BA International History and Politics

Year 3

(Award available for year: Bachelor of Arts)

Learning outcomes

On completion of the year/programme students should have provided evidence of being able to:

1. Demonstrate coherent and detailed knowledge of:
- recent historical scholarship in the student's chosen international history specialisms
- continuity and change in international politics (hbp #16)
- how decision makers have acted and thought in a range of circumstances, regimes and cultures (hbp #12.1 and 17)
- techniques for close work on sources, both primary and/or secondary (hbp #18).

Especially through the study of a primary source-based Special Subject and a Dissertation (see hbp #21) involving original research:

2. apply accurately standard techniques of historical analysis and enquiry
3. demonstrate their conceptual understanding through sustained argument
4. make appropriate use of scholarly reviews and primary sources
5. prove an ability to initiate, research and complete an extended historical project (hbp #21)
6. describe and comment on relevant aspects of recent scholarship
7. appreciate the uncertainty, ambiguity and limitations of knowledge in history
8. conform to professional standards and norms of ethics, presentation and communication of information.

Transferable (key) skills

Students will have had the opportunity to acquire, as defined in the modules specified for the programme:

1. Qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment, such as independence of mind, initiative, group work, locating and handling information, analytical ability, problem-solving, oral and written communication, intellectual integrity, empathy (hbp #14)
2. Skills necessary for exercising of personal responsibility, including self-discipline and self-direction (hbp #14)
3. Decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations
4. Communication of information and ideas to a variety of audiences, eg through dissertation based on self-directed original research, class presentations, essays
5. Ability to act as an autonomous self-directed professional through experience of independent directed research.

Assessment

Achievement will be assessed by a variety of methods in accordance with the learning outcomes of the modules specified for the year/programme and will include:

- dissertation
- oral assessment (or small written exercises)
- assessed essays
- examinations.

To demonstrate:

- Ability to apply a broad range of aspects of the discipline
- Ability to produce work that draws on a wide variety of material
- Ability to evaluate and criticise received opinion
- Evidence of an ability to conduct independent, in depth original research within the discipline
- Work that is typically both evaluative and creative.