Teaching and Research Logopedics M.Sc.

 

In light of socio-demographic developments and the changing structures of our health and social services highly-qualified speech therapists are becoming more important.

Since language skills are of great importance for everyday communication and participation as well as for educational success, early speech therapy intervention and parent counselling to prevent language development disorders play a central role in speech therapy. In addition, increasing life expectancy is accompanied by an increased need for speech therapy, for example for patients after strokes. The logopaedic fields of action are diverse and also include voice prophylaxis and therapy, the treatment of feeding and swallowing disorders or CI rehabilitation.

The Bachelor’s program in speech therapy and the Master’s program in speech therapy instruction and research, which builds on the Bachelor’s degree, is offered in conjunction by the medicine and philosophy faculties at RWTH Aachen University. Both degrees grew out of the Diplom program on speech therapy instruction and research, which was the first degree of its kind in Germany that offered advanced training for professional speech therapists.

The Master’s program aims to provide graduates not only with the training to give academic speech therapy instruction at universities, but also to train them to perform their own research in diagnostics and therapy.

 

Degree Content

The concentrations are therapy research and instruction and learning research. In addition to conveying theoretical contents, practical application in the form of experimental therapy planning and teaching demonstrations plays an important role in both concentrations. In addition, the students learn to critically reflect on the current research status and to implement it in their own therapeutic experiments. In the area of instruction and learning research, students familiarize themselves with didactic concepts and test them in teaching their own classroom units at the University of Applied Science or to RWTH Bachelor's classes. In the project-based learning the students are to plan and carry out a preferably empirical project selected from one of the concentrations. This forms the basis for the Master’s thesis and gives students the opportunity to show how they deal with a subject on a scientific level and, where possible, to apply it to their own empirical study. In addition, they should be in a position to present the results of their study clearly.

For further information on the Master’s program in speech therapy instruction and research, please refer to the Faculty of Medicine Website.

 

Prerequisites

The prerequisite for admission to the program is an initial university degree. The required academic background is described in the exam regulations. The determination on whether or not the admissions requirements are met is made by the examination board.

 

Career Prospects

The Master’s program trains students not only for therapy research but also for a career in speech therapy instruction. Graduates of the Master’s program will have learned to critically question research results, to collect their own empirical data and analyze and interpret it. This opens the door, particularly with a Ph.D., to work in the area of therapy research at universities and other research institutes. Graduates of the Master’s program have, however, also learned to prepare professional and practical materials in a didactic way and to convey these clearly and competently. This qualifies them for teaching tasks at universities. Moreover, in the clinical areas they are ideally suited to assume administrative, supervisory and coordinator tasks.

 

Module Handbook and Examination Regulations

The module handbook provides a description of all modules of a degree program and offers a comprehensive insight into the program contents.

The examination regulations are comprised of legally binding provisions on learning objectives, prerequisites for study, the course structure and processes, and examination procedures.

Regulations that generally apply to all Bachelor's and Master's degree programs, including information on language proficiency requirements, can be found in RWTH's General Examination Regulations. These general regulations are further specified and complemented by the subject-specific examination regulations.

If two examination regulations are valid for a degree program during a transition phase, the most current version shall apply to students enrolling in the program for the first time.

Please note that only the German examination regulations are legally binding.

Module Handbook
Subject-Specific Examination Regulations
RWTH's General Examination Regulations

 

Faculty

The Master course of study in Teaching and Research Logopedics is offered by the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.