As discussions in Part 1 of this book have shown, assessment plays an enormously important role in shaping students’ learning experiences. It can do much to shape motivation to learn and the capacity and opportunities for students to demonstrate deep learning.The downside of this, of course, is that ineffective or inappropriate assessment practices will equally influence the whole learning process for learner and teacher: for good or ill, the assessment tail tends to wag the learning dog.
If we look at the overall range of assessment mechanisms being used in UK law schools today, there is a wide variety. Aside from variations on the theme of the traditional examination and coursework essay, law schools are also using (for example):
• mooting tasks
• oral presentations (group or individual)
• client interview, negotiation or advocacy skills exercises
• reflective journals
• portfolios
• projects (mostly in written form, but some web-based or multimedia).
At the same time, however, it is also clear that, in overall terms, traditional modes of assessment still tend to dominate students’ experience of learning at law school. Thus, a survey for UK Council on Legal Education on teaching, learning and assessment methods used in Scotland found essays (96 per cent) and examinations (94 per cent) were the commonest forms of assessment used by respondent lecturers, dissertations were the third most common (75 per cent) and oral presentations (58 per cent) next. Skills activities were used by 33 per cent and groupwork by 29 per cent of staff (see Maharg, 2007; Clegg, 2004: 27–28). Moreover, there is evidence that alternative modes of assessment are more likely to be used formatively than summatively (Clegg, 2004: 29) and, more anecdotally, a sense that, where used summatively, they are more likely to appear in optional subjects than in the legal foundations.
So why isn’t there greater variation in assessment methods? The following four reasons are likely to be significant, though not necessarily exhaustive. None of them are entirely compelling.
First, there are genuine and widespread concerns about assessment reliability and plagiarism. Unseen examinations, in particular, are seen as least open to abuse. This in turn suggests there is quite a high degree of uncertainty among law lecturers about the ways in which alternative assessment processes can also be made to satisfy standards of authenticity. Second, there is a misapprehension that the professional bodies require certain modes or patterns of assessment in the foundation subjects. As we noted earlier, this is certainly not the case at present, though the Joint Academic Stage Board (JASB) has sought recently to extend its ‘guidance’ to law schools to formalise a traditional coursework/examination requirement for the foundations. This change is being resisted 374 ❘ Teaching in the disciplines
by the academic bodies consulted by the JASB. Third, there is still a belief that traditional examinations are more rigorous than other assessment mechanisms, despite the volume of educational literature which points to their shortcomings. Finally, there is also a tendency for higher education to replicate the experience of earlier generations, so that teachers tend, almost instinctively one suspects, to adopt the learning and assessment methods by which they learned.
This is not to suggest that well-designed examinations and coursework essays have no place in the system.
For example, as Bone (1999: 21) notes, examinations are:
• reasonably efficient
• reliable
• relatively plagiarism proof, and
• easy, in organisational terms, to moderate.
Like all methods, however, they have their shortcomings. Consider the following exercise as a way of identifying those limits, and, perhaps, beginning to think differently about assessment.
In Table 23.1 the column headings show a range of levels of performance (based on Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) and a set of transferable/legal skills (based on the QAA Law Benchmark) that could be developed in the law degree. The levels indicate generically the different kinds of cognitive competence that students might be asked to demonstrate. These are not terms of art, they convey their ordinary everyday meaning.
‘Remembering’, it follows, is obviously the lowest level, representing the product of what amounts to memory testing, and ‘creating’ [new knowledge] is equally obviously the highest. This typology is also broadly reflected in the Benchmark’s references to
‘knowledge and understanding’, ‘application’ and ‘analysis, synthesis, critical judgement and evaluation’. (Note that Table 23.1 excludes the Benchmark’s ‘autonomy and ability to learn’ as a separate category. It is, however, reflected in part in the emphasis on independent research under the heading ‘Legal research’.)
The headings ‘examination’ and ‘coursework’ should be construed traditionally. That is, ‘examination’ should be understood to mean a summative unseen examination paper containing a mix of essay and problem questions, and ‘coursework’ means a free-standing essay or problem question to which the student produces a written answer outside any controlled environment, again assessed summatively.
You now have two tasks:
1 First place a tick in the relevant box, where you think a skill or cognitive level can be assessed (even in part) by that method; otherwise leave it blank.
2 Now focus on each cognitive level or skill and identify, by a different colour tick, which one(s) can be particularly well assessed by examination or coursework. Again, leave the others blank.
Enhancing learning in legal education ❘ 375
Table23.1Skillsandcognitivelevelsassessedbylawcourseworkandexaminations Cognitivelevels RememberingUnderstandingApplyingAnalysingEvaluatingCreating Coursework Examination Benchmarkskills Legalresearch (including evidenceofan abilityto undertakeWritten independentcommunicationOral legalresearch)andliteracycommunicationNumeracyITskillsTeamwork Coursework Examination
When you have completed this exercise it is probable that the two sets of ticks will not be identical. It is also probable that you will have fewer ticks in the second set than the first, and that, in a few instances, your answer was prefaced by a ‘well, it depends . . . ’. What emerges from doing this exercise?
Some of the key issues that could have been considered are:
• Which kinds of assessments are going to be better at assessing the more complex or higher cognitive abilities?
• When assessing skills of evaluation, is it students’ capacity to evaluate information against criteria they have come up with, or just their capacity to remember and apply someone else’s criteria that is being assessed? The latter involves evidence of a different (and lesser) cognitive capacity.
• Are conventional assessments good at enabling students to create new knowledge?
If not, is this just a matter of unsophisticated question design, a flaw in the mode of assessment, or a more fundamental problem in that the curriculum inadvertently discourages students from being creative and making connections across topic or subject boundaries?
• To what extent are legal research skills directly assessed rather than inferred from performance in traditional assessments?
Consequently it is suggested that there are two substantial challenges for law teachers:
(1) to ensure that traditional assessments are well designed and used appropriately in the light of module and programme learning objectives (this is itself a complex issue – see e.g. Bone (1999: 17–20) for a brief introduction) and (2) to adopt a range of alternative assessments that are also appropriately aligned – again a complex issue – to their relevant learning objectives.
It is also not possible in an overview such as this to look exhaustively at the range of alternative assessment practices available. Therefore, the remainder of this section will offer some brief examples of assessment practices, with an example offered in Case study 4, that potentially add variety and breadth to the legal education experience, and could link with the innovative teaching approaches already discussed.
The development of teamworking and group skills has increasingly been emphasised in UK legal education, first through the benchmarking process, and latterly, because such skills are highly valued by employers, as part of what is sometimes called the ‘employability agenda’ for higher education. Moreover, it is also argued that, independent of any such agenda, group learning has substantial intellectual benefits. Working together, students develop a deeper
Enhancing learning in legal education ❘ 377
Case study 4: Assessing teamwork at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
understanding of material by having to explain their knowledge for peers, and may be challenged on their understanding to an extent that may not happen in tutor-led or mediated interactions. The group may also provide an environment for more creative thinking, and for developing greater learner autonomy, self- confidence and motivation.
Building on curriculum development work begun in 2000, the Law Faculty at QUT has developed a sophisticated assessment framework to demonstrate achievement of what they describe as a set of ‘graduate capabilities’. The framework focuses on embedding four areas of ‘social, relational and cultural capability’ across the curriculum, namely oral communication skills, teamwork, indigenous content and perspectives on law, and ethical knowledge and values.
The approach to teamwork at QUT is integrated across a range of core modules, builds teamwork into classroom and independent learning activities and uses different group assessment tasks. For example, in Corporate Law (in Year 3), the major assessment task is a group assignment based on a teamwork portfolio which is completed by groups operating both face to face and in a virtual learning environment. Self- and peer evaluation of teamwork also forms part of the assessment for this module. The module Law, Society and Justice (Year 1) assesses teamwork via an oral group presentation. A formatively assessed Teamwork Reflection Sheet is also provided to support learning in this module. Advanced Research and Legal Reasoning (Year 4) requires students to work in groups to produce a range of written documents, such as memoranda of legal advice, client letters, and a client newsletter (Kift et al., 2006).
(Submission for Carrick Award led by Professor Sally Kift)
Using reflective narratives as assessment tools
The value of developing students’ capacity for reflection is widely acknowledged in higher education theory and practice, particularly as part of a strategy of making assessment more authentic. Assessment is authentic when the task has a degree of ‘real- world’ complexity, the learning it measures has value beyond the classroom and is (or becomes in the process) personally meaningful to the learner. Authenticity is more likely to be achieved where a variety of assessment mechanisms are deployed.
The use of reflective narrative in law has its origins in clinical legal education where it draws substantially on the literature of ‘reflective practice’ (see Maughan and Webb, 1996). In this context it is not surprising that reflective narratives are most often cited in the legal education as tools that are useful in the development of academic and practical skills, such as research, writing and legal literacy, presentation skills, group working (again), and so on. But its scope and value are broader than that. As Cowan (1999: 18) observes, reflection occurs whenever a student ‘analyse[s] or evaluate[s] one or more personal experiences and attempt[s] to generalise from that thinking’. It thus constitutes 378 ❘ Teaching in the disciplines
a quite fundamental (self-)critical facility, which, it is argued, can be demonstrated by students ‘surfacing’ their reflection about any given learning experience. Looked at from this perspective, the scope for using reflective narratives is probably wider than we conventionally allow. Maughan and Webb (1996: 283), for example, have suggested that reflective narratives can be used to encourage students to record their reflection on:
• specific skills, attributes or behaviours demonstrated in a specific task;
• practical legal knowledge, focusing on the operation of substantive or procedural law ‘in action’;
• theories about the legal process.
Reflective narratives can take a variety of forms – short, independent summary sheets in which students record reflections on specific activities or tutorials; elements of a portfolio, or a fully fledged learning diary, in which students accumulate a rich articulation of their experience over an extended period of time (e.g. as part of a clinical or work placement).
Narratives may also be private or relatively public documents. Information technology may be used to democratise reflective learning through e-portfolio tools and blogs, facilitating the creation and sharing of students’ reflection with both peers and tutors.
Given the sometimes quite personal nature of reflection, the decision to use such fora needs to be considered carefully, with the support of the students involved, though it may be that, with the growing popularity of social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook, this is less of an issue than it once was.
Reflective narratives are valued for their ability to personalise learning and support development within what educationalists call the affective domain – the area of values, feelings, motivations – and this is largely how they add authenticity to assessment.
Equally, some commentators acknowledge that, given the highly personalised nature of the learning involved, they generate problems of reliability that one does not encounter with more standardised assessment activities. Even some proponents of reflective narratives and journals question the appropriateness of assessing them summatively because this can distort the way they are used, i.e. students are conscious of the assessment context and may be more wary of reporting their full experience or accurate reflection if they feel such comments are inappropriate to or will not be valued in the formal assessment process.
Rethinking assessment
Assessment has tended to be the Cinderella topic when thinking about course design and development. New (and established) teachers wishing to innovate may find themselves confronted by a variety of challenges: resource or programme design constraints, sceptical colleagues, and sometimes sceptical students too. At the same time, there is growing recognition of the importance of variety in assessment practices, of ensuring that assessment is properly aligned with the range of learning objectives, and Enhancing learning in legal education ❘ 379
fit for purpose in a context where students have been skilled very differently by schools and colleges from preceding generations.
OVERVIEW
The purpose of this chapter has been to review some of the challenges of taking law teaching seriously. It explores some of the practical constraints that exist, and acknowledges those that are largely self-imposed. It shows how both student and university expectations are changing, that effective legal academics are expected to be not only researchers and purveyors of legal scholarship, but also familiar with educational theory and practice, and willing to bring the same critical and reflective attitudes to their teaching as their research. It sets out to highlight, albeit briefly, some examples of good and innovative practice, and in the process demonstrates ways in which law teaching can, and does, draw on general theories of higher education pedagogy and practice as well as its own distinctive discourse. Above all else it has sought to show that greater creativity in teaching and learning can serve to (re)generate that sense of exploration and excitement which attracted many of us to learning law in the first place.
REFERENCES
Anderson, L W and Krathwohl, D R (eds) (2001) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, New York: Longman.
Bone, A (1999) Ensuring Successful Assessment, Coventry: National Centre for Legal Education.
Available online at ,http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/assessment/bone.html. (accessed 10 September 2007).
Boud, D and Feletti, G (1997) The Challenge of Problem Based Learning (2nd edn), London: Kogan Page.
Clegg, K (2004) Playing Safe: Learning and Teaching in Undergraduate Law, Coventry: UK Centre for Legal Education. Available online at ,http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/research/ukcle/
ncle.html.(accessed 3 September 2007).
Cowan, J (1999) On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Directions in Legal Education (2004) ‘Counting the Cost of the Law Degree’. Available online at www.ukcle.ac.uk/directions/previous/issue8/leader.html
380 ❘ Teaching in the disciplines
Interrogating practice
Look at the assessments in a module that you are delivering.
In the light of the above, what changes, if any, would you make to the assessment design and/or process?
Jenkins, A, Healey, M and Zetter, R (2007) Linking Teaching and Research in Disciplines and Departments, York: Higher Education Academy. Available online at ,http://www.
heacademy.ac.uk/resources/publications.(accessed 10 September 2007).
Kift, S, Shirley, M, Thomas, M, Cuffe, N and Field, R (2006) ‘An Innovative Assessment Framework for Enhancing Learning in the Faculty of Law at QUT’. Submission for the Carrick Awards for Australian University Teaching 2006. Available online at ,http://law.
gsu.edu/ccunningham/LegalEd/Aus-QUT-Kift1.pdf.(accessed 10 September 2007).
Law Society/Bar Council (2004) Joint Statement on Qualifying Law Degrees. Available online at ,http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/documents/downloads/becomingacademicjoint state.pdf.(accessed 9 September 2007).
Maharg, P (2007) ‘The Scottish Teaching, Learning and Assessment Survey’. Available online at ,http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/directions/previous/issue2/survey.html.(accessed 10 September 2007).
Maughan, C and Webb, J (1996) ‘Taking Reflection Seriously: How Was it for US?’, in J Webb and C Maughan (eds), Teaching Lawyers’ Skills, London: Butterworth.
Pontin, B with Bowen, S, Hickman, J, Lloyd, I, Lopes, C and Wilkes, J (2007) ‘Environmental Law History (No 1) – Tipping v St Helens Smelting Company (1865): “Antidevelopment”
or “Sustainable Development”?’, Environmental Law and Management, 19, 7–18.
Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) (2000) Academic Standards – Law, Gloucester: QAA.
Ramsden, P. (2003) Learning to Teach in Higher Education, London: Routledge.
Scott, A, ‘An Introduction to Judicial Review: The Estate Agent’s Problem’. Available online at ,http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/pbl/index.html/uea.html. (accessed 9 September 2007).
Twining, W (1994) Blackstone’s Tower, London: Sweet & Maxwell.
FURTHER READING
Burridge, R et al. (2002) Effective Learning and Teaching in Law, London: Kogan Page. A useful collection of essays covering topics at both undergraduate and postgraduate level including: experiential learning; e-learning; teaching ethics; human rights; and teaching law to non-lawyers.
Le Brun, M and Johnston, R (1994) The Quiet Revolution: Improving Student Learning in Law, Sydney: Law Book Co. This is an excellent book for those interested in bridging the gap between educational theory and practice and offers a range of ideas on how to enliven undergraduate teaching.
Maharg, P (2007) Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-First Century, Aldershot: Ashgate. A sophisticated blend of interdisciplinary theories and cutting-edge research and development work on the use of simulation and gaming in legal education. A glimpse of the direction in which legal education is going, or needs to go – perhaps?
Webb, J, and Maughan, C (eds) (1996) (See above under Maughan and Webb.) A series of essays which seek to develop both the theory and practice of teaching and assessing skills in undergraduate and vocational legal education. Some of the examples are now somewhat dated, but most of the underlying thinking and experience remains highly relevant.
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Key aspects of teaching and learning in accounting, business and management
Ursula Lucas and Peter Milford
INTRODUCTION
This chapter aims to identify the distinctive features of education in accounting, business and management and the way in which they may impact upon teaching, learning and assessment strategies. Business education forms a significant sector within higher education. In 2005/2006 200,000 undergraduate students (some 11 per cent of the total student population) were enrolled on business, management and accounting degree programmes (HESA, 2006). To this total should be added those students who study business subjects as part of their own specialist degree studies. The diversity of students, disciplines and stakeholders within business education produces tensions that are not easily resolved and creates a complex and challenging environment for lecturers. This chapter will explore the implications of this environment for the development of learning, teaching and assessment strategies within business education. The emphasis of the chapter will be on undergraduate education in the UK, although much of the discussion may also be relevant more widely, including to postgraduate education.