TY - JOUR
T1 - A bespoke legal writing guide as a feedforward resource
T2 - improving non-law students’ engagement and performance in law modules
AU - Danagher, Luke
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Association of Law Teachers.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Law schools are frequently tasked with teaching law modules to non-law students. Anecdotally at least, these students are often considered to have poor legal writing skills and this in turn affects their levels of engagement and attainment. This article reports on an action research study conducted with 453 business students at the University of Limerick. The study involved an anonymous student questionnaire (n = 69), which was designed to measure, inter alia, increases in student confidence, clarification of assessment expectations, and the overall successfulness of the Writing Guide as a feedforward resource. Open-ended questions were also included to capture unpredicted benefits reported by the students. It is argued that the successfulness of the writing guide is attributable to its status as a successful piece of feedforward. A proposed checklist of key aspects of a legal writing guide is offered.
AB - Law schools are frequently tasked with teaching law modules to non-law students. Anecdotally at least, these students are often considered to have poor legal writing skills and this in turn affects their levels of engagement and attainment. This article reports on an action research study conducted with 453 business students at the University of Limerick. The study involved an anonymous student questionnaire (n = 69), which was designed to measure, inter alia, increases in student confidence, clarification of assessment expectations, and the overall successfulness of the Writing Guide as a feedforward resource. Open-ended questions were also included to capture unpredicted benefits reported by the students. It is argued that the successfulness of the writing guide is attributable to its status as a successful piece of feedforward. A proposed checklist of key aspects of a legal writing guide is offered.
KW - Feedforward
KW - non-law student education
KW - student engagement
KW - writing guide
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124913428&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/03069400.2021.2022390
DO - 10.1080/03069400.2021.2022390
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85124913428
SN - 0306-9400
VL - 56
SP - 452
EP - 470
JO - Law Teacher
JF - Law Teacher
IS - 4
ER -