and valid part of the examination
process.
Note that these are not to be confused with interviews that may follow
suspicion of plagiarism, faking of data or other forms of cheating. In these the
candidate will be pushed very hard on their sources and their evident knowledge
of the topic (see also the section on plagiarism, pages 84–90).
Afterwards
When you come out of the exam and try to judge how well you have done,
remember that everyone else has had the same tricky paper, has had to answer the
same questions under the same stressful conditions, and that is what you should
compare your performance against – not how well you would have done given
the infinitely more relaxed circumstances in which coursework essays are written,
with time, notes and creature comforts.
Re-sits
If you do drop a stitch in the knitting, it is usually possible to re-sit the failed
element at a specified point in the course, but you may have to re-sit all the
assessment tasks associated with that module. In the worst case you might have
to take a year out and elect to re-take assessments, either with attendance or
without, providing of course that you have demonstrated elsewhere that you
have the ability and motivation to succeed eventually. You should discuss this
very carefully with your tutor.
4.8 Overall thoughts on assessment
ACHIEVING GOOD OUTPUTS 131
Assessment is key to a degree course, whether in psychology or some other subject.
In formative mode (see the section on formative work, page 93), it pushes
students to engage actively with the subject material and digest it, so they can use
it and apply it to different tasks and situations. Assessment provides feedback
both to students themselves and to their lecturers on how they are getting on,
and highlights those areas that have been poorly understood.
In summative mode, it enables the university to make an assessment of how