Master's Degree Programme in Educational Sciences

The Master’s Degree Programme in Educational Sciences is a 2-year programme comprising 120 ECTS credits. The aims of the programme are to prepare highly competent educators and to enhance the quality of education in the diversifying contexts of a globalized world in which education is the key to the success of both individuals and societies. As globalization interconnects different countries, their education systems, and the people working in them, an international orientation and understanding are among the key factors in shaping the future of education and our learners. The programme offers both theoretical and practical skills across a wide selection of topics in the field of education, ranging e.g from early childhood education to learning in old age.

During the Master’s Degree Programme in Educational Sciences, students will gain a broad understanding of the field of education, including awareness of international issues in education. Students will also gain insights into the Finnish education system and Finland’s international connections. Alongside the teaching on national and international issues in the programme, the most prominent daily contribution to internationalization will be made by the multicultural student body and its members’ knowledge and expertise on own cultures, histories, politics, societies, social and political histories, economies, religions, etc. In addition, we aim to provide students with inspiring contacts to broaden their perspectives and to give them opportunities to participate in academic debate both locally and globally.
Students will have the opportunity to specialize in the areas of education that they find the most relevant and interesting. Students will acquire scientific expertise in the field of education and will be able to work with theories and analyse and develop educational practices. The overriding aim is to enable students to acquire the relevant skills and knowledge to be able to work in highly digitalized and technology-based learning environments and cultures. Research-based teaching facilitates students’ development as competent and critical members of today’s digitalized information and knowledge society. The Master’s Degree creates a foundation for producing scientific knowledge and applying scientific methods in practice in the field of education.

Graduates of the programme will be well prepared for work in a variety of educational settings, for example, as educational consultants, coordinators, teacher educators, researchers or educational planners. Contemporary and future-oriented digital solutions will be applied in both teaching and evaluation, as well as in communication in general. Workplace skills will be built in cooperation with education practitioners, and students understanding of these relevant qualifications and skills will be strengthened through guidance on such topics as expertise, professional identity and the development of professional agency at both the individual and societal level. The programme is grounded in the responsibility and commitment of the student, strengthened by an entrepreneuristic attitude. Studies are built to connect with the present-day working life of educational specialists. Student’s understanding of changing work competences is supported by the integration of theory and practice. Digital solutions are integrated into the programme as both tools of teaching and learning.

Our mission is to produce visionary graduate educators able to educate, develop and empower people and systems with research-based knowledge, humane values, appropriate skills and responsible attitudes that can make a difference in a changing world. Our vision is a programme that provides the kinds of competencies that graduates can utilize in becoming globally good educators who are able to work in various changing and even challenging environments. Our strategy in seeking to implement our mission and vision is informed by our learning culture, pedagogy and curriculum. After completing the programme and receiving the degree of Master of Arts (Education), graduates are eligible to apply for doctoral studies.

The Faculty of Education and Psychology implements a phenomenon-based curriculum. Our objective is to prepare highly competent educational professionals, having all-round competences, in the diversifying contexts of a globalised world. The aim is to educate students in the phenomena related to education by combining theory and practice in different ways. The variety of different perspectives offered contributes to a deeper understanding of the discipline. Graduates, with their professional expertise, are highly employable in a wide variety of educational settings, depending on their specialisation studies, such as Early Childhood, Inclusive Education, Guidance and Counselling, Foreign Language Pedagogy, Educational Leadership, and Current Issues in Education and Psychology. The phenomenon-based curriculum facilitates learning through real-life phenomena, studied in an authentic environment.

The aim is to understand education-related phenomena by combining different theoretical and practical components. These phenomena, which include Learning and Guidance, Competence and Expertise, Scientific Knowledge, Interaction and Cooperation, and Education, Society and Change, and are integrated into the course content to enable a more profound understanding of the discipline.

Learning and Guidance is a multi-layered phenomenal entity that can be analysed in a variety of ways. The starting point is the diversity of learners and learning processes, which also contributes to the complex nature of learning guidance. As well as on the individual level, learning can be examined on the level of communities and society, and from the perspective of interaction between these levels. Learning is always context-bound: something learned in one context is not necessarily transferable to another context or situation. Learning is lifelong, life-wide, and can be formal or informal. Because all learners are different, it is essential to identify and take account of their individual qualities in providing them with guidance not only on learning but also on learning to learn. Learning is bound to the societal missions of education and training: it ensures the continuity and transformation of culture and communities. Therefore, education, training and learning are also political issues. Educational policies, including the drafting of national core curricula, involve power struggles and interest-based negotiations.

Competence and Expertise are complex phenomena that have been explored from the perspectives of psychology, sociology and various other disciplines. In psychologically oriented research, expertise has especially been studied as the development of high-level competence, whereas a social sciences orientation has focused on expertise as a communal and societal phenomenon. Themes related to expertise and its development include, for example, learning at the interfaces of education and working life, learning in different communities and networks, professional identity and agency, and the management and development of organisations. The study of these themes is integrated with the development of students’ own expertise in educational sciences and scientific thinking.

Scientific Knowledge is a central element of expertise, particularly in the academic professions. The construction of scientific knowledge has been analysed, for instance, in the philosophy of science, in the study of scientific thinking and – more generally – of higher education and learning, and in the study of cognitive development in adults. The phenomenon is thus related to such themes as psychological and social development, learning in adulthood, scientific thinking, the essence of scientific knowledge, professional ethics, and the responsible conduct of research. Education is analysed as a discipline in relation to other disciplines.

Interaction and Cooperation are phenomena in which people are examined in relation to each other. These intertwine with pedagogical education and the pedagogical expertise that develops (1) as competence, (2) in participation and inclusion, and (3) in spaces of encounter. In studying these phenomena, the three perspectives overlap and complement each other, in both the formal and informal learning environments of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Interaction and cooperation as competence focus on the knowledge, skills and attitudes associated with the interactive relations that people need to promote learning, growth, development, change and wellbeing in individuals and communities. Competence in interaction and cooperation implies the ability to act in an interactive educational and guidance relationship with children, adolescents and adults. Participation and inclusion focuses on both encounters and non-encounters, dialogues and monologues, and the tensions between them. This perspective emphasises the relationships between individuals and groups, and group dynamics and teams. Spaces of encounter are concrete and physical, abstract and invisible, as well as virtual. This perspective takes account and analyses cultural conditions of different encounters.

The field of phenomena called Education, Society and Change focuses on the dynamic societal factors that provide opportunities and set the marginal terms for education, training and, more broadly, for the entire socialisation process. Education and training simultaneously support and maintain as well as renew the structures and activities of society – tradition creates a tension between stability and change. Therefore, education and training are examined through temporality, which opens the perspectives of the past, the present and the future. The practices of education and training are also connected to the prevailing sociohistorical situation, culture, politics, ideologies and power structures. These factors determine the social and structural terms of education. In addition, issues related to social justice, inclusion, equality, diversity, otherness and growing social inequality are reflected on within this field of phenomena. Societal change is represented, for example, by different forms of modernisation, such as individualisation and globalisation, the differentiation of lifestyles and values, and increasing freedom of choice.

Upon completion of the Master’s degree, students will be able to apply the following skills in five different phenomenon areas and beyond:

Phenomenon area - Expected skills

Learning and Guidance:
- ability to analyse different processes of learning and guidance and relate these to the diversity of learning environments
- awareness of the diversity of the concepts of knowledge, learning and the human being and their relation to learning cultures

Competence and Expertise
- ability to evaluate and document one’s own professional growth
- ability to develop the competencies needed in working life
- ability to develop the work environment by searching for scientific and practical knowledge in the area

Scientific Knowledge:
- ability to critically analyse scientific research
- ability to develop one’s own thinking based on research
- ability to conduct scientific research in the field of education

Interaction and Cooperation:
- intercultural knowledge and competence and the ability to apply them in practice
- ability to work competently as part of a team in a multicultural environment

Education, Society and Change:
- understanding of and ability to critically analyse educational phenomena in an international context by integrating scientific, experimental and practical aspects
- understanding of the field of education as promoting human rights and equity