Postgraduate coursework program

Education

Educational Research, Evaluation and Assessment

Offered as a specialisation within the Master of Education.

See the main Education entry for information about entry requirements, fees, closing dates and further information.

THE MASTER OF EDUCATION AND RELATED SPECIALISATIONS DOES NOT QUALIFY GRADUATES FOR TEACHER REGISTRATION.

The Master of Education (Educational Research, Evaluation and Assessment) is designed to develop expertise in educational research. The Masters provides for in-depth study of the scope of methodologies from quantitative and empirical methodologies to qualitative and deconstructive methodologies.

The program is intended for educators interested in developing research expertise and for those people working in the education system interested in researching educational issues.

Students will be introduced to the employment of statistical analysis in educational research covering techniques both for summarising and describing single distribution - and relations between and among variables - and also for making generalisations from samples to populations on the basis of statistical inference.

By the end of the program students will be able to elect or devise appropriate designs for surveys and/or experiments they may conduct as well as to analyse and interpret research findings reported in the literature. Linear regression, including multiple regression; canonical analysis; analysis of variance and covariance; cluster analysis; discriminant analysis; factor analysis; partial least squares path analysis; linear structural relations analysis; and hierarchical linear modelling; multi-level non-linear relations analysis; and the analysis of change are covered. In this program students will be exposed to data collection instruments (questionnaires and interview schedules, observation methods, online data collection); data processing and analysis (computer tools for analysis, content analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis); writing research reports (style and form of research reports, developing research proposals, writing for publication); and evaluating research reports (developing framework for evaluation, applying the evaluation framework to journal literature, evaluating research proposals).

In the field of qualitative and deconstructive research students will address the assumptions and philosophies of social research. Questions of research design, data collection and analysis will be covered and students will complete their degree with a substantial understanding of the evolution of social research over the past two centuries.

The aim of the program is to educate educational researchers with a sound historical, philosophical and political basis for undertaking technical research procedures in the field of education.

CRICOS Registered Provider Code: 00114A