Master of Professional Practice
If you want to research a significant area or issue at your own workplace and recognise your work with an advanced qualification, this master's programme is for you.
Domestic
About the programme
Are you an experienced professional facing interesting challenges in your workplace? Advance your career with a postgraduate qualification.
Professional practice is all about you and your work context.
This programme is delivered via our assessment of prior learning centre, Capable NZ.
We base our philosophy on using the real-life experiences from your professional life as rich learning material. Our Master of Professional Practice allows you to identify a challenge or goal in your work environment; this could be developing a new process, entering a new market, responding to stakeholders, fostering innovation or addressing internal organisational culture, for example. You can then research and define this issue, develop an approach for resolving it, and implement processes to achieve your desired outcomes.
This qualification is perfect for advancing your professional career, while also addressing a significant work challenge. What’s more, you can apply a Master of Professional Practice to virtually any discipline or sector.
During this learning experience, you will explore cross-disciplinary boundaries and enjoy greater scope, flexibility and application than traditional prescribed postgraduate programmes. Study is self-paced and occurs within the workplace. Facilitators and academic/professional mentors will support you throughout the process.
The degree can be gained alongside full-time employment due to the flexible work-based learning (WBL) focus of the programme. Because the programme is closely aligned with your organisation’s goals, it is often strongly supported by employers as a professional development opportunity.
International
About the programme
Are you an experienced professional facing interesting challenges in your workplace? Advance your career with a postgraduate qualification.
Professional practice is all about you and your work context.
This programme is delivered via our assessment of prior learning centre, Capable NZ.
We base our philosophy on using the real-life experiences from your professional life as rich learning material. Our Master of Professional Practice allows you to identify a challenge or goal in your work environment; this could be developing a new process, entering a new market, responding to stakeholders, fostering innovation or addressing internal organisational culture, for example. You can then research and define this issue, develop an approach for resolving it, and implement processes to achieve your desired outcomes.
This qualification is perfect for advancing your professional career, while also addressing a significant work challenge. What’s more, you can apply a Master of Professional Practice to virtually any discipline or sector.
During this learning experience, you will explore cross-disciplinary boundaries and enjoy greater scope, flexibility and application than traditional prescribed postgraduate programmes. Study is self-paced and occurs within the workplace. Facilitators and academic/professional mentors will support you throughout the process.
The degree can be gained alongside full-time employment due to the flexible work-based learning (WBL) focus of the programme. Because the programme is closely aligned with your organisation’s goals, it is often strongly supported by employers as a professional development opportunity.
What You Study
Is this for me?
The Master of Professional Practice takes approximately 18 months to complete, and is ideal for employees, volunteers, or the self-employed who have an undergraduate qualification and/or relevant and significant professional experience.
The Master of Professional Practice:
- is ideal for those in paid or unpaid work, or self-employed
- allows you to build a degree around your world. What skills do you need? What would help you to achieve your career or business aspirations? Do you need support in a particular area of your professional practice?
- helps you to explore cross-disciplinary boundaries and enjoy greater scope, flexibility and application than traditional pre-prescribed postgraduate programmes
- provides self-paced learning, occurs within the workplace and facilitators and academic/professional mentors will support you throughout the whole process
What will I learn?
The Master of Professional Practice supports you to become an efficient self-directed learner. You will be capable of managing and critically evaluating your learning, and undertaking work-based projects that meet your needs and those of others. Upon successful completion, you will be able to:
- design and conduct research relating to an area of inquiry within the professional practice significant to you and your workplace
- engage in self-appraisal/reflection on practice which leads to significant insights likely to make a lasting impact upon personal and professional understanding
- undertake complex action-planning leading to effective and appropriate outcomes likely to impact upon the work of others
- evaluate information and ideas independently; critically evaluate/argue a position concerning alternative approaches; justify evaluations as constituting bases for improvement in practice
- use wide-ranging resources effectively; communicate successfully and persuasively in writing and orally; and work and learn independently or as part of a team spanning a range of contexts, often in a leadership role
Courses and delivery
The work-based learning approach centres around the relationship between you, your employer/sponsor and Capable NZ. The programme is divided into three main phases.
|
Course |
Name of paper |
Credits |
|---|---|---|
|
Course 1 |
Review of Learning |
15 |
|
Course 2 |
Advanced Practitioner Inquiry |
45 |
|
Course 3 |
Advanced Negotiated Work-based Learning Project |
120 |
|
|
Programme Total |
180 |
Learning and teaching activities within each course may include:
- mentoring and facilitation
- induction and review-of-progress workshops
- on-campus workshops and seminars
- online support and course resources through the Polytechnic’s Learning Management System platform (Moodle) and other learning technologies
- workshops delivered at organisation/in other cities/Otago Polytechnic campus sites
- online and video link assessment methodologies.
A blended learning approach, incorporating technology to facilitate access to learning activities and resources, means those who are working full-time or not based in Dunedin are fully supported.
Workload
Your workload
This programme is delivered by a facilitator and academic mentor working with individuals and occurs within the workplace. Learning is self-paced and as communication can be face-to-face or via email, phone or Skype, learners can access the programme from anywhere within New Zealand.
Full-time learning will require about 20 hours of study per week. Part-time will require about 10 hours per week.
Entry
Entry requirements
- You must hold an undergraduate degree in a relevant field of study, and/or degree equivalent professional experience (5-7 years of professional practice experience).
- International students will be individually assessed to ensure you meet the entry requirements.
- You will be required to undertake an interview. This will help determine your professional experience and ability to complete the programme. Learners will only be offered a place on the programme if they meet the entry criteria and have a confirmed professional practice context. Please note, the Head of School, Capable NZ makes the final decision on acceptance into the programme.
- If English is not your first language, you must provide:
- New Zealand University Entrance OR
- Overall Academic IELTS 6.5 with no individual band score lower than 6.0 (achieved in one test completed in the last two years), OR
- Acceptable alternative evidence of the required IELTS (see here for NZQA proficiency table and here for list of recognised proficiency tests).
If you need to improve your English Language skills, we offer a wide range of English programmes.
Fees
Domestic fees
International fees
Course fees
The fees shown above are approximate only. There may be a slight fee increase per year once Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) rules and guidelines are applied. Fees also may vary depending on your choice of courses. Please contact us for more specific information. Email info@capablenz.co.nz
Studylink
Domestic full-time students can apply for a student loan through Studylink.
Some support may be available for domestic part-time students.
Apply at the same time as you apply for your course (you can withdraw your application anytime).
Student Services Fee
For most students, your tuition fee shown above includes a Student Services Fee – also known as the Student Levy. This compulsory fee covers your access to the student services we offer. This cost is tailored depending on how you're studying.
The international tuition fee does not include your Student Levy. This will be calculated when you enrol with us.
Click below to find out more about the Student Levy costs and services provided.
Fees Free* for domestic learners
If this is your first time doing tertiary study, or your first tertiary study was covered by the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship (TTAF) initiative, you may be able to get up to $12,000 of your fees covered for one year’s study or two years’ training.
All the details and criteria are on the Fees Free website and you can check whether you’re going to be able to access Fees Free by entering your National Student Number.
If you can access it, we’ll organise your fees with the Tertiary Education Commission when you’re enrolled to study with us. This funding doesn’t include additional costs or living costs.
* Please note: The Government has advised that they intend to change the Fees Free policy from 2025. The details of the change are yet to be confirmed. We'll update this information as soon as we can with any new details. The Fees Free policy for 2024 is unchanged.
Application
How to apply
1. If you want to find out a little more about this programme, send us an enquiry and we'll be in touch!
2. If you know that you just want to apply, click on the light blue APPLY button in the top right section of this page and complete our online application form.
