Bridging the classroom and the real world: A videodisc implementation study at Harvard Law School

This study examined how first-year law students developed a civil rights case using an open-ended interactive videodisk ("Litigation Strategies"), which uses a visual and textual database to complement the traditional curriculum by simulating the experience of a junior partner in a law firm. An implementation and formative evaluation examined the use of two types of orienting instruction: (1) unguided (i.e., general instructions and a statement of the task); and (2) guided (i.e., instructions, task statement, and a list of case development strategies). Twenty pairs of second-semester Harvard Law students volunteered to participate. Student pairs were randomly assigned to guided or unguided orienting instruction to develop the case. After 90 minutes, they specified three criteria for a legal complaint: plaintiff(s), defendant(s) and cause(s) of action. Data collection involved direct observation, online tracking of usage patterns, post-use completion of the legal complaint, an individual post-use questionnaire, and a post-use structured interview. Data analyses addressed students' pathways through the case, the relationship between mode of use and performance on the complaint, and the relationship between mode of use and student perceptions of their experience. Results indicate that while both guided and unguided student pairs used a variety of effective case development strategies, guided pairs were more likely to produce superior legal complaints than unguided pairs. Additional orienting instruction was desired by 70% of the unguided pairs as well as by 40% of the guided pairs. (25 references) (GL) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 4 This document has been reproduced as recis.ved from the person or origanizahon originatIng 11 P Minor changes have been made to Improve reproduction Quality Points of view or opinlons stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI Position or policy Bridging the Classroom and the Real World: A Videodisc Implementation Study at Harvard Law School Karen J. Hoelscher, Multimedia Research 1016 Island Lake Avenue St. Paul, MN 55126 (612) 481-1630 Presented at the Annual iveeting of the American Educational Research Association Boston, Massachusetts April, 1990