Why Reflexivity Questions Appear in Malaysian Vivas
Reflexivity — the practice of critically examining how your own position, assumptions, and decisions shaped your research — has become an increasingly expected component of qualitative and mixed-methods research in Malaysian postgraduate scholarship. As a result, examiners in Malaysian vivas increasingly ask about reflexivity even when the methodology chapter only briefly acknowledges it. Preparing for reflexivity questions in your viva means developing a thoughtful, specific account of how your reflexive practice actually operated during your research — not just a statement that reflexivity is important in qualitative research.
Reflexivity questions are simultaneously questions about research ethics, research quality, and personal scholarly development. They test whether you engaged with your own subjectivity as an active methodological consideration rather than simply acknowledging it as an abstract requirement.
What Examiners Are Looking For in a Reflexivity Response
When an examiner asks “how did you maintain reflexivity throughout your research?”, they are not looking for a definition of reflexivity. They are looking for specific, concrete accounts of how your position as a researcher — your cultural background, professional identity, personal assumptions, and relationship to the participants or topic — was actively monitored and managed during data collection and analysis. A response that says “I kept a reflexivity journal and was aware of my biases” is a starting point, not a complete answer. A response that says “I kept a reflexivity journal in which I documented my assumptions about what I expected to find before each interview, then noted after each interview where participant responses challenged or confirmed those expectations — and I returned to these entries during analysis to check whether patterns I was seeing in the data reflected participant experience or my own prior assumptions” is specific, credible, and demonstrates genuine practice.
Specific Reflexivity Strategies to Discuss
Prepare to discuss at least two or three specific reflexivity strategies you employed during your research. Reflexivity journaling — keeping a research diary that documents your thinking, your emotional responses to the research, and your evolving interpretations — is the most commonly used strategy and the one examiners most frequently ask about. If you kept a journal, be prepared to describe what you recorded in it, how regularly you wrote, and how you used its contents during analysis.
Member checking — returning interpretations or transcripts to participants for their review and feedback — is a reflexivity strategy as well as a credibility strategy, because it gives participants the opportunity to identify where the researcher’s interpretation diverges from their own experience. Peer debriefing — discussing emerging interpretations with a colleague who challenges your assumptions — is another strategy that is frequently mentioned in methodology chapters but less frequently prepared for in viva responses. If you used any of these strategies, prepare a specific account of how they worked in your study rather than just naming them.
Honest Acknowledgement of Reflexivity Limitations
The most credible viva responses to reflexivity questions are those that acknowledge the limitations of the researcher’s reflexive practice rather than claiming perfect self-awareness. No researcher achieves complete reflexivity — the goal is systematic awareness and management of subjectivity, not its elimination. An honest response acknowledges: “My reflexivity journal helped me identify some of my assumptions, but I am aware that as an insider researcher in this community, some of my biases are likely to remain invisible to me despite my attempts to surface them. This is part of why I prioritised member checking — to access participant perspectives on my interpretations that I was unable to generate from self-reflection alone.”
Preparing for reflexivity questions in your viva with this level of specific, honest, practice-grounded thinking demonstrates the kind of scholarly maturity that Malaysian postgraduate research is designed to develop. It shows that your engagement with reflexivity was genuine rather than performative, and that your awareness of your own subjectivity is itself a form of methodological rigour.
