Balan, Anil; (2021) Investigating the practical challenges brought about by the introduction of a vocational pedagogy into the academic traditions of university law courses. Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Skills development and employability have in recent years become central aspects of legal education. Part of the rationale for this study was that the crucial perspective of law teachers towards teaching legal skills, and the challenges they might face in doing so through vocational pedagogies such as authentic assessment and problem-based learning (PBL) given the academic traditions of most university law courses, has not been given sufficient consideration. To address this, it was important to identify how teaching and curriculum development is being carried out at present, what challenges and opportunities are provided by current practices in this area, what needs to change and how these changes are to be implemented, bearing in mind practicalities affecting what interventions can be made. The principal aim of this study was to identify and resolve these issues by interviewing law teachers and using thematic analysis to analyse their interview transcripts, in order to develop a set of guidelines (the PREPS framework) for incorporating authentic assessment and PBL into the law curriculum to prepare students for employment, based on themes identified through empirical research. This study focused on PBL and authentic assessment because they are vocational pedagogies especially relevant for teaching legal skills, contextualising these skills and addressing skills gaps in legal education. The key research findings – such as the increasing focus for law teachers on teaching legal skills in their disciplinary context, the effect of professional and teaching background on the perspectives of law teachers, the central importance of student engagement and the impact of environmental factors such as the coronavirus pandemic – will have wider implications for legal education in the context of the employability agenda as well as recommendations for professional practice in terms of developing an authentic teaching and assessment framework for legal education. The participants in this study were law teachers teaching legal skills to students from widening participation backgrounds and its findings therefore have particular relevance to widening participation institutions, which have tended to place a more explicit focus on legal skills teaching but face additional challenges in terms of teaching and assessing to meet the employability agenda, with limited resources and less freedom.

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