The Doctorate in Education (EdD) is a part-time professional doctoral programme designed to offer high quality researcher and career development for education professionals from a broad range of sectors, from compulsory education to further and higher education to learning and development in the public and corporate sectors, as well as consultancy and other fields related to education.
As a professional and practice-based doctorate, the EdD offers a post-experience qualification that is particularly appealing to mid-career professionals seeking challenging learning through innovative research that is professionally relevant, while working towards a doctoral degree.
Programme structure
Our EdD is on a part-time basis, and students typically complete the programme in 4-6 years. The EdD is formed of two parts:
Part A: comprises of a cohort phase of two years that provides a programme of blended learning, with two mandatory weekends of learning at the University of Reading campus each year, plus one synchronous online study morning each year, combined with self-directed study and experiential learning through a research project. You will complete 120 credits allocated across a range of compulsory modules shown below:
- Year one modules: Educational Leadership & Management, Research Methods 1, Education & Professionalism
- Year two modules: Theory in Education, and a double module called Research Methods 2.
Modules are assessed through assignments that include: a literature review, theoretical essays, small scale empirical research with written research report, and a research proposal.
The assessments are designed to be flexible enough for you to tailor what you focus on in the assignments to your own topic of research interest.
You must successfully complete Part A of the programme to progress to Part B. Students who fail to transfer to Part B or choose to exit the programme after successful completion of Part A may qualify for a PG Diploma.
- Within 18 months of transferring to Part B students must undertake a formal review. This involves submission of two substantive chapters of the thesis and a contextual statement, which are presented and defended to faculty members/assessors (online or campus). This process, if successful, results in confirmation as an EdD candidate.
- The remaining part of Part B will be devoted to completion of the research project and thesis of 60,000 words. The time allowed for submission of the thesis in Part B is 2-4 years (equating to year 4-6 of the programme).
- The thesis is examined by voce viva and is required to make a distinct contribution to professional knowledge, be original, and demonstrate an ability to relate to the existing body of research within the field.
