Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Learning to solve legal cases:
The effects of instructional support
Fleurie Nievelstein
Tamara van Gog
Gijs van Dijck*
Els Boshuizen
Open University of the Netherlands
*Faculty of law, Tilburg University
Reasoning about cases
complex skill:
• Domain complexity- Interpretation legal concepts
- Using external sources / knowledge about the structure
- Adversarial reasoning
- High number of non routine task aspects
• Students’ knowledge structures
Problematic for preferred instructional method:
‘learning by doing’
Is ‘learning by doing’ effective for learning ?
Previous research suggests high cognitive load caused by:
• Incomplete conceptual knowledge • Search process
(Nievelstein, Van Gog, Boshuizen, & Prins, 2008; in press)
Instructional support
• Optimize cognitive load; more capacity for processes effective for learning
- focus on important task aspects
- trying to understand the underlying legal framework
- intention to improve reasoning performance
• Cognitive load is measured by the mental effort scale
Experiment 1
79 first-year law students Tilburg University
• Pre-test• 2 Training cases• 1 Test case • Mental effort
Experiment 1
(1) Concept explanations and
Condensed civil code
(2) Concept explanations
(complete civil code)
(3) Condensed civil code (4) No support
‘learning by doing’
(complete civil code)
Results reasoning on test
• Support by condensed civil code during training leads to sig. better performance on the reasoning test than students not supported with the condensed civil code
• No interaction effects • No effects on mental effort• Higher efficiency
• Lot of room for improvement…!
Performance test
0
5
10
15
20
25
ConceptsCond.Code
Concepts Cond.code No support
Max 100 points
Experiment 2
• 75 first-year students & 36 third-year students
• Pre-test• 2 Training cases• 1 Test case• Complete civil code• Mental effort
Experiment 2
(1) Worked-out examples and
Proces steps
(2) Worked-out examples
(3) Proces steps (4) No support
‘learning by doing’
Results experiment 2
• Support by worked examples during the training phase leads to significant better results on reasoning during the test
• Applies for both, first-year and third-year students!
No expertise reversal effect!
Performance test first-year students
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
WorkedEx Steps WorkedEx Steps No support
Max 100 points
Comparing first-year students exp. 1 and 2
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Cond.code Worked examples
Max 100 points
Performance test third-year students
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
WorkedEx Steps WorkedEx Steps No Support
Max 100 points
Mental effort
• Students who studied worked examples reported less mental effort (during learning) than students who solved the case with no support or problem steps
• No differences on mental effort reported on the test, but....
• Studying examples leads to higher performance
Practical / Theoretical implications
• Support by worked examples improves learning • Higher efficiency • No expertise reversal effect; probably due to the
domain complexity
