Student perceptions of mindful reflection as a media law teaching tool

Abstract

Graduates’ failure to pause, reflect and draw on their learning to predict the legal consequences of their publishing can result in fines, damages and even jail terms. This article reports upon a survey of more than one hundred media law students in courses at an Australian university over two years where mindfulness-based cognitive reflections were used as a teaching tool. The author and colleague developed a conceptual map to explain the potentialities of mindfulness-based meditation in journalism education. In this action research project, mindfulness-based reflections were offered regularly during a media law course, with a strong emphasis upon emotional and situational analysis of media law dilemmas, as a complement to a traditional style of teaching media law cases, legislation and topics. Basic mindfulness meditation practices can equip students with a toolkit of techniques for inward reflection which they can use to assess their thought processes, emotional states, workplace situations, legal dilemmas, ethics and learning. The approach is in accord with the research on metacognition in psychology and education. The study reports a variety of student responses to the mindfulness reflection experience, ranging from some who objected to its use or who reported it to be of no value to their media law studies through to others who found it invaluable for their learning and lives. Students responded to a series of both Likert and open-ended questions covering their previous meditation exposure, frequency of participation, perceived benefits and shortcomings, extent of assisting learning and suggestions for improvements in the technique.