Programme overview
Please note: This programme does not lead directly to professional registration.
This programme is designed primarily for qualified practitioners who are already working in various fields toward social justice, change and transformation.
Deepen your capacity to practice in complex environments within the social and political context of Aotearoa New Zealand, through advanced skills in research. Extend your applied critical and creative thinking in a specialist area of social practice while enhancing your community, organisation, and career prospects.
Highlights
- Deepen your understanding of the settler colonial context of Aotearoa New Zealand and how it affects your field of practice.
- Learn how to further enact the original articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi through your socially engaged or community-based practice, including research.
- Collectively consider contemporary issues in social engagement.
- Design and undertake a substantive research project that contributes to your community or organisation.
- Put Indigenous, decolonising and/or culturally specific research methodologies into practice.
- Develop skills in data collection, analysis and dissemination that contribute to social justice, change and transformation.
- Join a participatory classroom that draws on the expertise of diverse domestic and international students.
- Join a growing community of lecturers, alumni and practitioners that are experienced in – and passionate about – research as social practice.
- Enhance your employability through nuanced knowledge and specialist skills that can help to evaluate, strengthen and innovate social practices.
- Choose full- or part-time study to fit in with your community or work needs (domestic students only).
- Various scholarship options available.
Postgraduate option
You also have the option of starting with our Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (1 semester full-time, 1 year part-time). Once completed, you can then move into the master’s programme.
If you have further questions about the Master of Applied Practice programme email Dr Rachel Jane Liebert.
Admission requirements
What you will need to study this programme.
Domestic students
International students
Academic requirements
You must have completed at least one of the following:
- A Bachelor’s degree or Level 7 Graduate Diploma in the same or similar discipline;
- Provide documentary evidence of outcomes in the social work, community development, or counselling work environment to demonstrate an ability to perform in the programme and commit to achieving its outcomes;
And English entry requirements;
If English is not your first language, you will also need at least one of the following qualifications:
- Evidence of an IELTS (Academic) band score of at least 6.5 with no band score lower than 6
- University Entrance Literacy: 8 credits at Level 2 or above in English or Māori (4 in Reading, 4 in Writing); or
- Evidence of English language proficiency as outlined in the NZQA Rules on the Unitec English Language Requirements for International Students Web-page.
Non-Academic requirements
- A phone or face-to-face interview may be required as part of the application process.
Don’t meet these Academic requirements?
- If you don’t meet the academic criteria, our Bridging Education Programmes can help you qualify. Simply apply online, and we’ll discuss your next steps.
- If you don’t meet the above criteria, special or discretionary admission may apply; your eligibility will be determined at the interview.
For more information, download the programme regulations (PDF 501 KB)
Courses and timetables
For more details on the courses, please click on the course names below. Please note that our systems are updating with new course timetable information for 2027; please check back again soon.
| Courses | Credits | Aim |
|---|---|---|
| Applying Research to Practice(CISC8000) | 15.0 credits (0.125 EFTS) | To enable students to critically examine and contextualise practice and develop a critical understanding of how indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness, society, ethics, environment and law inform practice. |
| Community Informed Applied Research(CISC8001) | 15.0 credits (0.125 EFTS) | To develop the student to be able to critically examine and evaluate a body of literature in relation to a practice/work-based issue to arrive at a relevant and informed research question(s) and to contextualise and understand the relevance of this question to practice and the wider community |
| Applied Research Proposal(CISC8002) | 15.0 credits (0.125 EFTS) | Enable a student to engage industry and community relevant to discipline and then begin to create feasible and well-defined research questions as well as determine the most appropriate research method or range of methods to address these research questions. |
