Course summary

The MA in Education provides outstanding opportunities to study a wide range of educational issues. It will provide you with a clear understanding of the nature and significance of policy and practice in education, relevant to researchers as well as professionals in schools, colleges and universities. A key feature of the course is the facility for you to draw on your own professional and personal as well as academic and theoretical interests, through being able to choose from a range of optional modules to study. You will also be able to explore your own interests in depth through the completion of a dissertation. In all of our modules, we aim to introduce you to key ideas and ways of thinking that enable you to engage with related issues in contexts that are relevant to you. Our course is constructed in such a way that contexts as diverse as science education in schools, informal learning in the workplace and the management of schools outside the UK, can be explored through module assignments as well as the dissertation. The degree has been designed to meet the needs of educational professionals, especially those in teaching, management or administration at all levels of education. Students likely to benefit from the course are those who are interested in education, often teachers or people planning to become teachers, who have a commitment to pedagogy, and educational managers in schools, colleges and higher education institutions, as well as those working in educational administration, in the UK and overseas. Students who have successfully completed the PGCE at Durham in the previous academic year have the option to use 90 credits they have accredited on this course. These students will only need to do the core modules, Education Enquiry and the Dissertation to complete the course. Course structure Students normally study two 20 credit core taught modules, two 10 credit optional taught modules, two 30 credit optional modules plus the 60 credit dissertation over one year. Core modules: Design and Methods in Education Research introduces key issues, terms, and ideas in education research. It teaches a range of key research skills including the evaluation of research techniques across different research contexts and the ability to conduct a high-quality study. You will learn to recognise the different purposes of education research; understand key terms and vocabulary in education research and develop a critical standpoint in relation to research in education. Conceptual Perspectives in Education engages with some of the key debates in education today and considers the role of ‘theory’ in the research process. You will develop an understanding of the ways in which education theories and/or conceptual frameworks inform the types of questions researchers ask about education and learn how this contributes to educational research. Postgraduate Dissertation is a substantial piece of research based on an educational issue within your chosen field of study. You will use an approved research strategy to design and carry out your research and report the outcomes. Mini modules: You must select two 10 credit modules from a list of optional modules which previously have included:

• Secondary Data in Education Research

• Ethnographies of Education

• Measurement in Education Research

• Interviews

• Narrative Enquiry – Methodology and Methods

• Experiments in Education

• Systematic Reviews