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 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 Max 100 points

Comparing first-year students exp. 1 and 2 Max 100 points

Performance test third-year students 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

Thank you for your attention Questions, remarks?? Fleurie Nievelstein