Students must avoid taking five papers in their final year. Joint Honours students normally take two modules in Politics and two in their other subject, making a total of four each year. The Department is committed to the view that teaching and research are mutually supportive. Swansea was the first Politics Department in the UK to be approved by a Higher Education Funding Council Teaching Quality Assessment team for its teaching provision. Undergraduate teaching in the Department is by a combination of lectures and tutorials.
Lectures introduce subject matter and the sources and debates that are the focus of private study.
Small group seminars and tutorials provide the opportunity for the discussion of the fruits of private study and stimulate the development of oral skills of presentation and argument. In some cases, especially where the numbers involved are small, a module may be taught entirely on a seminar basis at the discretion of the lecturer concerned.