Education Sciences (Certificate)
The Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences (MPES) is designed for PhD students who want to pursue a research career studying critical policy and practice issues in the field of education. The program provides a unified system of research mentoring and coursework for students from a diverse set of academic fields. Students acquire knowledge of related work in a group of core related disciplines and engage in education-related research informed by the resulting cross-disciplinary insights.
Participants, known as MPES Fellows, are chosen by the MPES Steering Committee from among doctoral students in good standing currently enrolled in one of six participating Graduate School programs. Participating programs are: Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences: Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Statistics; School of Education and Social Policy: Learning Sciences, Human Development and Social Policy. Applicants are chosen on the basis of the centrality of education to their programs of research and their scholarly promise.
Who should apply?
Doctoral candidates from Economics, Human Development & Social Policy, Learning Sciences, Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics are eligible to apply.
How to apply
The following admission materials should be submitted directly to the director of the program:
- One- to two-page memo outlining applicant’s research interests in education
- C.V. or resume, including GRE scores and any awards received
- Letter of reference from a faculty member in the applicant’s PhD program that speaks to the applicant’s academic promise and the centrality of education to the applicant’s research interests
Who to contact
Please contact the program coordinator, listed below, with questions about this certificate. Or, explore the MPES website for more information.
- Mackenzie Drummond
Email: mackenzie.drummond@northwestern.edu
The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in The Graduate School Policy Guide.
Note, in many cases, students would complete some of these courses while meeting the typical requirements for their home program. Thus, although we have listed nine required courses, few students would need take nine additional courses.
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Course Requirements:
Methods (4 required courses)
Take one of the following general courses:Course List Course Title HDSP 410-0 Quantitative Methods I: Probability and Statistics LRN_SCI 410-0 Quantitative Methods I: Probability and Statistics PSYCH 451-1 Statistics in Experimental Design
Take two of the following more specialized courses on quantitative methods:Course List Course Title STAT 356-0 Hierarchical Linear Models HDSP 411-0 Quantitative Methods II: Regression Analysis LRN_SCI 411-0 Quantitative Methods II: Regression Analysis HDSP 412-0 Quantitative Methods III: Empirical Tools for Causal Quantitative Analysis PSYCH 405-0 Psychometric Theory PSYCH 454-0 Psychological Measurement (Structural Equation Modeling) STAT 439-0 Meta-Analysis STAT 461-0 Advanced Topics in Statistics (Cluster Randomized Experiments)
Take one of the following qualitative methods courses:Course List Course Title ANTHRO 389-0 Ethnographic Methods and Analysis HDSP 432-0 Field Methods (Qualitative Research Methods) SOCIOL 403-0 Field Methods HDSP 430-0 Economics of Social Policy HDSP 451-0 Topics in Human Development & Soc Policy (Advanced Qualitative Methods)
Cognition and Student Learning
Take one of the following courses:Course List Course Title LRN_SCI 401-0 Knowledge Representation for the Learning Sciences (Cognition and Learning) LRN_SCI 403-0 Foundations of the Learning Science (Cognitive Science Foundations of the Learning Sciences) PSYCH 462-0 Cognitive Development PSYCH 466-0 Analogy and Similarity
Human Development
Take one of the following courses:Course List Course Title HDSP 402-0 Child Development and Social Policy HDSP 404-0 Adult Development and Aging
Policy and Social Contexts of Learning
Take two of the following courses:Course List Course Title HDSP 451-0 Topics in Human Development & Soc Policy (Analyzing Educational Policy) HDSP 427-0 Sociology of Education HDSP 430-0 Economics of Social Policy SOC_POL 330-0 Economics of Social Policy
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Take one of the following courses:Course List Course Title SOC_POL 331-0 Economics of Inequality and Discrimination LRN_SCI 451-0 Topics in Learning Sciences (Culture, Learning, and Poverty) SESP 351-0 Special Topics (Analyzing Intersections of Tech, Ethics, Race, and Power)