School AdministrationMaster's degree

• Number of European credits (ECTS): 15
• Type(compulsory/optional): Compulsory
• Pre-requisites: To umdertake the Master’s Thesis, the student must have achieved the competences developed in each module.

Competences

The Master’s Final Project is linked, more or less directly, to all the competences of the Master's programme, serving as a space where the professional skills developed throughout the degree come together. However, it is more specifically related to the following competences:

See list of competences

Completing the Master’s Thesis contributes to the development of the programme’score and specific competences.

Its completion allows students to apply, transfer and implement the learning acquired throughout the modules in real professional situations, which involves carrying out processes of diagnosis, research and evaluation.

Themain actionson which students will need to reflect and demonstrate their level of understanding and integration in the Master’s Thesis are:

• Identify a real situation, fact, event or problem, known and/or experienced by the student or well-known and common in educational centres.
• Describe and relate it to the contents seen on the Master´s degree, bibliographical sources and personal experience.
• Diagnose it, including an analysis from an organizational perspective.
• Draw up a Specific Action Plan (related to innovation, improvement or research), duly explained and justified.
• Develop the Specific Action Plan wholly or in some of its phases.
• Set out critical analyses, assessment, conclusions and proposals about the work done.

The Master´s Thesis will cover the main course contents of the Master’s programme and will focus on a specific area of School Administration. It will be assessed through apublic presentation and defence, along with a report from the supervisor, which will include their assessment of the intended learning outcomes.

• Clearly identify a real or common problem of an educational centre.
• Describe problems thoroughly and relates them to the contents of the Master´s degree, their personal experience and bibliographical sources.
• Diagnose problems from an organizational perspective.
• Specify the areas of improvement, the necessary resources and those responsible for carrying them out.
• Work out a specific action plan related to innovation or research, duly explained and justified.
• Develop the action plan jointly with previous actions in a coherent way.
• Set out different processes to perform critical analysis, assessments, conclusions and proposals about the work done.

Unit 1. The Master’s Final Project:

• Evaluate, research or innovate.
• Nature and purpose of change projects.
• Structure of a change project.
• Preparing the Master's Final Project

Unit 2. Completing the Master's Final Project:

• Defining and specifying the topic.
• Research into theoretical, contextual and regulatory background.
• Defining the project’s structure.
• Conducting the study and managing issues.
• Strategies for analysing the results.
• The purpose of the conclusions and recommendations derived from the results.
• Bibliographical references.

Unit 3. Personal planning of the process:

• Work schedule.
• First drafts.
• Relationship with the supervising tutor.
• Presentation and defence of the Master´s Final Project.
• General administrative aspects.

The Master´s Final Project will be governed by specific regulations regarding access, topic selection, deadlines, submission and defence procedures, assessment criteria, and so on.