Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Module Catalogue

IL136-15 Public Engagement

Department
Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning
Level
Undergraduate Level 3
Module leader
Katherine Astbury
Credit value
15
Module duration
10 weeks
Assessment
100% coursework
Study location
University of Warwick main campus, Coventry

Download as PDF

Introductory description

Public Engagement is about working with those outside academia to share research, collaborate on ideas and make knowledge accessible. Through the design, planning and delivery of your own public engagement activity you’ll build your communication, team working and project management skills. You’ll explore subjects like evaluation, digital engagement, effective storytelling and placemaking and come away with the confidence and skills to apply this learning to future research, and careers outside academia. This module will give you a theoretical and practical introduction to public engagement. You’ll come away with a strong knowledge of complex challenges involved, and the rewards it can bring to you, universities and society.

Module web page

Module aims

This interdisciplinary module aims to give you both a theoretical and practical introduction to public engagement so that you can better understand the complex challenges involved in sharing research with a non HEI audience. To achieve this, the module will:

  • Introduce you to the concept of good PE from the perspective of several disciplines
  • Develop your understanding of interdisciplinary theories and issues related to PE
  • Enable you to discover, research, and experiment with different methods of PE, and in particular their effectiveness with different communities.
  • Contribute to a culture of PE across the university
  • Help you better articulate the relevance of your own subject area to society, and identify to which parts of society your subject area has most relevance
  • Allow you to explore how to measure good engagement
  • Engage you with innovative and active learning. You will design and deliver a PE activity and reflect upon the activity using the theory of change model being used by Coventry City of Culture
  • It will facilitate student-led events that will be mutually beneficial to you and the communities/demographics/sites you engage with.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Public engagement is about connecting ourselves to those around us. It requires an ability to translate complex ideas, an understanding of different people and their needs, and a requirement for actively listening to their contributions. This module aims to explore the theoretical and practical skills students need to do public engagement to a high standard, explored through an interdisciplinary lens.

You'll be taught through a series of 10 2 hour seminar sessions which will include talks, panel discussions, interactive tasks with peers from a range of departments, and getting involved with engagement yourself. You'll be taught by a diverse group of module tutors who bring a variety of expertise and experience to the module.

Weekly topics:
Week 1: What is public engagement
Week 2: Digital vs Physical Engagement
Week 3: The role of public engagement in society
Week 4: Audiences/ Planning Engagement/ Good reflective practice
Week 5: Getting hands on with engagement
Week 6: Interactive Hands-On Engagement session
Week 7: Evaluating Engagement
Week 8: Co-production of research and Engagement
Week 9: Presentation skills
Week 10: Preparing for your live event

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  • Develop a systematic theoretical and practical understanding of public engagement as seen through various thematic lenses.
  • Demonstrate a deep and thorough understanding of the importance of evaluation and reflective practice
  • Demonstrate an ability to effectively communicate about a research topic to a lay audience
  • Critically evaluate and reflect upon their own experience of running a public engagement event and propose ways of self-improvement.
  • Demonstrate a systematic understanding of, and the ability to synthesise ideas from, a range of disciplinary perspectives, with regard to the relationship between the arts, social sciences and sciences in the field of public engagement.
  • Prepare relevant questions and successfully engage in personal and collaborative endeavours to respond professionally (i.e. use of texts, films, different primary and secondary sources, material provided during the academic lectures and the group activities), developing and synthesising inter- and trans-disciplinary ideas.

Indicative reading list

Illustrative reading material

General

Resources section of the National Co-ordinating centre for public engagement http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/resources

Open Access Journal – Research For All, https://www.ucl-ioe-press.com/research-for-all/

Week 1 and 2 (overview to PE)

  • Hart, Angie; Northmore, Simon, Auditing and Evaluating University-Community Engagement: Lessons from a UK Case Study, Higher Education Quarterly. Jan2011, Vol. 65 Issue 1, p34-58.

  • Education outreach and public engagement / Erin L. Dolan (2008)

  • Deliberative Public Engagement with Science / PytlikZillig (2018)

  • Varner, Johanna, ‘Scientific Outreach : Toward Effective Public Engagement with Biological Science’, BioScience. 64(4) (2014):333-340

  • Langdridge, Darren;Gabb, Jacqui;Lawson, Jamie, ‘Art as a pathway to impact: Understanding the affective experience of public engagement with film’. Sociological Review; May2019, Vol. 67 Issue 3, p585-601,

  • Cerrato, S., Daelli, V., Pertot, H. and Puccioni, O. (2018) ‘The public engaged scientists: Motivations, enablers and barriers’. Research for All, 2 (2): 313–322. DOI https://doi.org/10.18546/RFA.02.2.09

Week 3 (Digital engagement and blog writing)

Week 4 (evaluation)

  • Dubow & Litzler, ‘The Development and Use of a Theory of Change to Align Programs and Evaluation in a Complex, National Initiative’, American Journal of Evaluation, 40 (2019), 231-48

-https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publication/evaluating_your_public_engagement_work.pdf

Week 5 – Oral presentations

Week 6 – Understanding audiences

Week 8 – Working with museums and galleries

Week 9 – Co-production with communities

  • Boyask, Ruth and Vigurs, Katy, ‘Developing a Methodology for Public Engagement with Critical Research’, Policy Futures in Education, v16 n2 p217-231 Feb 2018.

  • McLaughlin, James A., et al, ‘Impact arising from sustained public engagement: A measured increase in learning outcomes’, Research for All (2018), 2(2), 244-56

  • Brown, M. and Ward, P. (2019) ‘Communities, universities and ethnicity: A conversation from Imagine: Connecting Communities Through Research’. Research for All, 3 (1): 91–104. DOI https://doi.org/10.18546/RFA.03.1.08

Week 10 – Future of public engagement

  • Irwin et al, ‘The good, the bad and the perfect: Criticizing engagement practice’, Social Studies of Science (Sage Publications, Ltd.). Feb2013, Vol. 43 Issue 1, p118-135.

Research element

In line with the University’s Research and Education Strategies, this interdisciplinary module aims to provide students with the skills and confidence to engage communities with their research and maximise their impact on society. It will encourage community-minded thinking about research and upskill today’s students to be able to effectively identify societal needs and challenges. Students will be empowered to see how research can address these challenges, and to understand the value of open communication with a variety of audiences and the skills required for this.

Interdisciplinary

Students will consider public engagement through multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. The mix of module leaders (from School of Modern Languages and Warwick Institute of Engagement) will attend all sessions to integrate and stimulate the interdisciplinary learning, and each week interactive lectures and/or workshops will be led by a subject specialist,

Subject specific skills

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  1. Appreciate the value of adopting interdisciplinary approaches and research methods for understanding global topics such as engaging publics in research.

  2. Understand how applying public engagement practice to their own research may shape the direction the research takes and improve their projects.

  3. Comprehend how to utilise the communicative and collaborative skills used in the module in their professional life.

  4. Comprehend how society can benefit from ongoing efforts to include diverse audiences in the future of research.

  5. Develop their transferable skills (i.e. impactful multimodal communication, project management, work with specialist and non-specialist participants) that will support future endeavours in the workplace.

  6. Demonstrate the ability to critically reflect on the personal development of their skills and experiences throughout this module.

Transferable skills

  • Understand how to apply public engagement practice to future research
  • Use oral and written communication skills acquired in the module in their professional life
  • Comprehend how society can benefit from ongoing efforts to include diverse audiences in the future of research
  • Understand how to apply skills acquired on the module (e.g. impactful multimodal communication, project management, working with a specialist and non-specialist participants) to support future endeavours in the workplace.
  • Use resources in a transdisciplinary manner to comprehend and communicate concepts and ideas to the public.

Study time

Type Required
Seminars 10 sessions of 2 hours (13%)
Other activity 4 hours (3%)
Private study 26 hours (17%)
Assessment 100 hours (67%)
Total 150 hours

Private study description

Assessment preparation and production
Reading and reviewing course materials
Individual and group work
Seminar preparations
Research and reflection

Other activity description

In addition to the timetabled teaching activities listed above, each student will be running a PE activity at a centrally-organised University event, totalling an additional 4 hours. This event will take place in week 10.

Costs

Category Description Funded by Cost to student
Other

Delivery of a live public engagement event

 Department £0.00

You must pass all assessment components to pass the module.

Assessment group A2
Weighting Study time Eligible for self-certification
Reflective Journal 25% 25 hours Yes (extension)

Keep a journal about the process of planning, delivering, and evaluating a public engagement activity. This should be a reflection of your learning about transdisciplinary public engagement and its role in society, as well as the process of putting together an activity and your experiences of this. Along with reflections on how you're engaging with the publics involved and finally your event evaluation showing what you've learned and would change next time.
Engaging the public in online spaces 50% 50 hours Yes (extension)

Produce a digital engagement piece aimed at other undergraduate students about what public engagement is, why we engage, how you can engage audiences online. You should demonstrate as part of the assessment that you have researched principles of high quality public engagement and applied them to you chosen format.

We will accept submissions in the form of social media posts/ videos/ images, vlogs or audio podcasts as well as written blogs. We'd expect for videos/ podcasts etc to be between 3-7 minutes, and written pieces should be around 1,000 words. You must provide a bibliography alongside your submission which shows the academic sources that underpin your piece, including the public engagement theory you have explored that's influenced how you've chosen to engage your audience through this online format.
Deliver a live public engagement activity 25% 25 hours No

Working in small groups you will create an activity to engage the public as part of an event to be curated by Warwick Institute of Engagement.
Feedback on assessment

Formative feedback will be given via written comments on blogs

Detailed written summative feedback will be provided by module tutors to individual students for each element of assessed work.

Courses

This module is Core optional for:

  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A6 Undergraduate Biochemistry with Industrial Placement (MBio)

This module is Optional for:

  • Year 3 of UFIA-W620 Undergraduate Film Studies
  • Year 4 of UFIA-W621 Undergraduate Film Studies (with Year Abroad)
  • Year 4 of UFIA-QW26 Undergraduate Film and Literature (with Study Abroad)

This module is Option list A for:

  • Year 3 of UFIA-QW25 Undergraduate Film and Literature

This module is Option list B for:

  • Year 3 of UBSA-C700 Undergraduate Biochemistry
  • ULFA-C1A2 Undergraduate Biochemistry (MBio)
    • Year 3 of C1A2 Biochemistry
    • Year 3 of C700 Biochemistry
  • Year 4 of ULFA-C702 Undergraduate Biochemistry (with Placement Year)
  • Year 3 of UBSA-3 Undergraduate Biological Sciences
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A1 Undergraduate Biological Sciences (MBio)
  • Year 4 of ULFA-C113 Undergraduate Biological Sciences (with Placement Year)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A5 Undergraduate Biological Sciences with Industrial Placement (MBio)
  • Year 3 of UBSA-C1B9 Undergraduate Biomedical Science
  • ULFA-C1A3 Undergraduate Biomedical Science (MBio)
    • Year 3 of C1A3 Biomedical Science
    • Year 3 of C1B9 Biomedical Science
  • Year 3 of ULFA-C1A7 Undergraduate Biomedical Science with Industrial Placement (MBio)
  • Year 4 of ULFA-CB18 Undergraduate Biomedical Science with Placement Year
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B140 Undergraduate Neuroscience (BSc)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B142 Undergraduate Neuroscience (MBio)
  • Year 3 of ULFA-B143 Undergraduate Neuroscience (with Industrial Placement) (MBio)