Pedagogy ( Ph.D. )

1. Training/Research Orientation

• Principles of Education
• History of Education
• Curriculum and Teaching Methodology
• Comparative Education
• Pre-school Education
• Higher Education
• Adult Education
• Vocational and Technical Education
• Educational Technology
• Education of Leadership and Management
• Moral Education
• Aesthetic Education

2. Program Duration and Credit

Three years generally, the maximum school years are not longer than 7 years (including the extension time).
20 credits of courses in total, at least 12 credits of academic courses.

3. Core Courses and Introduction

Brief Introduction to Frontier Topics of Education
The course is designed to provide students opportunities to study deeply education theories and track the frontier of education research. It aims to raise students’ theoretical level and education research abilities.
The main content of this course is as follows: review and analysis of key issues in education research since reform and opening-up policy was carried out; in-depth understanding of the relationship between education and human nature; seminars on the hot topics in curriculum theory and teaching theory; discussion on the characteristics and trends of the curriculum reform; seminars on theoretical and practical problems in education system reform and policy change.

Topics in Educational Research Methodology
This course is a fundamental course of the academic discipline for doctoral students. The objectives of this course are as follows: improving students’ research ability, guiding students to master the theory of educational research, providing systematic training in research methods, helping students understand and apply the educational research and presenting the research results in a scientific and standardized way. It aims to lay a solid foundation for engaging in scientific education research.
The content of the course includes the following components:

• introducing the general methodology of educational research theory, the three levels of which are philosophical level, scientific level and the specific subjects level;
• introducing two types of educational research: qualitative and quantitative, in which the way of thinking, research goals, theoretical foundation, the relationship between researcher and objects are compared.

In qualitative part, the course introduces the theoretical assumptions, qualitative research terminology and basic concepts. When getting into the practical stage of research methods, it guides students to complete research process as follows:

• decide research topic,
• research design,
• qualitative research data collection, including the design and implementation of questionnaire and interview,
• qualitative data analysis,
• qualitative research report writing. 

The quantitative part of this course is designed around three topics: design, measurement and analysis. It introduces the related terms and concepts, and it focuses on the reliability and validity of the research, hypothesis testing, and quantitative data collection and analysis with the support of software.

Sociological Theories and Educational Research
By means of applying a number of concrete and important sociological theories to analyze the specific and basic education categories, this course aims to acknowledge the basic value that the sociological theories have on educational researches, and to grasp the unique perspective that the sociology has on investigating educational problems. Its contents include:

• Education from the sociological perspective
• Functional theory, conflict theory and education system research
• Intellectual theory and teacher research
• Power theory and educational relation research
• Field theory and school organization research
• Group theory and classroom research
• Sociology of knowledge and curriculum research
• nteraction theory and class teaching research
• Structural theory and educational development research

Comparative Education Administration and Policy
Requirements and Aims:
The course of Comparative Education Administration and Policy is a comprehensive field of research for the doctor candidates in education with 3 credits for one semester. The purposes of this course are：

• to have the doctor candidates master the approaches and methods to do educational researches comparatively in order to broaden their insight and knowledge；
• to focus on the issues of educational administration and policy，analyzing the similarities and differences of the educational administration and policy of the different countries；
• to deepen their understanding of the educational administration and policy and to solve the educational problems with the experiences and lessons of other countries；
• to raise their abilities in utilizing the literature and in analyzing the issues of the educational administration and policy，for the sake of doing educational administration and policy researches in a cross-cultural manner.

Brief Introduction to the Course Content:
The content of the course mainly includes the following components:

• the characteristics, research methods and historical development of comparative educational administration and policy；
• the frontier topics and hot issues of comparative educational administration and policy
• the world educational development in the context of globalization；
• the politics，policy and school transformation in the perspective of comparative educational administration and policy；
• the comparison of the education systems and administration reforms in developed countries and developing counties；
• the comparison of the school system, education administrative system, educational funds, preschool education, primary and secondary schooling, higher education, teacher education, vocational and technical education, adult education, etc.

Research on Preschool Children's Curriculum
Brief Introduction:
This course introduces students to different theories of preschool curriculum and their historical development. Students develop insights into how modern science and humanities interactively influence the development of curriculum theories. In addition, students are guided to form critical thinking to a range of contemporary preschool programs including but not limited to the consensus and disputes in this area. Content:
This course provides students opportunities to further explore the early forms of preschool curriculum theories from the 18thcentury to the late 19th century. They also draw on theoretical literature in the 20thcentury to investigate how child-centered education became the core concept and general position of contemporary preschool curriculum and how those early influential practical models were developed. Foundational philosophies such as those developed by Dewey, Montessori, Piaget and Vygotsky are critically discussed in relation to their influence on contemporary approaches that inform early childhood education in local and global context. Students develop their own insights into preschool education theories through profound reading and discussion of how the basic principles in philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies and ecology contribute to the development of preschool curriculum theories.

Special Topics in Educational Information Technology
This course studies the laws and characteristics of education and teaching under the circumstances of Information Technology. By learning and mastering the theories and methods of technology application in the teaching and learning, students study the effect and support of information technology in education, help them to understand the present situation and the relevant policies and regulations of educational information, and master methods of education information resources construction in the planning, design, application and sharing, master the methods of design and implementation of educational information, enable students to adapt the needs of the research and practice in educational information. The main content of the course is connotation and the development of educational information, theory and policy of educational information, planning and design of educational information, technology and environment of educational information, resources and application of educational information, talents and training of educational information, evaluation and management of educational information, etc.

Research on Educational Leadership
The course aims at guiding students to understand the meaning and unique value of educational leadership, helping students to establish the comprehensive knowledge system of educational leadership, enlightening students to identify the mainstream approaches and recent trends, and finally shaping their own perspectives on educational leadership and capacities of conducting academic research independently. The course will place emphasis on analyzing various theory schools of educational leadership and discuss its relative practical issues based on theoretical analysis. Specifically, the main content of the course include:

• reading and analyzing the general leadership theories, such as Trait Theory, Style Theory, Contingency Theory, and Path-goal Theory;
• reviewing and comparing the educational theories, such as Instructional Leadership, Distributed Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Invitational Leadership;
• identifying the core educational leadership practices, such as setting directions, developing people, redesigning the organization and improving the instructional program;
• reflecting what is educational leadership and what is quality educational leadership and exploring the practice application of that understanding on the basis of theory overview.

4. Supervisors

Kangning Wu, Letian Zhang, Jianjun Feng, Tianjun Cheng, Xuehong Qi, Yue Yang, Ping Yu, Yongjun Wu, Wenbin Xu, Rumi Li, Xingyun Li, Wei Huang, Hongjia Ma, Lianhua Ning, Jinping Hu, Cai Zhou, Jinkuan Cheng, Yongping Yu, Xiaodong Liu, Jingbo Liu, Rongfang Gu, Xia Bian, Jin Huang, Haiying Wang, Jianhua Hu, Jianhua Wang, Hefang Chen, Jiandong Miao, Jianjun Gu, Xueying Gu, Yi Li, Yichun Zhang, Shusheng Shen, Mingyong Pang, Yibing Zhang, Xinping Zhang, Desheng Gao, Caiping Sun, Xulei Yan, Xiaoming Yi.