Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3266: Elections and Voting in Britain

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

The module’s precise content may vary from year to year, but it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Holding British General Elections (formalities of calling an election, fixed-term parliament act, electoral administration, campaign periods, voting system, announcing results).
Other elections in Britain (introduction to how local and regional elections are held in Britain).
Polling and election forecasting in Britain (evolution of polling, polling methodology, polling accuracy and uncertainty, forecasting elections).
Exit Polls (evolution and methodology of exit poll, record of exit polls, impact on election coverage).
Psephology of British elections (introduction to psephology, studying trends in results and trends in voter behaviour).
Changes in modern voter behaviour and implications for British elections (classic and new theories on voter cleavages in British politics i.e. class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, education, tactical voting).

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	8	Four, two-hour sessions creating a mini Introduction to R course within the module. No prior knowledge assumed.
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	7	Bite-size lectures.
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	7	Group discussions and guided group study (seminar style format).
Guided independent study	40	Completing lab assignments and preparation for summative assessment 2.
Guided independent study	32	Reading and preparing for lecture and seminar sessions.
Guided independent study	34	Preparation for summative assignment 1.
Guided independent study	12	Preparation for formative assignment 2.
Guided independent study	10	Receiving and reflecting on feedback.

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).