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Public Health and Social Sciences

Prepare yourself for a future within the health or social sciences

Key Information

The health sciences are healthier than ever – and as a postgraduate student, your career prospects could be too. 

Key information

Postgraduate course

Duration

  • Full time (15-19 months)

Intakes

  • January
  • May
  • September

Location

  • Cambridge
    Peterborough

Public Health and Social Sciences Overview

Our pre-master’s course in Public Health and Social Sciences will prepare you for studying these subjects at postgraduate level. You will develop a range of academic and communicative skills such as, research theory and practice, independent learning, psychology and ethics, qualitative and quantitative research, and scientific/ social sciences research methods. You will also learn how to define research questions and formulate objectives and discover the importance of risk management and ethical approach for good professional practice.

With a master’s within Public Health, you can learn from health science professionals and gain invaluable insight into best practice. Our postgraduate Public Health course takes a modern approach, by directly addressing the social, economic, political and other factors that influence population health and well-being. Currently the debate about public health is constantly in the news – and our Public Health Masters course will equip you to meet the challenges of public health of the future. With a Social Sciences related master’s degree, you will gain an in depth understanding of the latest issues and debates in sociology.  You will develop skills to prepare you for a career in fields such as social policy, local government, public service and more. 

Pathway progression

Successful completion of this pathway will lead to the award of the following from ARU:

 

Please see our International and UK Course Matrix for intake information.

Stage 1: Pre-Masters in Public Health and Social Sciences

To meet the requirements for studying the Masters pathways included in this Programme Specification, students study four core Modules:

Modules

Interactive Learning Skills and Communication

This module aims to help students develop a range of academic and communicative skills necessary for successful study at postgraduate level.

Students will be taught and will practice a range of transferable communicative skills (written and oral) to prepare students for professional life. Students will be encouraged to find useful ways to develop independent learning and encourage students to take responsibility for their personal, academic and professional development.

Research Methods and Skills

This module aims to provide you with a good understanding of research theory and practice, enabling you to understand different qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The development, nature, scope and organisation of research is discussed in the module. You will be taught to define research questions, formulate objectives (organise hypothesis testing where relevant), and set decision criteria. The requirement for underpinning research with theory, using tertiary sources in conducting literature research is discussed. The methods and sources of primary and secondary data are introduced including: survey techniques, assessing data quality, and methods of analysis.

The basic principles and practices of qualitative and quantitative research are analysed. Students will be introduced to a range of scientific and social sciences research methods and be taught to identify which methods are most relevant to meet research objectives.

Psychology and Ethics

This module aims to introduce you to Psychology and Ethics. Students will learn why knowledge of risk management and ethical approval are important for research studies and good professional practice. This module will overview key psychological approaches and current psychological theorists along with an overview of ethical principles and standards developed in the context of psychological theory. Real-world applications of these approaches will also be discussed along with current debates and trends in practice.

Principles of ICT

Students will be introduced to fundamental ICT skills that will be necessary to utilise throughout University level studies. This course will address ICT software and topics as they currently exist, bridging the knowledge gap between various versions of software. Students will use common productivity software as well as internet-based applications.

This module introduces students to the interesting challenges that ICT presents today and covers many anchor points that may serve as a bridge to their interests and lifestyles. These bridges include the technology in their mobile telephones, computing equipment, and entertainment software.

This module takes into account that we will be dealing with students from a wide range of cultures and experience with computers, and successful completion indicates that students have obtained a good understanding of and ability to apply common applications (Ms Word, Excel and Power Point) to document creation, data collation and presentation whilst students will also be made aware of the benefits of using web based applications for information presentation and will be expected to use IT to communicate information effectively in a variety of forms.

You will be required to pass all modules (75 credits) in order to successfully complete the pre-masters course.

Stage 2: Master’s Degree

Location

Cambridge/Chelmsford

Related links

For more information about intake semesters and campus location please see our course matrices.

Find out the academic entry requirements for our courses listed by country. Unless stated, requirements are standard across all courses.

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