Research often examines cognitive load as it relates to direct instruction, worked examples and problem-solving combined as an integrated whole. The present study examines these strategies in isolation to see their effect on cognitive load. Using learning materials covering the basics of critical thinking to undergraduate law students (n = 160) at…

This article demonstrates how, and provides all necessary material, to utilize experiential classroom integration of an earthquake insurance policy as an engaging and immersive tool to introduce business law students to applied contract analysis and interpretation. Students also gain an understanding of insurance concepts through this exercise.…

After analyzing and reflecting upon the errors students made when facing English writing activities, it was proposed to implement problematizing tutoring sessions as a strategy to assist them in overcoming their hurdles when writing. The participants of the study were 37 third-semester Law students from Universidad Santo Tomás…

The Australian Learning and Teaching Council's Bachelor of Laws Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement identified "thinking skills" as one of the six threshold learning outcomes for a Bachelor of Laws Program, which reinforced the significance of learning, teaching and assessing "thinking skills" in law schools…

"Thinking like a lawyer" is traditionally associated with rational-analytical problem solving and an adversarial approach to conflict. These features have been correlated with problems of psychological, or emotional, distress amongst lawyers and law students. These problems provide a strong argument for incorporating a consideration of…

The worked example effect indicates that learning by studying worked examples is more effective than learning by solving the equivalent problems. The expertise reversal effect indicates that this is only the case for novice learners; once prior knowledge of the task is available problem solving becomes more effective for learning. These effects,…

Argumentation is a process that occurs often in ill-defined domains and that helps deal with the ill-definedness. Typically a notion of "correctness" for an argument in an ill-defined domain is impossible to define or verify formally because the underlying concepts are open-textured and the quality of the argument may be subject to discussion or…

Whole tasks for acquiring complex skills are often too difficult for novices. To solve this problem, "process support" divides the problem solving into phases, offers driving questions, and provides feedback. A multimedia program was used to teach sophomore law students ("N"=82) to prepare and carry out a plea. In a randomised 2x2 design with the…

The problem method is defined and legal education objectives and achievement of those objectives by the problem method are examined. The use of the problem method in specific courses is discussed. An appendix lists problem method materials currently available to law teachers. (Author/MLW)

The purpose of this study was to get more insight in the effects of written assessment tasks integrated in a problem-based learning environment. Both the influence on students' performances and students' perceptions were investigated. Students' final exam results were used to find out whether students who make the assessment tasks do better than…

Recently developed multidimensional-scaling methodology was used to explore the underlying structure of moral reasoning responses to 12 moral dilemmas by 111 graduate students in law and social work and to relate that structure to individual differences. Results indicate that moral reasoning must be viewed from multidimensional and interactional…