Coventry University: E-Journals
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Developing Early Career Researchers’ Self-efficacy for Academic Writing
Get PDFSelf-efficacy is important for maintaining a person’s belief in their capacity to perform desired behaviours and achieve desired goals; without self-efficacy, in the context of academic writing, one may doubt their ability to achieve writing goals. Previous research showed that the Writing Meeting Framework (WMF) can enable desired changes in writing behaviours but did not consider the role of self-efficacy in this behaviour change. This UK-based study aimed to determine if the WMF could improve writing self-efficacy for postgraduate researchers (PGRs) and early career researchers (ECRs). Participants completed a baseline questionnaire to reflect on their writing experiences and then were randomly matched into 35 pairs. Each pair met online four times over eight weeks using the WMF and then completed a post-questionnaire, reflecting on their experiences. Analysis showed significant improvements in self-efficacy using the WMF: participants improved their ability to set realistic and achievable writing goals and increased their confidence in completing writing goals regularly. This study shows the WMF can develop PGRs’ and ECRs’ academic writing self-efficacy and suggests the WMF can develop writing attributes required to produce academic writing regularly and achieve individual writing goals. The WMF offers a mechanism for developing this important component of effective writing behaviour
Resilience and student wellbeing in Higher Education: A theoretical basis for establishing law school responsibilities for helping our students to thrive
Get PDFThere is widespread concern for the mental wellbeing of our students. We argue that, while resisting the neoliberal tendencies that contribute to this, we have a responsibility for helping our students to thrive. Rooted in a theory of positive psychology: self determination theory, we present methods which may help us in this endeavour. These include our approaches to marketing and recruitment, curriculum design, assessment and feedback, experiential learning and developing a safe learning environment. We suggest how addressing these areas of our practice may assist students to develop their competence, and to experience autonomy and relatedness during their programmes of learning. In so doing we provide sources which underpin our arguments and which, we hope, will encourage a debate across European law faculties on this important topic
Pro Bono Develops Pericles and Plumbers: The roles of clinical legal education in contemporary European law schools
Get PDFLegal education is often thought of as divided between the ‘clinical’/‘functional’/‘vocational’ and the ‘liberal’/‘holistic’, or even ‘formalist’/‘positivist’. Drawing on original data from students participating in pro bono work in a fairly typical European law clinic, we show that students do not appear to think such distinctions are particularly significant to their university learning journeys or their future career aspirations. Such distinctions may make sense at an institutional level, but at the level of an individual student and their learning experience, clinical/functional/vocational elements are not perceived as distinct from curricular learning in a liberal/holistic or even formalist/positivist mode
Independence of Mind: Moral reasoning and judgment in legal education
Get PDFThis article has as its central question how we can teach our students what judicial independence (at the individual level) means in practice and how we can teach them in developing an independent mind as a lawyer, with a sovereign voice. In doing so. The article explores the idea that law is about making decisions, referring to the work of Jerome Frank and Paul Scholten. This legal theoretical context allows me to introduce three important factors that we have to bear in mind if we seek to foster an education that prepares students for professional life: education as a means to coming into the world, education as a means of suspending judgement and education as a means of moral reasoning. Each are worked out. In the end, the strength of legal education lies in teaching our students legal consciousness: the ability to make judgments, forming opinions, taking a stance, acquire courage, and the responsibility that comes with it
Using a ‘Students as Partners’ Approach for Designing Student Supports
Get PDFIn this paper we argue that a ‘Students as Partners’ approach should be used when designing student support systems. The ‘Students as Partners’ or SaP framework, which emphasizes respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility between faculty partners and student partners. It involves working collaboratively with student partners and ceding some control over processes and outputs. We demonstrate how a SaP approach worked in practice when redesigning an academic advisory system for students. The SaP approach helped to ensure that we identified students’ needs and expectations, as well as the barriers and challenges they faced. It also enhanced communication, respect and mutual understanding between faculty and students.This article also identifies some of the challenges associated with SaP, and reflects on both the positive and negative outcomes experienced by both the faculty partners and the student partners. The positives greatly outweighed the negatives, and we argue that SaP approaches ought to be mainstreamed when designing student supports systems
The National Research and Innovation System in the United Kingdom: A Brief History
Get PDFWhat is new?
This paper provides a walk through key elements and decisions in recent UK research and innovation policy, up to September 2023.
What was the approach?
The paper uses the relevant policy documents of the period, and draws on the author’s lived experience.
What is the academic impact?
The paper provides a context for other studies of Research Management and Administration, enabling other researchers to connect to relevant parts of policy development.
What is the wider impact?
The paper provides research management practitioners with the context in which policies are developed, and the interconnections that will influence future policies. It is a form of practitioner’s literature survey, albeit not comprehensive
Practice Without Theory: A Philosophical Inquiry into Contemporary Nursing in South Asia: Nursing Practice without Theory
No full textThe paper critically examines the prevalent sentiment among nurses in practice who reject the necessity of nursing theory. Through a philosophical lens, the author challenges this assertion, emphasizing the pivotal role of theory in contemporary nursing practice. The discussion explores the broader purpose of theory, detailing its relevance to nursing and its instrumental role in empowering nurses for the future of the profession. The paper contends that theory is indispensable in today's practice, especially in South Asian countries facing healthcare disparities. It traces the evolution of nursing in this region from a vocation to a profession facilitated by nursing theories. Without theory, nursing in South Asia may risk reverting to a stage where nurses are perceived as powerless and marginalized. In conclusion, paper advocates for a better understanding of the intricate link between theory and practice to empower nurses and positively impact the future of profession in region
Editorial
Get PDFIt is a genuine pleasure to introduce this third issue of the European Journal of Legal Education. As I reflect on this past year since our second issue and wonder how we can make legal education work best, two things come to mind. Firstly, the pandemic will change the way we educate. The crisis has been painful for all, staff and students alike, but from it changes will emerge and these will help improve the way we teach and the way we learn. Secondly, the pandemic forced an uptake in technology which, too, will benefit future lawyers. In summary, we have as a result enormous opportunities, experience and good practice for changing the way we teach, learn and work. There is potential for critical conversations in legal education, conversations that can help reconfigure the legal landscape
Law teaching for sale: Legal shadow education in Denmark from historical and current perspectives
Get PDFThis study examines the use of supplementary private teaching (‘shadow education’) within the legal education in Denmark from historical and current perspectives. The aim is to estimate the extent of this phenomenon and understand why law students chose to pay for private teaching services. The study documents that practices that we today would label as shadow education are as old as the University of Copenhagen (1479) and the formal legal education (1736). During a period of around 150 years (1780-1930), the exam-oriented private teaching (manuduction) was, in fact, the backbone of legal education. The sources show that the poor state of the university education, including archaic teaching methods, was the primary reason for this: the private teaching was the market’s solution to a broken public education. Educational reforms during the first half of the 20th century challenged the raison d'être of the private manuduction industry, and the Danish welfare state provided the fatal blow in 1960: free university manuduction. However, the private teaching industry has been resurrected in the 21st century in a more corporate, professional, and aggressive form. The study documents that today around 60 percent of the law students have paid for private teaching services during their legal education. Moreover, the study shows that the quality of the university teaching in no longer the main catalyst, but rather the appeal of radically exam-oriented courses and the students’ insecurities, especially the first-years. The study links this development to the emergence of the competition state. Finally, the study concludes that the prevalence of shadow education at any time is a function of the dynamic relationship between the three players: the university, the students, and the private providers