LibGuides: Success at Master's Level: Expectations at master's level

Expectations at Master's Level

Personal and professional development

Flow chart diagram with three boxes indicating that the novice becomes a developing learner and finally an expert.

Often master’s level study prepares students for entry into a profession where you are expected to apply knowledge with rigorous expertise, and back up decisions with an explicit written rationale and evaluation of an evidence base.

Acquiring professional mastery is a gradual process: Initially, you’ll be expected to adopt the foundational beliefs and values for academic integrity, and professional development. As a developing learner, you’ll show you can evaluate relevant knowledge and theories. As an expert, you should be able to apply theory into practice, make optimal decisions for solving problems, show a capacity for strategic thinking, and embody professional values in your behaviours.

As you undertake your master’s training, you are expected to develop your knowledge and skills in multiple ways: developing skills of self-regulation and self-management, and building a repertoire of strategies that can help you to learn more efficiently; also gaining knowledge of how to do research and write about it, and possibly moving into a more ‘expert’ performance in a professional role as an outcome of all of such maturing progression.

Critical and applied thinking

At master's level employers will expect you to be able to apply theoretical knowledge to solving problems in the real world. This may include making explicit connections between research findings and the needs of clients in your professional context; considering how different factors or conditions may impact the implementation of proposals; anticipating problems or barriers, and offering recommendations for successful implementation.

By the end of your master’s study, tutors will expect you to be able to re-examine evidence and critique existing debates and discussions, and to apply theories in new ways to answer a question, or even to build new theories. You should be able to justify how you have arrived at your conclusions and recommendations.

We recommend you take a look at our Critical Writing guide for an introduction and resources on how to build your critical writing skills and use of argument. However, in the following sections we will share additional tips for writing good academic assignments at master’s level.