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What kind(s) of evidence do we have about the impact(s) of clinic ?

This conference presentation explores the types and use of evidence in clinical legal education, including argumentation theory and the impact on inquiry. It evaluates the existing literature and discusses the need for veridical evidence to assess the impact of clinic on student learning outcomes.

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What kind(s) of evidence do we have about the impact(s) of clinic ?

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  1. What kind(s) of evidence do we have about the impact(s) of clinic? Elaine Hall, with Tribe Mkwebu and Emma Hall Northumbria University GAJE/IJCLE Conference Andalou University Eskisehir, Turkey

  2. What have we got and how can we evaluate it? • Why do we undertake inquiry? • The Fixation of Belief and ways to achieve this • What do we mean when we talk about there being evidence? • Types of evidence and how they help to fix belief • How is evidence used to make a case? • Argumentation theory, warrant and backing • What’s going on in CLE research? • The systematic review • The maps • Evaluating the work

  3. Peirce’s forms of inquiry

  4. The place of evidence in Toulmin’s argumentation and the impact on inquiry (from Kvernbekk, 2013)

  5. What’s going on in CLE? (Mkwebu, in press)

  6. What does my journal contain in terms of evidence? • IJCLE articles are • Interested in historical/ geographical comparisons in their literature reviews, citing many of the same key references • Where focused on the ‘why’ of clinic, tend to be advocacy pieces: • descriptive of societal representations of lawyers and/ or clinic or • descriptive of traditional/clinical approaches to disciplinary learning rather than analysing data • counter-examples of critical policy or curricular analysis (e.g. Joy 2005; Gold, 2015) • Where focused on practice, tend to be narratives (most use single case study of author context) with a split between • focus on establishing and sustaining clinical activity, • student learning experience • Overwhelmingly positive stories • Make overwhelming use of qualitative methodologies – most frequently the use of quotes from student feedback. Comparative methods and quantitative data are rare

  7. So what does IJCLE mean when it talks about evidence? Our students in clinic learn the law and do well, they get jobs as lawyers later on Learning by doing is better than simply reading about it and our students say they are having a richer experience • We have epistemic situation and subjectiveevidence: • Hypothesis: clinic is a worthy alternative to traditional teaching methods • What we don’t have are veridicaland potential evidence: Students of equal prior attainment randomly assigned to clinic do better than students randomly assigned to traditional conditions and all other factors are accounted for Students with lower prior attainment in the degree do better on the clinical elements and tend to get overall more 2:1s than would have been predicted

  8. Is this a developmental issue?

  9. References • Achinstein, P. (2001) The Book of Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • de Waal, C. (2013) Peirce: A guide for the perplexed. London: Bloomsbury • Hall, E. and Baumfield, V. (2014) ‘What do we (think we) know about evidence?’ Paper presented as part of Network 15 Research Partnership in Education at the European Conference on Educational Research, September 2014, Porto • Hall, E. (2009) ‘Engaging in and engaging with research: teacher inquiry and development’ Teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 15, 6, pp669-682 • Kvernbekk, T. (2011) ‘The concept of evidence in evidence-based practice’ Educational Theory, 61, 5, pp515-532. • Kvernbekk, T. (2013) ‘Evidence-Based Practice: On the Function of Evidence in Practical Reasoning’ Studier iPædagogiskFilosofi, 2, 2, pp19-33 • Mkwebu, T. (in press) A Systematic Review of Literature on Clinical Legal Education: A Tool for Researchers in Responding to an Explosion of Clinical Scholarship International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 22, 3 • Peirce, C. S. (1877) ‘The Fixation of Belief’Popular Science Monthly 12, November, pp1-15 • Toulmin, S. E. (1958/2003) The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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