Admission to PhD programme Educational Sciences

Doctoral Thesis Project

The project should be up to five A4 pages long (excl. the list of literature).

The project should include the research problem, its innovativeness and importance, on the basis of scientific literature, the research methodology proposed and resources needed to solve the problem, and a description of how the expected results would be important in practice and for international research circles. The project should be accompanied by the applicant’s CV. The latter should include information on the applicant’s earlier research activities, including research publications and conference presentations.

The project assessment criteria (at least 35 points are required to fulfill the admission requirement):

1. innovativeness and importance of the doctoral thesis (up to 10 points);

2. justification of the research problem (up to 10 points);

3. adequacy of the research methodology (up to 10 points);

4. feasibility of the project (up to 5 points);

5. applicant’s research potential to complete the proposed doctoral thesis (up to 15 points).

The interview assessment criteria (at least 35 points are required to fulfill the admission requirement):

1. the author’s ability to identify and formulate his/her project for doctoral thesis (incl. research problem, related scientific publications, methodology) (up to 15 points)

2. motivation to learn in doctoral studies in education and to work in the field (up to 5 points)

3. broader ability to analyse and make generalisations on pedagogical topics (up to 10 points)

4. orientation in problems concerning education in Estonia and in the world (up to 10 points)

5. self-expression skills (all candidates must have self-expression skills in English, candidates speaking Estonian as their mother tongue must be able to express themselves in Estonian, too) (up to 10 points)

During the entrance interview, the applicant must describe up to 5 minutes his/her doctoral thesis project in English; this is followed by up to a 25-minute-interview conducted by the committee.

The admission interview take place July 04^th 2024 at 09.00 o`clock Jakobi street 5 room 201, Tartu.

Admission to PhD programme Educational Sciences will include two stages:

1. competition of doctoral projects submitted by potential supervisors,

2. competition of doctoral candidates.

Programme Council of doctoral studies has set the following application requirements:

1. Supervisor can be lecturer or research fellow with a doctoral degree who has in the last five years published at least 3 scientific publications in ETIS categories 1.1., 1.2., 3.1. or 2.1. If supervisor is outside of the Institute of Education (SVHI) or Faculty of Science and Technology (LTLT) a co-supervisor must be found from the Institute of Education or Faculty of Science and Technology;

2. As a rule, a supervisor does not have more than five supervisees;

3. Potential supervisors will submit their projects according to the form;

4. Project will be submitted in English or in Estonian and it must include summaries in Estonian and in English. In the project, the potential supervisor explains why the Estonian language requirement is necessary when applying for the project.

5. Project summaries in Estonian and English will be published on Institute of Education homepage;

6. Project will be submitted electronically to Academic Affairs Specialist of doctoral studies of Institute of Education by 15 February 2024. In the project a potential doctoral candidate will be stated;

7. Doctoral projects that will be selected in the competition will be announced by 15 March 2024.