Thus the aim of this research was to explore the meaning that international students gave to mini-vivas. This was split between those who considered it was a spoken exam and those who thought it was more like a formal interview regardless of nationality. Consequently, those students who considered it was more like a spoken exam suffered increased anxiety than the other students. However, the students' intentions about learning were key to understanding how the students interpreted the results of their mini-viva regardless of their interpretation of what a mini-viva was (Case and Marshall 2004). As a result of the mini-viva some international students have begun to move towards a deeper level of learning.

The adoption of a deep learning approach is dependent on the student recognizing the value of research methodology and goes beyond the original context of the assessment (Boud 1995). The students need to recognize that a surface approach may not give them all the methodological skills to justify choices not only in research design but for their later proposals and dissertation. Thus the mini-viva has to be about changing students’ perceptions of research design and methodology (Prosser and Trigwell 1999). Some students have achieved this outcome by recognizing that there was a shortfall in their knowledge and taking actions to improve it. This suggests that engaging in a spoken assessment highlights vividly individual strengths and weaknesses and helps them internalize concepts as well as generate new ideas.