Developing academic pathways as a route to improved programme coherence in Politics and International Relations

Responding to a need

In line with the diversity of approaches listed in the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Politics and International Relations, the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR) has traditionally offered a small number of very broad degree programmes. Students have been permitted to range widely across the fields of politics, international relations and sociology in their elective module choices, with some guided elective choices designed to ensure they meet the knowledge-related learning outcomes of their degree programme, combined with some free choice electives, especially at level 6. In addition, SPIR’s largest undergraduate programme – the BA Politics and International Relations – was explicitly conceived to permit students to take essentially any combination of modules.

This approach created three problems. First, it meant our programmes lacked the levels of internal coherence and external differentiation required by OfS condition B1 and Queen Mary's Programme Design Principles. Second, it meant our students struggled to choose their modules and to tell coherent stories about the value of their degree programmes as a whole. This in part led to a mismatch between module-level and programme-level student satisfaction metrics. Third, it meant gaps and overlaps emerged between individual modules which dealt with similar concepts, ideas and materials, since no framework existed between programme and module level to promote cross-module co-ordination.

The approach

We began by reviewing our existing programmes in light of the Principles of Academic Programme design, especially principle 2 (programme coherence) and principle 3 (programme aims, outcomes and structure). We established that our programmes were coherent in the sense of having a set of core and compulsory modules, which generally made up approximately 50% of all modules taken on each programme; were appropriately divided into clearly-defined stages, with distinct expectations for learners completing modules at levels 4, 5 and 6  – at level four approximately 85% of modules are core or compulsory, at level 5 this drops to 50%, with 25% guided electives, and at level 6 on most programmes 37.5% of modules are compulsory; and were based on aims and learning outcomes that aligned with relevant subject matter benchmarks. 

At the same time, we also identified that outside of their core and compulsory modules, students on the majority of our programmes had considerable freedom of choice in their elective module selections. At level 5, most students were required to take 30 credits of compulsory modules and 45 credits of guided elective modules in their core subject area (e.g. International Relations). This generally left them with 30-45 credits’ worth of free elective choice across all SPIR modules. At level 6 most SPIR students had 75 credits of free elective choice. The existence of this freedom of choice aligned with the recommendation in programme design principle 2 that students should have opportunities to personalise their learning in line with their post-graduation aspirations. Feedback from the National Student Survey and from the Student Voice Committee made clear that students like having a range of options to choose from. These same sources, however, also made it clear that students found the extent of the choice available to them across guided and free choice elective modules difficult to navigate. The resulting variation in the optional choices made by students on the same programme undermined programme coherence and made mapping programme-level outcomes to elective module-level outcomes very challenging.

The obvious response – imposing tighter restrictions on module availability to improve coherence and structure choice – was normatively undesirable as well as impractical. Thanks to the fluid nature of the boundaries between our fields of study, many modules cannot easily be categorised by field, especially at level 6. For the same reasons, colleagues felt it would be inappropriate to impose tighter restrictions on what students could do – while it is normal for degrees in our fields to have a core of compulsory modules, it is also normal for students to be able to choose from a wide range of options, especially in their final year of study. The QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Politics and International Relations, for example, lists no fewer than seventeen areas of focus that a student might reasonably expect to explore during their studies. And in any event, the existence and size of the BA Politics and International Relations meant there were limits to how far this approach could go, since by definition students on this programme could reasonably expect to be permitted to study any module offered by the school. 

Instead, we organised a working group that ran through the 2023/24 academic year, involving staff at different career stages and with different disciplinary expertise within SPIR. This working group mapped our existing programme structures against the Principles of Academic Programme Design and the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement, researched practices at peer institutions, held discussions with colleagues across the school, and gathered student input via dedicated sessions with the Student Voice Committee. 

The working group proposed the creation of six pathways encompassing all second and third year undergraduate modules offered within SPIR. The pathways are non-exclusive, to reflect the range of different organising logics behind modules – it is normal, for example, for a module focused on the politics of a particular region or state to draw on theories from different parts of the fields of politics and international relations. In order to ensure the pathways themselves remained coherent, the group decided that no module should sit in more than two pathways. The pathways are also meant to be open-ended, meaning that changes in module offerings should lead to changes in pathways rather than the pathways determining what modules can be offered. Students are permitted but not required to follow a pathway either in whole or in part in making their free elective module choices. This strikes a balance between the goal of supporting specialisation with the need to align with subject norms.

The pathways

To promote their use as narrative devices, we framed the pathways in terms of the kind of graduate a student wants to be. The final pathway descriptors referred to the intellectual interests, core knowledge, and career aspirations typically associated with an individual who had followed that pathway. 

The pathways are:

• The activist, who is interested in grassroots political change.
• The comparativist, who is interested in political behaviour, institutions and outcomes, primarily within states.
• The internationalist, who is interested in political structure, processes and outcomes, primarily between states and on a global scale.
• The political economist, who is interested in the relationship between states and markets, voters and consumers, and firms and governments.
• The researcher, who is interested in empirical methods and the tools used to generate new knowledge about politics, international relations and sociology.
• The theorist, who is interested in political, social and international theories, concepts and ideas.

The pathways were intended to support students to make coherent elective module choices, to personalise their learning and to specialise and focus in line with principle 2 of the principles of academic programmed design. They were also intended to promote academic progression, by demonstrating to students the relationships between modules at levels 5 and 6, in line with principle 3.

The impact

We used the new pathways to support module selection for the first time in March 2024. Students accessing SPIR’s module selection information were directed to a page summarising the purpose and structure of the pathways. Individual modules were tagged with the names of the pathways they belonged to. Students were told that they could choose modules from one pathway if they wanted to specialise, for example on the basis of modules they enjoyed in year 1 or year 2. They were also given the option of adopting a ”generalist” persona by deliberately selecting modules from multiple pathways, though the use of guided electives at level 5 for all programmes means that the generalist would still be steered towards elective modules relevant to their programme. 

SPIR surveyed second and third year students in September 2024 to ask about their engagement with the pathways. 63.6% of respondents reported being aware of the pathways, and 50% reported having attempted to follow a pathway in making their optional module choices. All of those who used the pathways reported finding them helpful. In the free-text comments, several respondents praised the way the pathways simplified the module selection process and supported them to choose modules that fit together – both key goals of the project. The main reason why respondents reported not having followed a pathway was a conscious desire to explore a range of different topics within the fields of Politics, International Relations and Sociology.

Colleagues should begin by thinking about what they are trying to achieve. In our case, we needed to strike a balance between programme coherence, as defined by OfS condition B1 and the Queen Mary Principles of Academic Programme Design, and the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Politics and International Relations, which emphasizes the wide range of topics typically studied in a degree in these fields. That meant finding ways to create structure for students who sought to use their elective modules to specialise, without closing off the possibility of a more generalist approach.

Colleagues interested in adopting a “pathways” approach to organising their optional modules should begin by securing staff participation and buy-in. Pathways will work best when they emerge organically from discussions among module convenors and programme directors. We realised early on that our goal was to codify existing relationships between areas of study in the School, not to manufacture a new layer of bureaucracy between the programme and module levels. 

It is also worth consulting students at an early stage. Our student voice committee members were enthusiastic about the prospect of pathways as an aide to module selection and as a way of telling a coherent story about their experiences in SPIR, but more dubious about the idea of requiring students to follow a particular pathway. This instinct aligned with subject norms as represented in the QAA subject benchmark statement.