MSc in Education and Child Studies (research)

Leiden University

(This programme was previously called Developmental Psychopathology in Education and Child Studies)

The aim of the research master’s programme Education and Child Studies is to promote the scientific development of young academics on the path to becoming independent researchers within education and child studies and related disciplines.

Graduates are able to design, conduct and evaluate applied scientific research, and in doing this can make the link between (clinical) practice and science.

The programme Education and Child Studies is designed in such a way that it can explicitly serve as preparatory training for a PhD position. The programme also offers the opportunity to specialise in the field of social work and youth care, which meets society’s need for academics who are trained in evidence based clinical assessment and treatment for children and families with psychological problems

The research master is a small scale programme, with an average of fifteen students each year. This guarantees intensive interaction between students and staff.

At the beginning of the programme, you are allocated a supervisor – one of the professors – and a day-to-day mentor. While writing your thesis, you make a contribution to one of our research programmes, working closely with your supervisor and mentor within that research. This gives you the opportunity to both observe how the work is done and to ‘learn by doing’. You also receive immediate and intensive feedback on your research performance and academic progress.

Career prospects

Where do our master’s graduates continue their careers? More than a third of them obtain a PhD position, while a quarter of them work as lecturers and/or researchers in higher education. About 30% are appointed as educationalists or remedial educationalists in positions where they apply their acquired scientific knowledge and analytical skills in (clinical) practice, in the area of either prevention or intervention.

As researcher in the field of Education and Child Studies , you can contribute to the scientific knowledge of the neurocognitive and biological correlates of emotions, learning and behaviour, both in non clinical parents and children and in case of problematic development.