Assumptions about the nature and purpose of graduate education are put into question by changing relations between university and other institutions, a greater diversity in the components of academic work and an explosive development of graduate study programmes. This paper explores key perspectives in what could be called a vocational model of university graduate education, or graduate studies oriented towards different fields of practice. The evaluation study includes three educational graduate study programmes at the Danish University of Education: Master of Education (MEd) in Health Promotion and Education, in Adult Education and in Educational IT. Key perspectives identified in the analysis of university- and subject guidelines for the study programmes, provides the background for the design of the evaluation study: The guidelines emphasize a vocational orientation in the programmes, while maintaining the research based orientation that traditionally characterizes graduate study programs. Further the guidelines underline the needs and interests of students and other stakeholders in and outside the university sector. The methodological framework for the evaluation study is based on an assumption that working with perspectives in evaluation of education means working with complex and comprehensive possibilities. This demands a reflective evaluation approach that includes the identification, exploration and discussion of perspectives among key stakeholders. The Bologna process, and the implementation of the 'Qualifications framework' in the university sector in Denmark, sets off a demand on the universities to develop formulations of purposes and key competences in university- and subject guidelines. Analyses of key perspectives in graduate study programmes are essential for formulations of purposes, content and intended outcomes of graduate studies, e.g. student competences. This underlines the importance of a curriculum research approach in development and evaluation of higher education, and delineates this evaluation study from quality assurance studies, that often have the scope of developing a basis for greater transparency and accountability, but which cannot demonstrate a link between curriculum and outcomes. The evaluation study focuses on which views about the key perspectives different stakeholders hold, exploring and contrasting graduate supervisors' and students' perspectives. Data is generated through personal interviews with 6 supervisors and 9 students from the programmes. The conceptual framework for the analysis and discussion of the study is based on a distinction between different values in graduate study programmes. The findings from the analysis of the interviews indicate that although references to the key perspectives described above are prominent in both supervisors and students' views about the study programmes, perspectives related to academic or more theory driven fields of studies are also essential. The latter perspectives are associated with major values in a more liberal humanistic tradition of university graduate education, construed as students' self-realisation and 'education for citizenship'. Further the study point out differences in the way different perspectives are emphasised and related in supervisors and students' views. The study discusses challenges related to 'how to navigate' between the emerging competency/vocational model and the liberal/humanistic traditional model in development and evaluation of university education. A framework of key perspectives in educational graduate study programmes with a vocational slant is put forward, juxtaposing the different perspectives explored in the study. This framework could prove to be useful for stakeholders responsible for development and evaluation of programmes within the university sector.