Abstract
This paper is concerned with the ways in which undergraduates are first introduced to Law of Contract in a University Law School. Concept mapping is used to document students’ changing understanding in the course of one first year undergraduate module. Forty seven students (the members of four tutorial groups) made concept maps of “Law of Contract” at the start and at the finish of a twenty-four week study-programme and their maps were compared with two other concept maps made by their lecturer: 1) a map of the teaching sequence; 2) a map of the practices of Law of Contract. The analysis shows how the teaching sequence inscribes itself upon the students’ concept mapping structures even while this temporal pattern has little (or no) genuine accord with the knowledge-shape of legal analysis. The paper explores two different approaches to concept map analysis: First the more traditional perspective of cognition (and cognitive-structure); second the “linguistic-turn”. Both of these highlight the “artifice of teaching sequence” but they locate this problem in different arenas. While the cognitive approach suggests that the problem is a general issue of student learning quality, the linguistic approach is more specific, suggesting that the problem is confined to the lesson planning which does not actually involve the students. This paper also concludes that while concept mapping shows the acquisition of a new vocabulary of legal concepts, the method itself is rather less useful for showing whether or not students are developing the skills of making judgement.
Highlights
StructureThe mainstay of this paper entails a more or less conventional (Novakian) concept map analysis in which we document the quality of learning among first year undergraduates using their before and after teaching maps of “Contract Law”
Between modelling and material realization in experimental settings
The mainstay of this paper entails a more or less conventional (Novakian) concept map analysis in which we document the quality of learning among first year undergraduates using their before and after teaching maps of “Contract Law”
Summary
The mainstay of this paper entails a more or less conventional (Novakian) concept map analysis in which we document the quality of learning among first year undergraduates using their before and after teaching maps of “Contract Law” This analysis follows the definition of meaningful learning which is most traditionally associated with the concept mapping method (Novak, 2010), depending on the deliberate integration of new information (i.e. the teaching material) with prior-knowledge (Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978; Novak, 1977; Novak, Mintzes & Wandersee, 2000; Hay, 2007). The data and the structural analysis which we employ exemplify the ways in which students learn the teaching-shape (literally, the order of the teaching), even while this sequence has little (or no) genuine relation to the complex knowledge-shape of “the legal problem” We term this tendency an “artifice of teaching sequence” and suggest that it is a common concept mapping finding in the higher education setting. This is explained below as a back-drop to the more “linguistic” turn developed later in this paper
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