Education (Research)

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.