History with a Foundation Year (BA)

Research is central to the student experience at Cardiff and all our teaching is informed by the latest findings.  

We offer a supportive learning environment, where you are enabled to acquire a range of skills and a wealth of specialist knowledge. You will learn through a wide range of teaching methods from interactive lectures, lively discussion-based seminars, and workshops to group work and tutorials. These on-campus activities will be blended with a range of online environments that will enhance your learning experience and enable you to extend your studies beyond the classroom. Seminars and workshops offer a rewarding experience to engage critically with the key ideas and reading on a topic. They provide a valuable opportunity to explore ideas and work closely with your lecturers and to learn from other students. In your second and third year, you have the opportunity to undertake a range of independent projects with the support of an expert in the field and one-to-one tuition.  

Our teaching methods foster intellectual skills, such as critical thinking, close analysis, evaluating evidence, constructing arguments, using theory and the effective deployment of language in writing and in debate. We also help you gain experience in team working, independent research and time management in a supportive environment.

Welsh language teaching 
We provide opportunities for learning and teaching through the medium of Welsh. Subject to staff availability, seminar teaching in Welsh is available on some or all of the core modules. Welsh language supervision is also available in Year Two and Year Three for longer projects and for dissertations. You may elect to write all or some of your assessed work and examinations in Welsh.

How will I be assessed?

Assessments include source criticisms, research projects, reviews, presentations, creative-critical portfolios and blog posts, alongside more traditional forms of assessment such as essays and tests/exams. Some of our assessments allow you to work collaboratively on a project, while others include writing and creating for different audiences; for example, you might be asked to design a museum exhibition or create a guide for using sources; and you may have the opportunity to create podcasts and digital texts for social media. Long essays allow you to address fundamental historical questions or explore an historical issue or debate in more depth.

In all cases, our assessments are designed to support you in developing your ideas, skills and competencies. They help equip you with skills to link your knowledge to local, national and global issues, and encourage you to be innovative and creative; to find new ways to address problems or ask questions; to collaborate in solving problems and presenting findings; and to present evidence-based arguments. The skills developed and assessed throughout the programme prepare you for entry into a range of graduate careers. Individual and group feedback on assessments and other learning provides you with the opportunity to reflect on your current or recent level of attainment.

What skills will I practise and develop?

The Learning Outcomes for this Programme describe what you will achieve by the end of your programme at Cardiff University and identify the knowledge and skills that you will develop. They will also help you to understand what is expected of you.

On successful completion of your Programme you will be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding:

• Engage critically and conceptually with the changing assumptions and methods that historians use to explain the past.
• Identify and critically analyse the diversity of human history, continuity, and change, across a wide geographical and chronological range.
• Demonstrate systematic knowledge and understanding of the complexity and diversity of the past in a single country or in relation to a particular theme.
• Demonstrate a critical awareness of the limits of historical knowledge and the evolving nature of that knowledge and understanding.

Intellectual Skills:

• Critically evaluate the nature of historiographical agreement and disagreement.
• Utilise knowledge and appropriate skills and methods to identify and critically evaluate historical change.
• Formulate and justify arguments about a range of historical issues, problems, and debates using historiographical ideas and methods.

• Identify and locate appropriate primary sources, reflect upon their nature, and analyse them critically to address questions and solve problems.

   

Professional Practical Skills:

• Demonstrate critical thinking, reasoning, and the ability to assimilate and summarise complex information and ideas though the independent selection and critical analysis of an appropriate range of evidence.
• Ask cogent and focused questions and pursue answers to these questions through structured enquiry, selecting and interrogating an appropriate range of evidence.
• Summarise and critically appraise the relative merits and demerits of alternative views and interpretations and evaluate their significance.
• Design, undertake, and present an historical, historiographical, or conceptual research project.

Transferable/Key Skills:

• Present complex findings and arguments clearly, concisely, and persuasively in a variety of formats.
• Show enterprise skills to solve problems and analyse diverse, partial or ambiguous evidence using critical thinking, initiative, and creativity.
• Prepare and give a presentation and provide clear and accurate supporting materials in an appropriate format.
• Effectively manage your own learning.

• Effectively communicate complex information and arguments to diverse audiences, either individually or collaboratively as part of a team.

   

Other information

The degree is team-taught, overseen by the Programme Convenor. You are supported by a number of different staff, some focussing on academic performance in a particular area and some looking at learning and progress more holistically.

Teaching methods include a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops, individual work and group tasks, one-to-one tutorials, and self-directed learning. You will also undertake independent study and research, with guidance from academic tutors. These teaching methods enable you to develop communication and analytical skills, and to develop critical thinking in a supportive environment. The teaching covers all the key competencies, and is enhanced by the inclusion of digital learning resources.

The focus of assessment is on supporting you to develop your ideas, skills, and competencies. We use a wide range of assessment methods, including coursework essays, source criticisms, critical reviews, examinations, online tests, posters, oral presentations, and group presentations. Progression is built into assessment, in that you will do smaller guided tasks in year one, as well as formative work in years two and three. As part of your skills training in year one, you will be supported in understanding how the assessments work, what is expected of you, how you will be marked, and how to make the most of your feedback. Progression is also evident in the growing emphasis on lengthier, independent work culminating in a 10,000-word dissertation in your final year.

Welsh language teaching

We provide significant opportunities for learning and teaching through the medium of Welsh. Subject to staff availability, seminar teaching in Welsh is available on some or all of the major core courses, and at least one Welsh language option is offered in years two and four. Welsh language supervision is also available for long essays and dissertations, and students may elect to write all or some of their assessed work and examinations in Welsh.