Abstract
LAW SCHOOLS are beginning to use computer-based technology to teach process-oriented skills such as establishing client-attorney relationships, interviewing witnesses, and evaluating evidence. These skills are difficult to learn merely through reading cases or listening to another’s experience.
This paper describes an implementation formative evaluation of two types of orienting instruction provided law students using an open-ended interactive videodisc to develop a civil rights case. Twenty pairs of first-year students were randomly-assigned to guided or unguided sections to use theLitigation Strategies disc to develop the case, and, after 90 minutes, to specify criteria for a legal complaint. The project was carried out as part of the first-year Legal Methods class at Harvard Law School.
Data collection involved direct observation, online tracking of usage patterns, post-use completion of the legal complaint, individual questionnaires, and paired interviews. Analysis addressed student pathways through the case, the relationship between mode of use (i.e., guided or unguided), and student perceptions of their experience. Results are described and interpreted in terms of the variety of strategies used by students in both modes, the greater likelihood of guided (versus unguided) pairs producing superior legal complaints, and the desire of students in both modes for additional orienting instruction. Implications of this study underscore the importance of learning more about developing orienting instruction in cognitively-demanding computer-based environments.
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Hoelscher, K.J. Bridging the classroom and the real world: A videodisc implementation study at Harvard Law School. J. Comput. High. Educ. 2, 32–77 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02941582
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02941582