All students should have a fundamental understanding of research methods and applied statistics in social and behavioural science research. This foundational knowledge includes an understanding of descriptive statistics, the general principles of statistical null hypothesis significance testing, and essential statistical techniques such as the t-test, correlation analysis, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), chi-square tests, and simple regression.

In general, the admission committee admits students with a grade point average of at least 7.5 on a scale from 1 to 10. However, applicants who can demonstrate academic excellence in other ways, for example with participation in research projects, following additional courses or extracurricular activities, are also encouraged to apply.

In the Research Master's, topics in the broad field of child development and education are addressed. Some examples of research lines with regard to child development are: child development and parenting in traditional and non-traditional families, the role of the father, the relation between temperament and parenting, the quality of professional child care, aetiology of abnormal child development (including anxiety, deficits in moral development, and juvenile delinquency), preventive and curative interventions targeting child-rearing problems and psychopathology.

Examples of research lines related to education are: social outcomes of education, instruction, learning processes and learning disorders, domain-specific learning (e.g. literacy, history, arts, mathematics, science), innovation in education, motivation and learning, philosophy of education, school segregation, student-teacher relationships, vocational education, educational policy.

Dependent on the courses you choose, these are topics you may encounter in the research master and you can choose these (or related) topics for your research internship and thesis.

At the beginning of the academic year, various research groups and their topics are presented. Afterward, you are encouraged to contact potential supervisors independently. If you already have a specific research idea in mind and know who is working on it, you can proactively reach out to them. However, please note that there are no guarantees of success, as their availability may depend on their existing commitments.

The maximum number of students admitted to the programme is 25. This means that in the mandatory components, there will typically be no more than 25 participants. For elective courses, the number of students tends to be smaller as they are distributed across various courses. Overall, the master's programme is characterised by significant interaction among students and easy access to faculty and the programme coordinator.

This Master's requires full-time study, and we expect you to dedicate approximately 40 hours per week to your coursework. Depending on your capacity, you may choose to work alongside your studies. While some students successfully manage both, others find it challenging. It is important to assess how much time you need for rest and determine what is realistic for you, bearing in mind that you must commit five days a week to your studies.

The clinical route is only open to Dutch-speaking students with a bachelor that includes sufficient clinical elements, as this route qualifies for the continuation courses for clinical professions in the Netherlands and prepares you to work in the Dutch clinical practice. The clinical route therefore also consists of some courses in Dutch (the diagnostics and treatment practicals). Also, the clinical route is not very relevant to international students, as in other countries other requirements apply for working in clinical Practice. However, international students can still follow the clinical research master courses ‘Developmental and parenting problems’, ‘Learning and social-emotional disorders in educational contexts’, and ‘Criminal behaviour of juveniles’, and can choose clinical subjects for their thesis work.

No, there is no pre-Master’s programme for this Master's.