How does COMM3030 Social Entrepreneurship Practicum work?

Direct answer: A COMM3030 Social Entrepreneurship Practicum team meets a partner organisation in week one, researches one social or environmental challenge it faces, and delivers a plan the partner can use. The course is managed by the Centre for Social Impact and needs 48 UOC of Business courses first.

Picture an illustrative team of four students, invented by MAAS for this guide, who are matched with a fictional community pantry called Harbour Table. At the first client meeting the coordinator explains that 60 households use the pantry each week and that nobody has ever counted whether those households eat better afterwards. The team leaves with a question rather than a solution: what would the pantry have to count to know it is working?

That scenario matches how the UNSW Handbook (University of New South Wales, n.d.) describes the course: "a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) course designed to integrate theory with experiential practice and involve authentic and purposeful engagement with partner organisations". The same entry says the prerequisite is 48 UOC of Business courses including DPBS equivalent courses, plus COMM1999 for Bachelor of Commerce students or the Career Accelerator Essentials module for everyone else. It also asks that you have room in your degree and good academic standing.

The 2026 timetable (University of New South Wales, 2026), correct as at 17-09-2026, states that you must attend all classes and that "Client meetings will take place during Lectures". Missing a lecture can therefore mean missing the partner.

Direct answer: In the 2027 handbook entry, COMM3030 Social Entrepreneurship Practicum has four assessments worth 100 per cent in total: Project Deliverables 30, Peer Evaluation 10, a combined Client Engagement Reflection and Research Presentation 35, and Class Participation 25. Only the 30 per cent project is a group mark, so 70 per cent is individual.

Source: UNSW Handbook, COMM3030, 2027 edition (University of New South Wales, n.d.), accessed 2026-10-27. Check your own term's course outline, because the timetable states that the outline applies if the two differ.

Two details are easy to miss. First, the handbook says you "will need to complete the peer evaluation process to be eligible for the 'peer evaluation' component", so the 10 per cent depends on filling in the survey as well as on how your teammates rate you. Second, the 1B research video is individual even though the client project is shared. Each student therefore needs a research focus of their own, and the 1A reflection is where you are asked to propose it.

The four weights add up to exactly 100 per cent. Class Participation is assessed on weekly tutorial workshops, including contribution to discussion, collaboration, and your reflection on responsible, sustainable business practice. At 25 per cent it carries almost as much weight as the whole 1A and 1B pair.

Direct answer: The 2027 handbook lists five learning outcomes: collaborating with a partner organisation (CLO1), applying social entrepreneurship approaches and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (CLO2), teamwork (CLO3), reflection on personal and professional development (CLO4) and persuasive communication (CLO5).

Counting the mapping in the table above gives a pattern the handbook page does not spell out. CLO1 is assessed in all four items, CLO2 and CLO5 in three each, CLO3 in two, and CLO4, the reflective outcome, appears against the peer evaluation alone. CLO2 asks you to "Apply social entrepreneurship approaches and integrate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to develop and evaluate solutions that create sustainable and meaningful social and environmental impact".

Read together, the numbers say that the evaluative half of CLO2 ("develop and evaluate") is where your project mark is decided, and that a report which lists activities without a way to evaluate them leaves the largest assessed outcome thin. The Sustainable Development Goals matter here only when you tie one target to one indicator the partner can count. A plan that says it "supports the SDGs" gives the partner nothing to count.

The next section shows one way to do that.

Direct answer: A theory of change for a COMM3030 social venture plan links one activity to one output, one outcome and one countable indicator, with a baseline, a target and a named owner. Dees (2001, p. 3) notes that "It is inherently difficult to measure social value creation", so the chain matters.

Dees (2001) argues that "Mission-related impact becomes the central criterion, not wealth creation" (p. 2) in a social enterprise, and that attributing an improvement to one intervention is often hard. A theory of change protects you from both problems by making each claim small enough to count. The table below is a worked example for the fictional Harbour Table pantry. Every figure in it is invented by MAAS to show the method, so copy the structure and replace the numbers with your partner's own data.

Illustrative figures created by MAAS for teaching purposes; not real data.

Check the arithmetic the way a marker of COMM3030 Social Entrepreneurship Practicum would. A fall from 75 per cent to 50 per cent is 25 percentage points, which is 15 of the 60 households. If the budget is $9,000, the plan spends $9,000 / 15 = $600 for each household that stops skipping meals, a figure the partner can compare with other programmes. Note also the weak link: attendance is an output, not an outcome, so the plan should say that 36 attending households are the route to the change, not the change itself.

Finally, cross out every task that only your team can do. If the plan still works, the partner can run it after the term ends.

Direct answer: Published studies find that experiential projects with community partners improve student outcomes, though none is about COMM3030. Celio et al. (2011) pooled 62 studies of 11,837 students with mean effects of 0.27 to 0.43, and Yorio and Ye (2012) found 0.34 for understanding social issues.

Celio et al. (2011) analysed 62 studies involving 11,837 students and found significant gains in five areas, with mean effects from 0.27 to 0.43. They also found better outcomes when programmes linked to the curriculum, gave students a voice, involved the community and built in reflection. Yorio and Ye (2012) drew on 40 articles and 5,495 unique subjects and estimated effects of 0.34 on understanding of social issues (n = 4,165), 0.28 on personal insight (n = 2,521) and 0.52 on cognitive development (n = 2,891).

Two newer studies sit closer to the course. Hockerts (2018) surveyed 175 participants in Master-level social entrepreneurship electives and found that taking the course raised self-efficacy, perceived social support and social entrepreneurial intentions, but not empathy or moral obligation. In a second sample of 265 participants in a massive open online course, students who did more experiential activities showed larger effects. Marco-Gardoqui et al. (2020) reviewed 32 studies in business schools covering more than 4,000 students, and the most frequent benefit they recorded was greater social engagement.

Two distinctions follow. These studies measure service-learning or elective courses, not the UNSW design, so treat them as context for your reflection rather than a forecast of your mark. And Hockerts (2018) found no empathy effect, so a reflection that only says "I felt more empathy" has weak support.