Education

Entry requirements

• First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree or an approved equivalent award in a relevant discipline

or

• Research or professional experience which has resulted in appropriate evidence of achievement

Please see the University website for full details.

Months of entry

January, September

Course content

The MRes in Education is a research degree designed to enable you to complete an in-depth research project on a topic of your choice within the broad field of Education.

You can explore a specific research question that interests you whilst benefiting from structured support in quantitative or qualitative research, and a blend of cohort and personalised expert supervision.

Overview

Whether your chosen topic is teacher education, educational systems, pupil voice, educational leadership or history of education and whether you focus in on Early Years education, compulsory education, further or higher education, you will be supported by experts in our Institute of Education to deliver a significant piece of research with the potential to impact on educational practice in your chosen area.

The course can be a route into further research - many of our MRes students have progressed to undertake a PhD and some from there into academic jobs. However, it also provides you with a contemporary knowledge of issues and challenges in educational theory and practice and a rich portfolio of transferable skills – project management, critical and creative thinking, problem solving – which will be invaluable in a career as a teacher or an educational leader or manager.

We expect applicants to submit a project outline at the point of application which identifies the research question or problem that your project will address and why this is important to you, engages with what other researchers have written about this question/problem and explains why this research is needed, and sketches out how you will do the research: what data you will need to collect and how you will collect it. This proposal will enable us to identify the right person to supervise your project, your Director of Studies. We can offer supervisory expertise in the following areas:

• Early Childhood
• Leadership & Management
• Mentoring & Coaching
• Pupil voice
• Religious Education
• Special Education Needs
• Teacher identity and retention
• Psychology of Education
• Social Pedagogy
• Inclusive Education
• Social Justice of Education

Course structure

The course begins with a taught component during which you will receive a strong grounding in project planning and management, develop advanced knowledge of the research skills and methods you will need to complete your planned project, and enhance your knowledge of contemporary trends and issues in educational theory and practice. During this stage you will develop your project outline into a full project proposal. Throughout the taught component you will receive support from your appointed Director of Studies

You will then progress to the research component of the course during which you will undertake the project that you have designed. Throughout your project your Director of Studies will guide and support you, advising at every step to ensure you achieve the best research outcomes.

Across the programme, you will be able to engage with our Doctoral School’s Research Student Development Programme which offers a range of workshops and micro-courses, online and in-person, for our MRes and PhD students on a diverse range of topics, from masterclasses on specific research methods or analysis techniques, courses to improve your dissemination skills – whether presenting at a conference or writing for publication - and enhance the impact of your research.

Careers

An MRes can be a stepping stone to further study at doctoral level. Students who complete a Masters by Research will often go on to undertake a PhD or a professional doctorate such as a Doctorate of Education. This can lead to a role as a lecturer or researcher in the Higher Education sector or as a researcher in the public or business sectors. The transferable skills developed though the MRes will also prepare you for careers in the education, business and public sectors and will fast-track you into leadership and management roles.

The 2022 publication "What do researchers do", based on Graduate Outcome data, shows the clear benefits of completing a research degree with research degree graduates having significantly better employment outcomes than contemporary graduates with only first or taught masters degrees. The report also highlight that two thirds of research degree graduates go on to work in the HE sector with the remaining third working in other areas such as teaching and management.

Information for international students

International applicants will be required to demonstrate comparable prior subject experience and to have an appropriate level of written and spoken English (normally an IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum score of 6 in written English).