Normally master level is a mixture of coursework and research but i came across with few universities that provide fully research program for master too.

I wish to know whether there is any different in term of the workload needed for researches. Anyone can help? I have searched through the website generally but it was of little help.

The title "The main different" pretty much sums up what you should do next.

Wat kind of field are u in?

Masters doesnt mean will be mixture. It depends. Example for biology and chemistry, they are only research. For management field, probably mixture.

Just a label. Out of curiousity to know the "different".
There must be certain requirements to distinguish both qualifications which I have yet to know.

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Added on September 25, 2012, 4:26 pmFor example biotech. Any different in term of "workload" for both master and phd - fully research?
Some candidates who registered as master student, allowed to convert into phd candidate in later stage. That's why I wish to know the "different".

This post has been edited by z21j: Sep 25 2012, 04:26 PM

It depends on the faculty and supervisor(s) requirements.

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Added on September 25, 2012, 7:53 pmWorkload: Research (master, phd, ...) = {sleepless, hypertension, ...}

Conversion: only if your research is very good.

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Added on September 25, 2012, 7:57 pmSame workload but, finally in phd you must be able to criticized your own finding with some state of the art.

This post has been edited by kepalapening: Sep 25 2012, 07:57 PM

Sorry for picking on the petty grammatical error. I'm sure you meant "difference".

Workload, of course, will be different for master's and phd. You can't expect STPM-level workload for UPSR-level classes, right?

Candidates proceeding from master's to PhD usually are those that decide to stay in school. Typically they continue their master's level work and develop it into a PhD-worthy work. Most times that would mean wider and deeper background work (literature search, critics of state-of-the-art methods, etc). Then the methods will be more thorough and evolve into something more complete. Usually full-time master's level research work can be completed in one year, while a phd-level research work can range between 2 to 7 years. It is not unusual for part-time phd work to take 10 years.

This is of course very general information. The best way to get information about the program you're interested in is to get in touch with the students currently enrolled in that program.

Theoretically, the workload for Masters is of course less than phD. But certain supervisors would push Masters Students to work on more data until its publishable as a phD work. So I guess it depends on your topic, your results and your supervisor

The difference between a Master by Research and a PhD is that PhD requires more significant theoretical contributions and it needs a strong theory to support the entire theoretical framework.

The examiners would not expect much of the above from a Master by Research student. Also, the framework would be much smaller.

This post has been edited by Blofeld: Oct 1 2012, 10:23 PM

How many years were expected to complete a Master or Phd at local IPTA? would it be advisable to do our research mode master /Phd locally for life sciences field?

From what I've observed, it takes about 2 years to complete MSc and minimum 3 years for PhD - life sciences.

phd normally looking something novel and new. master level can be work have been done before with adding few tweak

absolutely true...if your master work can produce many high impact paper you have a chance to convert your master to PhD.

It doesnt always mean something new in PHD. as a physicist myself, a PHD work could go either be making something new or a complete study of a selected system or topic. Both are equally hard as making something new requires patience.

If you are asking for workload, of course PhD work is much harder, as a master is just a training from degree to PhD. Dont look down on PhD though, i've seen people in my labs repeating another cycle of their PhD or doing their masters for 4 years just to fully obtain the skills needed (local uni - research point of view) i blieve its gonna be dif with private colleges

This post has been edited by minimal88: Oct 11 2012, 09:36 PM

One of the main goals of PhD program is to help us develop the higher cognitive ability to discover and to defend reliable ideas about ourselves and our world. The higher cognitive ability may also help to alleviate a problem created by the lengthy survival program—the feeling of helplessness often experienced when one is the target of such program.

This frustrating experience results from simply not knowing any effective way to address the research pitfall and setback in question. Familiarity with some of the most common mistakes in setting research goals and objectives can be a defense against being misled or victimized by them.

Besides of those science courses, how about like..psychology(it is science in western world, but not in malaysia...)??
some of the public unies actually offering Master of philosophy and Doctor of philosophy, then what make the differences??
psychology don't really have a clear cut in between the new idea and tested-researches....
I am thinking to take master, but too many barriers ahead, make me a bit hesitate to step into research field~
(I am psychology final year student in UMS)

The size of the project is different. A PhD project is much larger in scale, containing more studies and asking more questions. The level of original contribution to knowledge as well is greater for a PhD. The size of your thesis is different and of course the number of years it takes for completion as well (PhD double that of Masters in both instances, roughly).

In some cases, even where your Masters is predominantly research-based, there may be more coursework vs a PhD course? That said, some PhDs by research contain quite a bit of coursework too to develop the candidate in research and management skills (depending on your institution).

This post has been edited by Farmer_C: Jun 2 2013, 07:18 AM

Master of Philosophy/Doctor of Philosophy are both research-based postgraduate degrees.

There are also coursework-based master's degrees in the psychology field. I believe this is available in Help University and IIUM.

To explore new idea or to take an inductive approach (qualitative) to research in the psychology field might take you up a few years for your postgraduate research and it is rarely taken by psychology students locally unless you are willing to spend several years for your studies.

To shorten your time, the best approach is to test your hypotheses deductively (quantitative) by building on someone's else framework. You do not need to build an entirely new framework. Many articles provides suggestions for future research and you can get new ideas from there. Basically, you are just playing around with the variables.

Master of science cannot be fully coursework. So there will be some research. If coursework plus research, the main emphasis is coursework and a small research project. The research project will be carried out in addition to classes and will last usually last between 6 months to 1 year. This programme most ppl complete in 1 1/2 to 2 years. Think bachelor degree with final year project, but bigger scale.

Master by research has full emphasis on research. Like what I did, I only had 4 class requirements, 2 class for 2 semesters and that's all. The rest of it comes from research, and it's almost like a mini-phd. Probably 1/2 to 2/3 phd project level. You will spend a lot of time on your project and you would need some decent results/analysis to graduate. Some universities will require you to have a paper in publication as well. Most folks take at least 2 years, majority up to 3 years.

The difference between the two is what you plan to do with your masters. If you want a quick masters just to boost your CV to work in industry or goverment (e.g. pegawai sains etc), then masters by coursework will be good for you. However if your passion is research, then masters by research will prepare you well for PhD. Also especially if you plan to apply for Phd overseas. This is because in academia, publishing is the main highlight. Even if you didn't manage to publish a paper, at least you will have a strong research background to back you up.

The thing is, Malaysia is not well-recognised for its quality education, at Master level. While good universities overseas will accept coursework mixture masters from UK, Europe etc, they will think twice for Malaysia since they are unfamiliar with Malaysia. Plus some of these coursework masters in UK/Europe do manage to get their name into a paper since they are in a large lab and they can help out a bit in large projects so they can get their name in. That is not really quite the reality in Malaysia for a lot of master students by coursework.

Depends on what you want to do. Quick boost for CV- go masters. Long-term academic career? go PhD.

I'm not sure what you mean by science in western world but not in Malaysia?

I'm just a passer-by. Just wana say, you Sir/Madame, have explained it very clearly. I don't know to what extent, but to me, it was quite well elaborated. Thank you for the clarity.