Programme outline

The curriculum consists of:

• elective courses in child development and education
• courses in methods and statistics 
• an academic skills course
• internship and research projects 

Year 1

You will start with the introductory course Intervention Research and the course Methods and Statistics in Education Research. In addition, you choose two elective courses in the first year, and follow the second statistics course Multilevel Data Analysis and the course Academic Skills. You will also work on your Research Internship on a self-chosen topic, under supervision of one of the research master staff members.

Year 2

In the second year you follow the statistics course Structural Equation Modelling and choose three elective courses. Over the course of the second year, you will work on your final research master thesis.

Students taking the clinical route follow courses in diagnostics and treatment instead of two elective courses. After completion of the research master, you follow an additional clinical internship in the third year. For more information, we refer to our information brochure.

Thesis / Research project

Students carry out a research internship in the first year and a thesis in the second year. For the Research Internship, you will participate in the research group of the supervising staff member, and contribute to ongoing research of the research group, by carrying out part of the research and writing a research report. In this way, you will gain experience in all aspects of research.

For the second year’s thesis, you will choose a subject of research and a supervising staff member, and write a research proposal. After approval of the proposal, you will execute the research project and write a research report. You will present your thesis at one of the Graduate School’s Colloquia, to an audience of students and staff members.

For more information about the regular and clinical routes, we refer to our information brochure.
 

Additional options 

Clinical route

The clinical route is meant for students who want to work as a clinical researcher or “science-practitioner” in the Dutch practice and want to be registered as a clinical diagnostician. To qualify for the official continuation courses and training for clinical professions in the Netherlands, you must

1. have a bachelor’s degree in pedagogy or psychology with a study programme that meets the requirements described elsewhere [link naar website master PW waar info wordt gegeven over NVO-kwalificaties etc.] and
2. follow the clinical route within the research master programme.

Please note that the clinical route is only open to Dutch-speaking students, as this route contains courses in Dutch and qualifies for the continuation courses for clinical professions in the Netherlands. In other countries other requirements apply.

Students in the clinical route can choose either the ‘Orthopedagogiek’ direction, or the ‘Forensische Orthopedagogiek’ direction.

Workload

The research master is a fulltime programme, with weekly tutorials. In addition, a large part of your programme focuses on self-study (e.g., preparing for tutorials, working on assignments, working on your research project).