What is ‘mastersness’?
The Scottish Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency undertook a project to develop a framework to help make sense of some of the different dimensions of ‘Mastersness’, adapted from Susan Warring’s analysis of learning levels between qualifications.
The project team based their framework on seven ‘facets’ designed to help Universities conceptualise, develop, and enhance their Master’s level provision. Each facet is an aspect or characteristic of the learning process that underpins the concept of ‘Mastersness’.
The seven facets of ‘mastersness’
- Abstraction – Extracting knowledge or meanings from sources, and then using these to construct new knowledge or meanings
- Depth (of Learning) – Acquiring more knowledge and using knowledge differently. For example, engaging in a narrow topic in depth, engaging in up-to-date research, or taking a multidisciplinary approach and examining something familiar and presenting it in a new innovative way
- Research and enquiry – Developing critical research and enquiry skills and attributes
- Complexity – Recognising and dealing with complexity of knowledge (including the integration of knowledge and skills, application of knowledge in practice), conceptual complexity, and the complexity of the learning process
- Autonomy – Taking responsibility for own learning in terms of self-organisation, motivation, location and acquisition of knowledge
- Unpredictability – Dealing with unpredictability in operational contexts – recognising that ‘real world’ problems are by their nature ‘messy’ and complex, and being creative with the use of knowledge and experience to solve these problems
- Professionalism – Displaying appropriate professional attitudes, behaviour and values in whatever discipline/occupational area chosen (from academic to occupational subjects), including learning ethical behaviours, developing academic integrity, dealing with challenges to professionalism, recognising the need to reflect on practice and becoming part of a discipline/occupational community.