Early Years Education (Online) MA

This Master's degree offers students the opportunity to enhance their professional development and understanding of national and global issues in early learning, early years policy and curricula; critically evaluate a range of literature about young children’s learning and best practice in early education; develop their understanding of research methodology with and about young children; conduct their own small-scale research project in a setting of their own choice.

Students can expect to study an average of 300 hours per 30-credit module and 600 hours for the Dissertation. The number of weekly study hours can vary during the programme. As a general guide, students following the suggested 2-year programme structure can expect to study 7-14 hours per week and 1-2 hours per day.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.

The programme consists of four core modules (120 credits) and a dissertation (60 credits).

• Contemporary Issues in the Early Years
• Early Childhood Education
• Leadership in Early Childhood Education
• Researching Early Years Education

There are no optional modules for this programme.

All students undertake an independent research project which culminates in a dissertation of 20,000 words.

The programme is delivered through online sessions based on Moodle, our virtual learning environment. Assessment is by 5,000-word coursework assignments and a 20,000-word dissertation.