Education, Early Childhood & Youth

This programme is delivered at Teesside University Darlington and is for recognised educational professionals who want to deepen their understanding of education and their professional practice through research and study with other professionals. The Doctorate in Education is open to anyone practising education, from early years to higher education, and education administration or management.

The fee for studying part-time on the Doctorate in Education is presently £2,500/annum for the first four years. It is understood that occasionally students may not be able to complete their studies at Doctoral level in this timescale and as a result the University has set a nominal run-on fee of £500 for a fifth year, or part of year, of registration to ensure completion (subject to approval).

Traditional PhDs have focused on equipping you to be a professional researcher or academic, but for established educators the Doctorate in Education offers an alternative, and perhaps more fruitful, route to this level of study.

It offers you the chance to submit elements of your and your institution's practice to rigorous analysis, enabling academic knowledge and understanding to be fused with questions of practice in a way that
sheds light on both. This gives you the chance to take part in creating new knowledge relevant to the field whilst deepening your understanding of the challenges and rewards of practice.

The Doctorate in Education offers a focused range of relevant taught modules based around core aspects of educational provision and practice, from curricula to dealing with diverse needs. It also provides teaching in research methods at doctoral level and support for the completion of a thesis based on original research around an educational topic of choice.

The educational aims of the programme are to provide an opportunity to:

• study theories, conceptual frameworks and research related to specialised areas of education and apply this knowledge in an autonomous fashion to your own personal practice and that of your organisation
• develop and demonstrate your ability to inform and lead an educational community of practice
• carry out an individual research programme related to a specialised area of educational thinking and provision.

What you study

The structure of the programme is partly shared with our MA Education and you can progress onto the Doctorate in Education with the successful completion of 90 M level credits.

On the part-time route you are expected to study first a module on curriculum, pedagogy and politics and then either a module on being a professional within a community of practice or on inclusion, completing all three of these within the first two years.

Following this there are two research modules, one on secondary research and one on primary research to prepare you for the research thesis, an advanced independent study of approximately 48,000 words. Studying part time, the two taught modules are expected to be completed over a year and the thesis to take a minimum of two.

How you learn

The programme provides a programme of study and research for recognised education professionals. Learning and teaching methods reflect this, being based around student-led seminars and conference-style presentations focusing on topics central to your own professional practice and research interests and methods of providing peer support and feedback through use of peer assessment and the University’s virtual learning environment.

How you are assessed

You are assessed by:

• tutor and peer assessed seminars
• preparation of an abstract for an academic paper
• assessed conference presentation of academic work
• essays and reflective reports
• preparation of a research proposal
• production of a 48,000-word advanced independent study followed by a viva.

Career opportunities

The programme is designed to enable you to consolidate and build upon previous learning and experience in your working role and be a key to new opportunities in education, whichever setting or sector you currently operate within. It is intended to create close links between the programme activities and content in relation to on-going professional practice. You are likely to have already undergone considerable training and professional development but it is expected that this qualification will enhance your development even further.

Entry requirements

To be accepted onto the Doctorate in Education, you will typically have a master’s level qualification or at least 90 credits at level 7 study and at least two years professional experience in a relevant educational field. In exceptional circumstances you may be accepted with other experience or qualifications, such as evidence of comparable research training or successful high-quality educational research activity. Anyone wishing to take part in the programme will be subject to an entry interview.

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