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At a poster session an MSED 407 student shows how personal response clickers work in an undergraduate science classroom.
Kelly McNeill, Jamey Becker and Susie Calkins discuss Becker's master's project on "Town-Gown Relations Concerning Use of Alcohol."
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The Challenges and Rewards of Research
"One of the best aspects of the master’s project was the opportunity to work closely with my peers. I still maintain a very strong relationship with the people who were in my research group."
~Tia Kofahl (MS03), Assistant Dean, Graduate School of Business, Loyola University Chicago
"The master’s project is not only good as a way to further your studies, but also to understand what your interests are."
~Lesley Perry (MS05)
"Because you work in a cohort and present to this cohort at the end of the [master’s project course] sequence, you learn about various areas of higher education that otherwise you would not have explored."
~Tedd Vanadilok (MS04), Asian/Asian American Student Affairs Director, Northwestern University
"[The master’s project] was a great opportunity to explore in-depth an area of higher education of interest to me...[and] a very challenging experience that rounded out my whole master’s degree."
~Dara Freiberg (MS04), Deputy Director, Yale College Annual Giving
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Master’s Project Fosters Reflection
"Different graduate programs talk about preparing students to be reflective; we give an extended opportunity, a sustained three-course project that is focused on a question that relates to a student’s practice."
~Lois Trautvetter, Associate Director, Higher Education Administration and Policy Program
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The educational community within the School of Education and Social Policy believes that professional practice must be guided by inquiry and reflection so as to yield understanding and action that promote positive educational change. We believe that committed educators should value and incorporate systematic inquiry and reflection into their practice, using these skills to help them act as agents of change within their professional community.
Within the MSEd program, therefore, we believe that it is important to prepare candidates to engage in educational research with the idea that they will, as professionals, be practitioner-researchers and educational leaders. Reflection and inquiry are embedded throughout the program, but are perhaps most evident in the master's project.
“Our students have the opportunity to cultivate a topic of interest in the form of a research question and collect data necessary to be reflective higher education practitioners and interpret their research with classmates, instructors and experts in their area of interest,” says Lois Trautvetter, associate director of the Higher Education program.
The master's project is an opportunity to pursue resolution of a question of genuine concern and interest. It may grow out of a long-term interest or one that has arisen more recently through course work or personal experience.
Some students purposefully choose to do a master's project in an area with which they have had little previous experience. Current student Julie Emms, for instance, is studying how, why and when high school students make their decisions to attend postsecondary education. “After years of working with graduate and adult students in top research institutions,” she says, “I wanted to take the opportunity to look at the underserved population. And what better way to do it than to examine the students in the city that I live and work in. I believe expanding my horizons to this population will provide me with a well-rounded context from which to draw experience and learn.”
Regardless of your reasons for choosing a particular project, the process of identifying and resolving your question will teach you a great deal not only about your topic, but also about yourself.
The master's project challenges students to choose an educational issue of genuine personal concern, formulate a question around that issue, research the question and then analyze, interpret and present their results. Students may choose to complete a project with a partner or team of other students when appropriate.
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Students are led through the Master’s project experience by a sequence of three courses: Research & Analysis in Teaching and Learning I, II, and III. The first course facilitates skills in discussion and question development. This course helps students meet three goals: forming a question that their master’s project will address; describing the rationale for the question; and starting a literature review on the topic.
The second course provides an opportunity to investigate the paradigms and approaches to educational research that participants can utilize in their master’s projects. Participants discuss and refine their research questions, complete a literature review on their topic, examine methods of data collection within the framework of research plans they design for their projects and begin to collect data using appropriate methods.
The third and final course utilizes the collected data and literature review to weave an interpretation that deepens the exploration of educational issues of genuine concern to the students. Students present the master’s project to peers, faculty, mentors/supervisors and other interested individuals in this last course in the sequence.
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While all MSEd students enroll in these courses together, students are grouped into research cohorts by concentration. The Higher Education Administration and Policy research cohorts provide members with the opportunity to learn from classmates’ inquiry and acquire a broader and deeper understanding of the field of higher education.
Joan Trimuel (MS04) believes that the three-course sequence and her research cohort together helped her create a better Master’s project. “The master’s project is a nice way for your entire graduate experience to come together," she says. "It is such a great sense of accomplishment once the process is complete. And the best part is that you are not on this journey alone. Your classmates and instructors assist in pushing your thoughts regarding the topic throughout the process."
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Sarah Baer (MS04) at graduation with her daughter |
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Alumni call the master’s project "an empowering experience." For some, identifying the right question — one that is not too broad nor too narrow in scope, and one that will sustain their interest -- can prove difficult. Others face dilemmas in data collection, such as acquiring permission from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to gather the data. As students overcome these challenges one by one, their confidence builds.
"The project seemed like an enormous undertaking at the outset, but there was a lot of support along the way and I ended up with a finished project that I was very proud of," says Nicole Vilches (MS03).
Students in the program also find that the master’s project can generate interest in a particular internship, provide the knowledge that helps one acquire an internship or simply correlate nicely with internship duties and responsibilities. Stephen Scott, for instance, wrote his master’s project on student ethical development and was able to apply those theories as an intern with the Office of Judicial Affairs at Northwestern University.
Sarah Tulchinsky Baer (MS04) says, "The reading and research I did for [an assessment] project blended very well with my master’s project on cultural immersion while studying abroad. This helped me finish the program feeling that I was well versed in the themes of study abroad administration."
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