Summary of content

This module requires students to work as a team to collectively develop and implement a project that has an outcome that reflects and implements the university's mission of The Common Good. Students will negotiate between themselves, the tutor and a third party a set of objectives that meet the needs of these various stakeholders. This will require the students to fuse knowledge gained from their programme and the workplace with employability skills such as team working, communication, etc to fulfil these objectives. Students undertaking a programme of research training may have particular learning requirements and interests that cannot reasonably be accommodated within a structured programme designed to meet the core needs of a typical student. These learning needs may be specialist research training or, in the context of particular substantive degree pathways, may be specialist programmes of advanced study (theoretical, conceptual or substantive). Therefore, Group Negotiated Study is offered as a means of enabling students to achieve their particular needs/learning objectives, whilst exploring areas of interest by identification and progression through an appropriate real world problem. Negotiated study topics will normally address a problem widely described as being for the Common Good. Therefore, the areas of study would normally be expected to be issues identified from local community issues, charities and third sector organisations and/or a student's work place.

The focus of the content of the unit will be negotiated between a group of students (normally 3-4 individuals) and Unit Leader in the form of a negotiated learning contract - the Unit Learning Plan. The students will prepare a Unit Learning Plan which specifically identifies group and personal learning outcomes. This will normally then allow identification of an action plan comprising: title aims learning outcomes nature and scope of work to be undertaken learning resources required (including the gathering and critiquing of quantitative and qualitative data) support required detailed operational timetable, and agreed assessment format.

Module structure

Assessment methods