Education Doctorate (EdD)

Overview
The Doctor of Education (EdD) has been specifically designed to meet the needs of educational professionals in teaching, management or administration in a range of sectors. Students recruited to the programme come from occupations such as teaching, advisory roles, police work, social work and in the health sector, and often but not always hold senior positions. Common to them all is a desire to pursue an area of research related to and drawing on their professional work, and with the aim of creating new knowledge, applications and understanding that will bring both personal benefits and for the wider professional community.
There is a strong emphasis on individualised learning and personal critical reflection related to professional identities, values and contexts. The programme provides a structured environment in which students engage at an advanced level with a range of academic and professional issues relevant to their own practice. The learning and teaching strategy seeks to develop the three key skills of independent learning, independent research, and sustained critical and self-reflexive analysis integrating academic and professional considerations.
The programme is divided into two parts. In the first of these, students undertake three ‘strands’ of taught study (equalling 40 credits each). This is followed by the writing of a substantial research proposal (60 credits), which forms a good foundation for the supervised thesis in part 2, on a research question broadly related to professional practice.