Mathematics Education

Entry requirements

You will need a good honours degree and a Masters degree in a relevant subject. A well-developed research proposal is also essential.

You may be required to attend an interview/Skype interview for acceptance, and acceptance is subject to research expertise in the department.

Months of entry

January, April, October

Course content

Our School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science offers PhD Mathematics Education supervision in a wide range of areas, such as:

• students' motivation to engage with learning mathematics
• maths anxiety
• the importance of mathematics in the transition from school to university study
• the use of STEM subjects in teaching and understanding mathematics
• the use of exciting technologies such as electroencephalography (EEG) or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling
• differential equations
• numerical analysis

You are also invited to contact our School to discuss other potential research areas.

If you successfully complete a research degree in Mathematics, you will be well qualified for careers in education, education research, industry, and academia.

Our staff are strongly committed to research and teaching. They have published several well-regarded textbooks and are world leaders in their specialisms, with their papers appearing in learned journals such as Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, Advances in Mathematics, Mathematische Zeitschrift and Israel Journal of Mathematics.

Our School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science is genuinely innovative and student-focused. Our research groups are working on a broad range of collaborative areas tackling real-world issues.

• Our data scientists carefully consider how not to lie, and how not to get lied to with data. Interpreting data correctly is especially important because much of our data science research is applied directly or indirectly to social policies, including health, care and education.
• We do practical research with financial data (for example, assessing the risk of collapse of the UK's banking system) as well as theoretical research in financial instruments such as insurance policies or asset portfolios.
• We also research how physical processes develop in time and space. Applications of this range from modelling epilepsy to modelling electronic cables.
• Our optimisation experts work out how to do the same job with less resource, or how to do more with the same resource.
• Our pure maths group are currently working on two new funded projects entitled “The Calabi problem for smooth Fano threefolds” and “Stability of Brunn-Minkowski inequalities and Minkowski type problems for nonlinear capacity”.
• We also do research into mathematical education and use exciting technologies such as electroencephalography or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling. Our research aims to encourage the implementation of ‘the four Cs' of modern education, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Both part-time and full-time research study are available. You can start this degree in October, January or April.

Information for international students

Entry requirements: You can find international entry requirements for most countries on our international students webpage. If your country is not listed, please contact Postgraduate Admissions at pgadmit@essex.ac.uk.

Pre-sessional English Language courses: If you need to improve your English language skills before joining your main degree course, we offer pre-sessional English courses on our campuses in partnership with Kaplan International Pathways.

Fees and funding

There are a wide range of funding options for postgraduate study, including scholarships, bursaries and alumni discounts. You can check your eligibility on our fees and funding webpage.