Achieving designated outcomes: Measuring the integration of skills- related outcomes into the student learning experience

Principal Supervisor

Professor Anne Scully-Hill, Faculty of Law
Duration

2 years
Approved Budget

HK $500,000
 
  • Project Objectives
  • Description
  • Evaluation of outcomes
  • Dissemination of results & deliverables

Project Objectives

  • To measure the extent to which LLB students perceive that they have attained the outcomes relating to multidimensional skills and the degree to which they integrate those outcomes into their subsequent learning of the law.
  • To facilitate whatever improvements need to be made to the delivery and assessment of the Year 1 programme in order to enhance the students’ use of, and reliance on, these multidimensional skills during the remainder of the LLB degree programme.

Description of process and deliverables

  • January–March 2007: Templates (checklists, surveys, etc.) to enable and identify teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation of attainment of course outcomes at the end of the relevant Year 1 LLB courses.
  • June 2007: Models and procedures to enhance delivery, acquisition and assessment of multidimensional skills-based outcomes in relevant Year 1 LLB courses.
  • October–December 2007: Templates (checklists, surveys, etc.) to enable and identify teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation of the integration of course outcomes from Year 1 skills-based courses into their learning experience in Year 2 substantive law courses.
  • June 2008: Models and procedures to enhance potential integration of multidimensional skills-based outcomes into the Year 2 LLB student learning experience.
  • December 2008: Overall evaluation plan (for both quality assurance and quality improvement) for the effective attainment by students of multidimensional skills across the LLB programme.

Evaluation of outcomes

  • Teacher evaluation of learning outcomes for the relevant courses.
  • Student evaluation of their own learning via questionnaires.
  • Student evaluation to be repeated over two cycles.
  • Focus group interviews to gather richer and more detailed information from the students about their own sense of achieving and assimilating the skills based learning outcomes.

Dissemination of results & deliverables

  • A teaching development workshop was held to which all School of Law teaching colleagues were invited. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss teaching philosophy and in particular the location and exposition of skills based learning outcomes in different courses.
  • The skills matrix has been disseminated to colleagues for comment in two different versions. Feedback has resulted in the final version. The skills matrix will also be shared with LLB students at the start of the new academic year.
  • A revised course template, expressing the skills based learning outcomes in the course expressly, has been circulated to all staff.
  • The possibility of reporting to the other law schools is under consideration and suitable forum is being explored.
  • One academic paper on student ‘learning through doing’ is being written with a view to publication in the ‘Legal Education’ journal, an international, peer reviewed journal.