Field, Andrew --- "The Agency of Innovation: Subject Websites, Their Perceived Value and Student Performance" [2004] LegEdRev 6; (2004) 14(2) Legal Education Review 127

The Agency of Innovation: Subject Websites, their Perceived Value and Student Performance

Andrew Field*

Ancora imparo1

Introduction

The innovations of the information revolution, computers, the Internet and other increasingly frequent signs that we are now living in the 21st century have given rise to novel observations in all fields of human activity. In the teaching of the law in university courses, this is no exception.

The observation which gave rise to the present article arose through the teaching of an introductory course of commercial law to business students during Semester 1 2002. The students who are presently enrolled in BTF1010 Commercial Law at Monash University, Australia, experience many features their predecessors of past generations would recognise in attending university. For example, students attend lectures and tutorials. However, they are also assisted in their studies by the provision of a number of technological teaching and learning aids. For example, lectures are accompanied by a series of PowerPoint projections; copies of those overheads can be obtained prior to the lecture via a subject website on the Internet. Various other teaching materials such as past exam papers, tutorial questions, sample assignment questions and answers can also be obtained from the website. In other words, the personal computer and its attachments are ubiquitous.

The relevant observation concerned a student who five weeks into semester was identified as answering a greater proportion of questions in a 20-student tutorial class and who had an above average command of the material being studied and discussed than her classmates. That observation alone was not exceptional. However, a further observation derived from an in-built counter on the subject website (or “unit” as they are called at Monash University) that keeps a tally of the times students access pages on the unit website, noted that this particular student had accessed the website2 more than 150 times. In the teaching of Commercial Law, the WebCT site is used mainly as a course materials delivery platform. Thus, in view of the fact that the students would probably have only needed to access the site to download the unit tutorial questions book, the unit outline and five weeks of lecture notes, this figure appeared staggering. In fact, prima facie it was a figure four times what appeared to be the average of over 500 students enrolled in the unit. This observation posed in the author’s mind the question as to whether there was a correlation between the frequency of student access to the WebCT site and a student’s final performance in the unit, as represented by their final grade. Thus posed the hypothesis – that better performing students access the Commercial Law WebCT page more frequently than other students.

The realisation that this hypothesis had not been tested for this unit, which was one of the first to adopt WebCT at Monash University in 1999, and that there was little evidence of student use or appreciation of the teaching tool, gave rise to another question. The question was premised upon a smouldering debate between those academic staff who expend many hours in the preparation and maintenance of electronic aids, including PowerPoint slides, and those staff who dismiss such aids as either unnecessary or exercises in “spoon feeding” students. Is the “Luddite” element of Academia correct to scoff at such “gadgets”?3 Therefore, the question was whether there was real value in using WebCT as measured in terms of correlations between student performance and frequency of WebCT access or in terms of the students’ own perceptions.

The study, which formed the basis of this article, was concerned with addressing these two questions. The article commences in “Developments in Teaching Technologies”, below, by arguing that the realities of modern lecturing and teaching in a university require an ability to embrace change.

Of course, not all change is positive. Not all innovations live up to the claims made in their favour. Hence, despite the claims that have been made regarding the strengths of WebCT as a teaching aid, the present examination was considered necessary. As a vast literature already exists questioning the effect of teaching technologies on student performance,4 the value of the technology had to be assessed in terms of its use – even merely the volume of its use by students, and conscientious students in particular. As discussed in “Justification: Comparability of Studies of Teaching Tools Experiences in Other Contexts”, prior studies have been made regarding student use of WebCT and its effect on student performance. However, these studies did not concern a sample of students as large as that enrolled in Commercial Law or which used WebCT as a materials delivery system for an on-campus face-to-face law subject.

The raw material that forms the basis of the conclusions in this article is presented in “Testing Groundwork Assumptions: Questionnaire Results” and “WebCT Use: Computer Generated Evidence”. “Testing Groundwork Assumptions: Questionnaire Results” presents information derived from a questionnaire administered to a sample of students to confirm previous assumptions concerning student use of computers, the Internet and specifically the subject website. This was important to gain an understanding of student perceptions and the validity of those perceptions. Finally, “WebCT Use: Computer Generated Evidence” presents the electronically generated evidence of student use of WebCT and identifies the evident trends.

Developments in Teaching Technologies

Socrates and the Modern Lecture Theatre

It has been said that “change is constant”.5 This should apply in teaching methods as in other areas of human activity.

Undoubtedly, the electronic technologies developed to assist teachers have made an overt and immediately apparent impact over the last 50 years. Indeed, they probably represent the most important development in the history of education after the invention of the printing press in the 15th entury.6 Their impact can be seen from the introduction of audio amplification, mass photocopying for the provision of handouts to the introduction of overhead projectors and into the age of the Internet with the ability to create websites devoted to a university subject, filled with information ready for instant dissemination to a large number of students. For all teachers, the impact of these changes has been manifold and positive. However, there are also drawbacks, particularly in terms of time use. The reality is that it takes extra time to convert a prepared lecture into a series of overhead slides to display in lectures, to maintain a website or even to prepare copious amounts of photocopied handouts to distribute to students. Are these technologies necessary?

One topic of conversation that is probably a favourite in many university staff common rooms is to opine about the merits of the “Socratic” method of teaching. The Socratic method of teaching is premised on an argumentative discourse between the teacher and the student dating back 2,000 years; hence it is free of technology and may be used as a basis for refusing to adopt new teaching technologies.7 However, lecturers who cite Socrates as a reason to lecture with only “chalk and talk” (frequently without the chalk) to a lecture theatre filled with over a hundred students, where there is little hope for discussion with full group participation, misunderstand Socrates. Socrates’ views on teaching through argumentative discourse were expressed as follows:

I am sterile of wisdom, and the reproach that has often been made against me, that I ask questions of others, but never answer any by any chance myself, because I have nothing wise to say, is a true reproach. And the cause of it is this: it is divinely ordained that I should help others to bring forth, but bring forth nothing myself. I am, then, myself no such prodigy of wisdom nor can I point to any great invention, born of my soul: but those who pass their time with me, though at first they seem, some of them quite unintelligent, nevertheless in my company all, as time goes on, all to whom heaven is kind, progress amazingly – or so it seems to them and to others. And all the while it is clear that they have never learnt anything from me, but have discovered for themselves in their own minds treasures for their possession.8

Clearly, Socrates was outlining a teaching method used with a small number of students, whereby in focused discussion with them, he would challenge and cajole them into thinking out matters and discovering conclusions for themselves. This method is invoked by teachers in many disciplines when dealing with students, whether “one on one” or when student numbers are low. Thus, it is not difficult to imagine the Greek teacher with a small group of students engaged in debate. Crucially, it is clear that the teacher was giving individual attention to the students and guiding their intellectual progress. It is the teaching practice frequently pursued in classes with very small numbers or in tutorial groups with less than 20 students. Certainly, the Socratic goal to encourage students to make their own discoveries remains.

However, the modern reality of lecturing to groups in lecture theatres with seating for 350 students is clearly a different matter to the Socratic ideal. There can be no pretence of individual attention being given to each student and any lecturer who attempted to argue to the contrary should be challenged to identify by name all of the students in such a class from memory.

Teaching Technologies Employed in Teaching BTF1010 Commercial Law

Commercial Law is a core unit in the various Bachelor of Business degrees offered by the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University. This alone means that student numbers are high. Each year the unit has a total enrolment of approximately 1,000 students. The topics include contract law, negligence, liability for misrepresentations, the provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Australia) which relate to these areas, agency, partnerships and an introduction to company law. Students’ performances are assessed on the basis of two tasks. First, they are required to submit a 2,500-word assignment worth 30% of the final mark, including a headnote of a Supreme Court judgment and advice for a legal dispute for which the facts are provided. The second portion of the assessment is a three-hour end-of-semester examination.

The unit is taught over 13 weeks with a weekly two-hour lecture and a one-hour tutorial. For the tutorial groups, the techniques of a past millennium are no doubt as appropriate as ever they were. However, for the lectures that are delivered to hundreds of students simultaneously, it would be short-sighted to ignore modern teaching tools.

Some years back in the teaching of this unit, the techniques of “talk and chalk” were enhanced by the use of tools such as A4 plastic transparencies of notes and images that could be projected onto screens by overhead projectors. The introduction of the Microsoft PowerPoint software package allowed the creation of overheads with a very polished and professional appearance.

At some point in the 1990s, copies of these PowerPoint images could be accessed by students from university Internet sites, placed there by the university information technology staff at the request of the lecturer. This practice alone had two clear benefits. First, it provided students with a clear guide to the lecture. Secondly, it recognised that an increasingly larger portion of students at Australian universities were from non-English-speaking backgrounds. It meant that if the students could not follow the lecture then at least the written presentation allowed the students to take something out of the lecture. However, this process of uploading the images did take time on account of the multitude of such requests and bureaucratic obstacles, rather than flaws with the actual technology. This time delay reduced the effectiveness of the tool. The only way to counter this time lag was to have the lecture written weeks ahead of time, thereby removing the lecturer’s flexibility in teaching.

Since 1999 the teaching staff at Monash University have utilised the Internet and a unit-specific website, loaded onto the Internet via software provided by WebCT to assist in the teaching of the unit. The chief advantage of this system is that the software is simple enough to operate to enable the individual lecturer to control the material placed on the website without time delays. Accordingly, the Commercial Law WebCT site is essentially a materials delivery system, enabling mass delivery of materials to students within minutes of its creation. Generally, the materials placed there include:

• the unit outline;
• the unit tutorial book;
• copies of lecture overheads, placed on the site the week before the lecture for students to download and bring with them to lectures;
• the assignment questions set for the unit;
• an unreported appeal court judgment for which students will write a headnote as part of their assignment;
• past exam papers; and
• various links to law research sites and other study sites.

A further important advantage of the software is that access is only allowed to the site to designated users such as the students whose details, usernames and passwords are loaded at the start of semester. In short, the lecturer’s and the university’s intellectual property is at least partly protected as only enrolled students have access to the site.

In the early days of WebCT use in Commercial Law, the website was often used as a demonstration model in the university for other lecturers seeking to employ the software in their teaching.9 The opinions gained from such examinations of the system were such that its use has spread throughout Monash University and it is now the preferred Internet support platform for the delivery of materials,10 as well as for other applications.11 However, even in the teaching of commercial law in the five years since WebCT was introduced, there has been no study conducted to assess its value, whether as determined by students or as ascertained through their performance in the unit as reflected in their final marks. Hence, the present study, prompted by the observations noted above, but also justified by the lack of rudimentary information of this kind obtained in the teaching of this specific unit.

Justification: Comparability of Studies of Teaching Tools Experiences in Other Contexts

It might be argued that even if no survey had ever been made of WebCT use in BTF1010 Commercial Law, there should nevertheless be comparable studies in other similar law subjects. If there are such studies, does the present study have real merit or novelty?

The use of subject websites and information technologies has been quite common now for at least the last five years. Although over those years, there has been a great deal of discussion about the uses to be made of electronic media and the Internet specifically in the provision of university courses, the majority of such discussions and studies have been based in the wholesale provision of university courses “online”.12 Similarly, as to studies specifically devoted to the uses of WebCT that might be comparable, they are not ideal in the present context. They can be distinguished from the present study in at least three different ways.

First, there are those claims based on the use of WebCT to provide courses entirely online. For example, the study by Yunfei Du and Carol Simpson on the “Effects of Learning Styles and Class Participation on Student’s Enjoyment Level in Distributed Learning Environments” has certain similarities with the present study. It used a student sample of a large class of 169 students. It based its findings on information gained via the WebCT software to determine how often students were using the site and how this corresponded to their final performance. However, the course being studied was different from the subject of the present study as it was entirely online and WebCT was being used as more than a materials delivery system. If the students did not participate, then they could not perform well in the subject.13

Secondly, there are those studies whose evidence was derived from classes with enrolments far below the 500 students that form the basis of the present study. For example, in a study on the use of WebCT in a journalism course, Jeffrey Merron wrote the following:

During this class, a student wrote to me, “I have discovered something about this medium that I had never noticed before. I have found that the bulletin board environment is more conducive to learning and discussion than any environment that I’ve been exposed to, including video, chat, and the traditional classroom setting. It allows students to interact in an intelligent, organized, and logical manner. We can enter at our leisure, contemplate the issues discussed, and develop a thoughtful experience.”

I received this unsolicited and unexpected comment about a third of the way through a summer class in 1998. The student, a Business Information Systems major taking one of his last classes before end-of-summer graduation, wrote this without conceivable motive: He was not a journalism major, I had never met him face-to-face, his grade for the class would have little significance on his academic record. The only rationale I could think of for this comment was: This student was excited about learning. Five years of student comments on classes had never turned up a gem like this one. What had I done?

I taught an online class.14

What follows is a discussion of a series of findings (“seven factors”) which contributed to success. Within their limits these findings are probably useful. Merron describes them as having helped him along the road to Damascus. However, the limits on the study and the feature that makes it less than entirely useful for a comparison with the present study is that Merron’s class sample had only 16 students.

Similarly, a further study from closer to home by Jennifer Curtin of Monash University discusses WebCT and online tutorials and, specifically, the uses of a bulletin board. However, Dr Curtin’s study sample class comprised only 14 students15 and it might be asked whether the benefits found in such a small group would be so apparent with 1,000 students per year.

These two studies illustrate the possibilities and use of WebCT. They are useful contributions to the general experience being generated of WebCT and contribute to the general pool of information. However, as to their bearing on the broader questions being discussed in the present study, the link between student performance and their use of WebCT, the value of the two studies is minor and not necessarily helpful. For producing a general test of such a hypothesis, these two studies dealt with too small a sample of students.

The third difficulty with other studies concerns the manner in which their conclusions were derived and the level of empirical supporting evidence. Some studies do address the use of WebCT as a materials delivery system, and also are based on the practices of large numbers of students. What might also appear initially pleasing in the context of the present study is that some of these studies do appear to be consistent with the hypothesis of the present study. For example, in a course entitled “Principles of Technological Change” conducted at Texas A & M University with an enrolment of 111 students, Tim Murphy and James Linder found that student use of WebCT did “contribute to student success”. The success was hampered only when “students do not have easy access to reliable computers”.16 Similarly, Debra Henley and Athol Reid in a study of student usage of WebCT in a Metabolism and Nutrition class found that student use of the subject site was high and that those students who achieved higher final marks accessed the WebCT site on average three times more often than other students.17

Similar results have been obtained in the business discipline. Anthony Basile and Jill D’Aquila analysed the use of WebCT in an accounting course of 128 students. They found that there was a positive response to the use of WebCT among their students and these students felt that they benefited from having such electronic resources.18

These studies are not exactly comparable with the present study, as when “student success” is described, it appears that these studies are registering students’ own perceptions of success. Indeed, in each of these studies, the results were based on student surveys. The findings of those studies are perhaps comparable with the results of the questionnaire that was used in the present study (discussed below), although that questionnaire was anonymous and did not ask the students to rate their “success”. However, they do not closely bear comparison with the empirical evidence that formed the basis of the findings of this study.

In discussing notions of successful student performance, the present study arguably has greater credibility than those studies referred to since a student’s “success” is not equated with the students’ own perceptions, but rather it is based on the students’ final marks received for the unit. Their use of the WebCT site is not based on their own perceptions of how often they use the WebCT (although this information was obtained in the questionnaire discussed below) but rather on the electronically generated material.

Testing Groundwork Assumptions: Questionnaire Results

The value of the study appeared to be established. However, it was also apparent that there were certain other matters that would need to be considered before the study would carry any weight.

Student Access to Computers and the Internet

The most basic assumption adopted by universities in Australia in their implementation of information technologies, personal computers and the Internet as a means of communicating with students is that all students have access to these technologies. It is a matter that needs to be tested. The value of the WebCT site is only relevant to all students if all students have access to it. Regardless of how useful the technology is as a teaching aid, if a substantial portion of students cannot physically access it, then a lecturer’s efforts in developing and maintaining such aids are wasted. Of more importance to the present study, if large numbers of students do not have access to the WebCT site then it is incorrect to make general statements regarding trends arising from student use of WebCT.

The Australian National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE) in its April 2002 report, The Current State of Play: Australia’s Scorecard,19 noted that although 67% of Australian households owned a computer, only 49% of households were connected to the Internet. To say the least, such figures do not bode well for a university course that utilises the Internet for the delivery of a large portion of its materials. However, these figures arguably did not take into account such matters as a possibly higher percentage of home Internet connections, which might prevail in the residences of university students as opposed to general Australian households. It also did not take into account possibilities of student access to the Internet in other places such as at the university or at places of employment. Accordingly, to test these matters it was determined that an anonymous questionnaire would be administered to a sample of 100 of the commercial law students.

Students were asked: “Other than at University, do you have a computer which you can use with an internet connection?” This question was deliberately phrased with reference to university access since it has been suggested that all students have access to a computer as the university provides computer labs.20 Yet, anecdotal evidence of student comments has indicated that frequently there were no computers available at the university because demand outstripped availability. Thus it seemed an important matter to determine whether students could access a computer elsewhere. Fortunately, the students’ responses indicated that generally students did have access to computers elsewhere. The responses to this question were as follows:21

• At home 90
• At work 13
• Other 5
• Two students wrote in the word “no” even though the choice was not offered.22

Accordingly, it was a safe and accurate assumption that virtually all students had access to a computer connected to the Internet through which they could access the WebCT page.

Further responses to related questions also indicated a degree of ease with which students were able to access the Internet and the WebCT page, although not through the efforts of the university’s computer buying program but rather through students’ own resources. This is illustrated by the following three questions and their responses:

1. To what extent do you have difficulty accessing a computer?
   • Greatly 5
   • Often 5
   • Sometimes 41
   • Not at all 48
2. Where do you most often access a computer for study/research purposes:
   • At university 17
   • At home 83
   • Other 3
3. To what extent do you find cost discourages you from accessing a computer?
   • Greatly 1
   • Often 5
   • Sometimes 41
   • Not at all 52
   • No response 123
4. To what extent do you often visit the university only to access computers?

• Greatly 1

• Often 9

• Sometimes 32

• Not at all 55

• No response 1

This information appeared to indicate that students generally have access to the Internet. Therefore, it would be safe to draw certain conclusions regarding a student’s use of the Internet on the basis that all students had similar opportunities without a large number of students labouring under a special disadvantage related to computer access.

Student Perceptions of the Value of the Provision of Materials on Commercial Law WebCT Site

It was also considered useful to determine how students used the WebCT site. Obviously, an underlying assumption to the hypothesis that better students accessed the WebCT site more often was that they were accessing certain types of material. The most obvious type of material to access on a weekly basis would be lecture notes as they were placed on the site week by week and were acquired on a similar basis. This assumption was confirmed with the following question and responses:

1. Generally, what is your usual reason for accessing the Commercial Law WebCT page?

• Download lecture notes 97

• Other 2524

Further, students confirmed that they appreciated the utility of having such notes provided prior to the lecture:

2. To what extent do you find it useful to have the lecture overheads provided before the lecture?

• Very useful 70

• Useful 7

• Not useful 1

• No response 1

Students demonstrated that they had developed the habit of accessing the WebCT page to access these notes:

3. To what extent do you obtain a copy of the lecture overheads prior to attending a Commercial Law lecture?

• Always 81

• Generally 15

• About half the time 2

• Sometimes 1

• Never 1

On a further positive note that evidences the students’ embrace of new teaching technologies, it was also ascertained that students prefer obtaining these lecture notes from the WebCT site rather than from other possible sources.

4. Generally, when you obtain a copy of the lecture overheads, from where do you obtain it?

• WebCT 90

• Library Reserve 7

• Friends 5

Students Perceptions of their Own Use of the Commercial Law WebCT Site

It was clear that students over the course of the semester had developed a reliance on the WebCT site. There was clearly a habit developed during that time. The development of that habit would be empirically ascertained when the electronically generated tallies of student visits to the website were examined. However, even before that time, the questionnaire provided the opportunity to examine how the students reckoned the frequency of their own visits to the site. Hence the following questions and responses:

1. Generally, how often do you access the Commercial Law WebCT site?

• Every day  2

• Every second day  7

• Twice a week 42

• Once a week 48

• Less than once a week  1

Once again, the evidence from the students was that almost all of them were visiting the site at least once a week and over half of them twice a week. Leading the charge was a “hard core” of students who, if they did not visit the site every day, then did so every second day.

Confirmation of Student Appreciation of the Commercial Law WebCT Site

One further matter that was addressed in the questionnaire was concerned with the students’ perceptions of the value of the WebCT site. As noted above, it was ascertained indirectly that students preferred obtaining lecture notes from the WebCT site rather than from the university library. Therefore, it was suggested that they appreciated the site. However, the following questions provided a more direct response to this issue:

1. Would you describe the Commercial Law WebCT site as very useful, adequate, or not very useful?

• Very useful 23

• Adequate 76

• Not very useful 1

The response indicated not merely that students embraced the technology but, based on the large number of “adequate” responses, many students would like to see the uses of the site expanded. Nevertheless, they considered what was on the site to be of value to their commercial law studies, as evidenced by the responses to the next question:

2. To what extent do you believe that you could complete Commercial Law without the WebCT site?

• Definitely 4

• Probably 23

• Perhaps 37

• Probably not 36

Thus, when it came to addressing the final question, “To what extent do you believe that the Commercial Law WebCT site should be retained?” the results were overwhelmingly favourable with over 80% of students endorsing retention of the site. The results were as follows:

• Strongly agree 37

• Agree 48

• Don’t really care 7

• Not at all 4

• No response 2

Therefore, at this stage it might be ventured that the students’ satisfaction with the use of a unit website as a delivery point for information to students has value at least in the perceptions of the students.

WebCT Use: Computer Generated Evidence

Identifying and Testing the General Trend

At all times, the WebCT program retains tallies of the number of times each individual has visited a page on the website, each visit being described as a “hit”.25 By tallying this information, one of the two questions raised in this article could be swiftly answered. The total number of visits to pages on the WebCT site could be compared with the students’ final marks at the end of semester and it could be observed whether students who scored higher final marks accessed these pages more than other students. To determine general trends this could be achieved by simply determining the average number of hits recorded up to the end of semester by the students who scored a High Distinction.26 The same would be done for the other mark grades.27

However, because the WebCT program does not perform such a process electronically, this meant that the figures would have to be entered manually onto an Excel spreadsheet, which could then be used to determine the averages. Thus, using this method the following average numbers of “hits” (or WebCT page visits) were recorded across grades for the thirteen week semester:

Table 1: Average total number of hits on Commercial Law WebCT site pages across grades

The difference between successive grades is not great, although there is a noticeable trend. The difference between the High Distinction students and bare Pass/Fail students is relatively pronounced. The most successful students did appear to be using the WebCT site and were more active on that site than the Pass and Fail students. Accordingly, on this rather simplistic basis the hypothesis posed appears to have been borne out.

However, the rule of the hypothesis in isolation does not provide useful lessons with which to instruct students. Despite the trend, it does not follow that a student who accessed the WebCT page will automatically achieve a final mark of a High Distinction.28

Explaining the Trend: How the WebCT Page Was Used

An explanation as to why the High Distinction students’ frequent use of the WebCT site contributed to their success was to examine how they used the page. Within the terms of the present study and the evidence obtained, this meant examining whether there were any trends revealing peaks in use of the WebCT site at any points during the semester.

It was considered useful to see if any trends could be observed between student use at three-week intervals. Unfortunately, although the WebCT system keeps a cumulative tally for each student, it does not keep a progressive record of visits at certain intervals. Hence, if a student’s record was examined on the WebCT hit counter in the exam week, the only information which would be available would be the total number of hits. Accordingly, to record the progressive tallies for weeks 6, 9, 12 and during the exam week, it was necessary to print out the figures for the 506 students at those three-weekly intervals, then manually load them onto the Excel spreadsheet.29 This resulted in the manual loading of over 2,000 figures.

The result was that for each of the students a cumulative figure was recorded of how many visits to the pages on the WebCT site on four particular dates. For example, for one student who finished with a final mark of 81 the entries were recorded as follows:

Table 2: Example of recorded WebCT hits as entered

for one student

Across the entire group of over 500 students, this information produced the following data regarding average numbers of visits to WebCT pages at three-weekly intervals over the semester, also presented as percentages of the total visits for the semester:

Table 3: Average total number of WebCT page hits across grades as recorded at intervals

The clearest trend evidenced from this information is the way the High Distinction students stand out. In the first half of the semester, not only did these students access the WebCT site more often than other students, but they also accessed the site in the first half of semester more often than they did in the second half of semester. More than 50% of the High Distinction students’ activity on the WebCT site occurred before the half-way mark of the semester. Further, as a percentage of their total activity on the WebCT site they remained ahead of all other groups of students until the final weeks before the final exam although at a decreased rate. To adopt racing parlance, the High Distinction students “departed their blocks quicker” than the other students. They accessed the WebCT site earlier than other students, explored, examined and familiarised themselves with it at greater length than other students. As the semester’s end approached, their activity decreased, presumably as they revised the material already obtained and prepared for the exam.

The same trend can also be observed by simply comparing the average number of hits before week 6 and after week 6, that is, between the first half of the semester and the second half:30

Table 4: Average total number of hits on WebCT pages recorded across grades before week 6 and after week 6 in a 13-week semester

Up to Week 6 After Week 6

High Distinctions 46 44

Distinctions 38 46

Credits 34 42

Passes 31 43

Fails (40-49) 26 34

Once again, the same information presented in another format demonstrates the same trend. Whereas High Distinction students’ use of the WebCT site was appreciably higher in the first six weeks of the semester, reaching into the forties for numbers of hits (and being the only grade band of students to achieve this), it then decreased in the second half of semester. Conversely, all other grade bands increased. The other pass grades climbing from around thirty hits in the first six weeks of semester to figures in the forties for the second half of the semester. In brief, in the second half of the semester all pass grades, including High Distinctions, recorded comparable numbers of hits. It was in the first half that the High Distinction students differentiated themselves.

The trend suggests that better performing students did access the commercial law website more often than other students. However, the evidence indicates this is attributable to them being more attentive and active on the site earlier than other students.

Further, such information should not come as a surprise. Whether frequent accessing of the website contributed to these students’ success or whether the evidence of their frequent use of the website was simply an early indicator of the students most likely to perform well, that evidence is nevertheless reflective of the value of the website as perceived by these students. Better students use the website.

Confirming the Trend

The trend drawn from bare averages alone can be statistically open to question. Indeed, if only because a great many more students recorded Pass and Credit grades than High Distinctions, the claims made for those latter students and their study habits are on less certain ground. This is because, if one or two students recorded a very high number of hits, it would lift the average number of hits for a small number of High Distinction students appreciably, as opposed to the effect of a similar number of hits on the average of a grade band containing over 100 students as in the Credit or Pass grades.

Accordingly, to make the evidence of the figures more compelling by subjecting them to a further statistical test, median values were obtained to see whether the trend of the averages was replicated. Assuming the trend was replicated, the medians would be useful for supporting the evidentiary value of the averages referred to above, providing a further description of the material obtained. The median values returned for the first six weeks and the second six weeks appear below in Tables 5 and 6 (non-shaded cells).

Table 5: Medians for total number of hits for first six weeks

Table 6: Medians for total number of hits for second six weeks

Tables 5 and 6 reveal the medians did mirror the trend observed in the averages. However, as a further measure the medians were finally subjected to statistical non-parametric testing to confirm the trend was more than a coincidence. The relevant test applied was the Kruskal-Wallis test and an explanation of its results is set down in the notes below.31 The data in the shaded portions of Tables 5 and 6 have been provided for reader’s verification of this test. Suffice to say, the trend was confirmed.

Therefore, the hypothesis identifying the correlation between student performance and the frequency of their use of the WebCT between remains intact.

Conclusion: What Does it Mean?

The adoption of modern teaching aids, including the Internet and websites, recalls a similarity between law teachers and practitioners. On the one hand, there are those law teachers who maintain that the teaching methods of a century ago are still the most effective and who turn their backs on anything that might suggest change. Conversely, there are law lecturers who bear an uncanny resemblance to their brethren in practice,32 desiring to use the latest equipment the modern age has to offer, the only difference being that the practitioner will pursue the latest motor vehicle, whereas law lecturers are slightly more limited in the gadgets they can afford. The software programs by which websites are created have been one example of such technology being swiftly embraced by these open-minded people. However, an associated danger is to incorporate such devices as an integral tool of any course and to use precious resources of time and effort – commodities the legal academic can ill afford without actually seeking to ascertain the value of such devices and expenditure. Is the balance “in the black”?

It is difficult to convince lecturers who do not use such technologies in their teaching that there are good educational reasons for using these technologies.

This article has set down some evidence as to why the adoption of websites, a dedicated WebCT site in this case, even as mere platforms for the delivery of materials, is a tool to be embraced. Even taking the students’ view that the website is a valuable tool and that they would encourage its retention, it was observed that generally those students who accessed the website also appear to have been the students who performed to a higher standard in the unit. In other words, all students appreciate the tool and the better students particularly appreciate the website.

Identifying this correlation has been the major focus of this article. At the time the information was gathered, there was little such information regarding this particular use of a website in a law unit of comparable size. Since that time this trend in noting a link between the student use of a dedicated website with student performance has been observed elsewhere in similar circumstances in law courses.33 No doubt, it will be replicated in other studies yet to be completed. Such studies provide greater statistical persuasiveness to the argument in favour of using such technologies, beyond the descriptive nature of the evidence presented in this article. Speculative reasons for the trend observed can only be suggested.

However, the tempting theory that the use of the new technologies in teaching improves student performance is not directly reflected upon in this article. One reason for this is that there is no comparable data evidencing how the introduction of earlier teaching technologies in the unit affected student performance. Further, to mount an argument without such a clear comparison would be to run contrary to numerous studies reported over the last 40 years that indicate that different technologies or media utilised in teaching do not affect learning outcomes.34 Indeed, as Richard Clark wrote in 1983 to describe the argument: “The best current evidence is that media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition.”35

Although this appears to be the predominant view,36 Clark can also cite a series of studies which reported that the novelty of new technologies would, at least for a time, result in increased effort or persistence on the part of students which, in turn, would lead to gains in achievement.37 Although he notes that the effect was found amongst secondary students and not tertiary students using computers,38 the “novelty” effect does at least hold the possibility that the new technologies may stimulate students. However, balanced against this possibility is an idea with which Clark opens his survey: that what might actually lead to an improvement in student performance at the same time as the introduction of a new teaching technology is actually the “curricular reform which accompanied the change”.39 As Wilbur Schramm noted in his book, Big Media, Little Media, although teachers may spend a great deal of time determining which is the best medium to employ in their teaching to determine whether the “big media” (new technologies) are really worth five times the cost of the “little media”,40 learning “seems to be affected more by what is delivered than by way of delivery system”.41 Despite this view, if the introduction of a new technology has the effect on teachers of stimulating them into revising or refreshing their curricula at regular intervals, then the outcome will surely be better for students.

Therefore, in this context there is a possibility that there may be a causative link effect – albeit an indirect link – between new teaching technologies and student performance. Of course, there are other matters that may have stronger claims to affecting student performance. For example, study time and the study environment would be strong contenders. Certainly, a student’s natural intellectual abilities cannot be discounted.

However, this article has been concerned with identifying whether those better students use a particular technology. It has established that those students who will perform well will generally use this technology. Therefore, subject to exceptions,42 evidence of frequency of student access can assist teachers in identifying students who already have the capacity to do well, with or without the website. Add to this the evidence that the better students value websites and that the majority of students value the site, there appears at least to be engagement by students with their studies.

Socrates would probably have approved.

Reform of Professional Legal Education at the University of Hong Kong

Richard Wu*

Introduction

In 2000, the Hong Kong government appointed two professors from Australia (“the Consultants”) to conduct a review of legal education in Hong Kong. The Consultants released their report, “Legal Education and Training in Hong Kong: Preliminary Review” (“the RLET”) in August 2001.1 This is the most important document on legal education for Hong Kong in the past three decades. The RLET recommended, inter alia, the abolition of the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws course (“PCLL”)2 run by the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong (“HKU”).3 Instead, they proposed the establishment of a new Legal Practice Course by the local legal profession outside the university.4

In response to the RLET, the HKU Law Faculty has reformed its PCLL in the past three years.5 In this article, I attempt to trace and analyse the reform of PCLL at HKU. I will first elaborate on two UK documents important to the original PCLL (“old” PCLL) at HKU. Secondly, I will highlight various reports on legal education issued in the United Kingdom (UK) and their relevance to the reform of professional legal education in Hong Kong. Thirdly, I will describe the development of other PCLL courses in Hong Kong to provide the context for understanding the evolution of PCLL at HKU. Fourthly, I will analyse the distinct features of the “old” PCLL, and its major “defects” as pointed out in the RLET. In addition, I will explain several major issues facing the “old” PCLL. Then I will elaborate on several distinct features of the reformed PCLL (“new” PCLL), analysing the progress and implementation issues of the “new” PCLL. Finally, the future reform directions of the “new” PCLL will be outlined. I will then summarise the achievements of the “new” PCLL, with particular reference to the criticisms of the “old” PCLL by the RLET.

Two Important UK Documents Shaping the Birth of PCLL at HKU

In the late 1960s, the Hong Kong government set up a Working Party to review professional legal education and training in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong was still a UK colony at that time, the prevalent UK model and ideas on professional legal education heavily influenced the thinking of the Working Party. In particular, two UK documents were important in understanding the establishment of PCLL at HKU.

The first document was a paper delivered by Professor LCB Gower in 1967 called “The Inter-relation of Academic and Professional Training”.6 In his paper, Gower discussed the distinctions between academic and professional training, their relationships to each other, methods of instruction for academic and professional training, and appropriate bodies to undertake academic and professional training. Gower brought up many insightful ideas on professional legal education. For example, he argued for a common course of initial professional training as follows:

During the initial training period the embryo lawyer generally does not know into which branch of practice he will go. He needs a training which will allow him the maximum possible mobility subsequently. In any case, there is a substantial core of expertise common to all branches of legal practice. Initial professional training should seek to produce decently well qualified general practitioners – not narrow specialists.7

In the same paper, Gower also argued that universities should undertake professional training in countries that do not have professional institutions, providing such training, for example, as in the UK at the law schools of the Inns of Court and the Law Society, as follows:

If university law faculties exist and professional institutions do not, every effort should be made to avoid the enormous expense of establishing the latter. Provided that universities are prepared to recognize, as they should, that it is part of their role to undertake professional training, provided that they are located near the town centres, provided that they can recruit the right sort of instructors with recent practical experience, provided that their relations with the profession are sufficiently cordial and intimate, it is far better that they should handle this part of the training also (ie professional training).8

The other document influential to the establishment of the HKU’s PCLL was the Report of the Committee on Legal Education, chaired by Mr Justice Ormrod, which was published in 1971 (“the Ormrod Report”).9 The Report marked a “turning point in the history of legal education”10 making far-reaching recommendations on legal education reforms in the UK and its colonies, including Hong Kong. The most important recommendation of the Report was, undoubtedly, the separation of legal education into three stages: the academic, professional and continuing education or training stages.

The influence of Gower’s paper and the Ormrod Report in the Working Party’s deliberations on the future model of legal education for Hong Kong was obvious. For example, the Working Party adopted a model of separation for academic and professional legal education similar to the model recommended in the Ormrod Report. The Working Party also considered the HKU Department of Law, set up in 1969, to be the institution providing academic legal education.

However, in the choice of institution undertaking professional legal education, the Working Party considered three possible options. The first option was the establishment of a professional law school separate and distinct from HKU and modelled on the UK system.11 The second option was a course arranged by the HKU Department of Extra-Mural Studies. The third option was a course offered by the HKU Department of Law.

After careful deliberations, the Working Party rejected the first option on two grounds. First, the cost of setting up a separate professional school was expensive.12 Secondly, it was difficult to attract quality staff, both full-time and part-time, for a new professional school.13 The Working Party also rejected the second option on two grounds. First, the HKU Department of Extra-Mural Studies would not be able to attract competent teachers. Neither would they be able to provide adequate premises for running a professional legal education program. In the end, the Working Party recommended that the HKU Department of Law should provide professional legal education, as this “provides the best safeguard against the lowering of standards during the degree course and the postgraduate stage”.14

As one can see, this institutional choice was in line with Gower’s thinking with the university providing professional legal education instead of a professional school set up by the profession outside the university. Moreover, HKU’s PCLL had adopted a common curriculum since its inception in the early 1970s, which also echoed Gower’s idea of a common course of initial professional training.

Other UK Reports on Legal Education Reform and their Impacts

Apart from Gower’s paper and the Ormrod Report, several other UK reports were influential in the development of legal education in the UK and its colonies. The Benson Report15 called for a fundamental reform of the teaching methods and examination style to discourage cramming on the part of students, as “vocational training should be more than an exercise in memorising facts”.16 The Report also, like Gower’s paper, recommended a joint vocational course for the intending barristers and solicitors in the future. As the Benson Report stated:

This is not to say that in the future barristers and solicitors should share all subjects of vocational training, but a considerable common core would in our view be in the public interest.17

In the late 1980s, the Law Society and Bar Council of England appointed a Committee to review the future of the English legal profession, which published what is widely known as the Marre Report.18 The Report identified a wide range of intellectual and practical skills that law students needed to acquire at the academic and vocational stages of legal education. For the academic stage, the Marre Report recommended the teaching of the following skills:

1. an adequate knowledge of substantive law;
2. an ability to identify legal issues to construct a valid and cogent argument on a question of law;
3. an ability to carry out research making intelligent use of all source material;
4. an ability to understand the underlying policy and the social context of any law;
5. an ability to analyse and elucidate an abstract concept;
6. an ability to isolate elementary logical and statistical fallacies;
7. an ability to speak and write clear, and succinct English;
8. a cultivation of a capacity for active learning;

 9 an ability to ascertain and verify the relevant facts of any legal problem;

10. an ability to analyse facts to construct and criticise an argument on a disputed question of fact.19

For the vocational stage, the Marre Report recommended the teaching of the following skills:

 1 an adequate knowledge of legal practice and procedure;

 2 an efficient grasp of techniques for applying the law, for example problem-solving skills;

 3 an ability to draft legal documents;

 4 an ability to present effective oral and written arguments in a variety of settings;

 5 an adequate knowledge of professional and ethical standards;

 6 an ability to communicate effectively with clients in a variety of settings;

 7 an ability to establish a good relationship with clients while eliciting relevant information;

 8 an ability to help clients understand options available to them so that they can make an informed choice of action or direction;

 9 an ability to negotiate effectively with the other party or their representative;

10. an ability to assess when the client might benefit from referral to another professional person, in addition to legal advice, and to propose this referral without losing the client’s confidence;
11. an ability to help clients to manage the powerful feelings which accompany legal proceedings, both in civil and criminal cases;
12. an ability to advise clients without using legal jargon and, as far as possible, without inflaming the acrimonious feelings that may exist between the parties concerned;
13. an ability to co-operate with other professional persons involved in the same case or field of work;
14. an adequate knowledge of effective organisational and management skills, including the use of modern technology.20

In addition, the Marre Report recommended that the vocational stage should focus on teaching practical skills by using modern teaching and examining methods.21 It is noteworthy that most, if not all, of these skills are now taught in the “skill-based” professional legal educational courses around the world, including the “new” PCLL at HKU, discussed below.

In the 1990s, the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct (“ACLEC”) published a comprehensive report on legal education in the UK. The report emphasised that law students should acquire professional skills in the stages of vocational course and in-service training.22 It also affirmed the mode of active teaching and learning methods adopted in the new professional legal education courses established in the UK, namely, the Legal Practice Course and Bar Vocational Course. As one can see below, the “new” PCLL at HKU also emphasises skills teaching and active learning.

However, the ACLEC Report criticised the UK model of legal education for its rigid division between academic and vocational stages of legal education, rather than treating it as a continuum. Such a model encouraged the separation between theory and practice, between “academic” knowledge and “professional” expertise, resulting in the relative neglect by law schools of subjects such as civil and criminal procedures, and professional ethics as being regarded as too far removed from reality.23 Such a model of legal education also led to “an unnecessary compartmentalisation” of the vocational and academic aspects of legal education.24 The model also led the professional bodies to see themselves as:

regulators of the law degree rather than facilitators and partners with the universities. For their part, the university law schools have been suspicious and resentful of the professional bodies.25

As one can see below, HKU Law Faculty will reform its three-year LLB program into a four-year program, folding back all the “knowledge-rich” PCLL subjects (such as civil and criminal procedures) into its LLB program. Such reform should result in a better integration of the academic and vocational stages of legal education in Hong Kong than in their UK counterparts.

Historical Development of PCLL courses in Hong Kong

The PCLL at HKU enjoyed the status of a monopoly until the early 1990s, when the other law school at City University of Hong Kong started the second PCLL in 1991. In this second PCLL, City University attempted to introduce new innovative methods such as problem-based learning, skills seminars, in-tray exercises, large-group/lectures, homebase, computer-assisted learning, volunteer program (legal aid), tutorials, buzz groups, brainstorming, role playing, use of manuals, texts, handouts, videos and work experience.26 They also involved the local profession in a mentorship program, guest lecturers, panellists, team teaching, moot judges and external examiners.27 In addition to core PCLL subjects, students were also required to study two out of three subjects. Many practical and skills aspects of the program remain unchanged up to this date.28

In addition, the HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education (“SPACE”) started a PCLL in 1991. At its inception, the program was run independently by SPACE. Later, the program was run by teachers of the Department of Professional Legal Education of HKU Law Faculty, who conducted lectures and tutorials as well as examinations for the SPACE program. The SPACE PCLL provided an alternative to students who were unable to find places in the full-time PCLL run by HKU or CityU. Starting from September 2001, the SPACE PCLL ceased to operate.

Distinct Features of the “Old” PCLL

When HKU first established the “old” PCLL in 1972,29 it contemplated a further period of training after the three-year LLB course:

because the period of study for the degree was too short to enable sufficient ground to be covered. Also the further training which an intending practitioner required could not be given wholly within the context of the University degree and would be bound to include “practical” instruction.30

However, it was contemplated that courses at the “old” PCLL:

will have a more “practical” flavour in that they will emphasize the importance of analysis of factual situations based on “real life” and of grasping the application of law to those situations rather than in relation to hypotheticals.31

While it was claimed that the LLB course at HKU provided academic legal education and the “old” PCLL course concentrated on professional legal education, the two courses were not substantially different in their inception. As Ted Tyler, the former head of the Department of Professional Legal Education at HKU, pointed out, the “old” PCLL at HKU introduced in 1972 was, in effect, a “fourth year of the LLB”.32 In essence, the “old” PCLL provided courses in continuum with the courses provided by the LLB.

In a nutshell, the “old” PCLL at HKU focused on teaching legal knowledge with some training in practical skills. Indeed, when the Working Party first proposed the establishment of the “old” PCLL, the latter was cast:

not in the form of practical training that would prepare a graduate for the practice of law, but as extension of the programme of study begun at the undergraduate stage (ie LLB) and aimed at the acquisition of legal knowledge and the development of appropriate intellectual skills.33

This reflected the emphasis on teaching legal knowledge, rather than on the practical skills acquisition of the “old” PCLL at HKU in its original design.

Another consistent feature of the “old” PCLL at HKU was its adoption of a “subject-based” curriculum. For example, it consisted of eight subjects: conveyancing, probate, landlord and tenant, revenue, commercial law and practice, practice and procedure (civil and criminal), accounts and financial management, professional practice and advocacy (civil and criminal). All these courses were compulsory for all students and there were no optional subjects.

If one looks at the timetable of the “old” PCLL, one can easily discern its “subject-based” characteristic. Under the old timetable, one day in every week was designated to a subject. For example, students learnt the subjects of conveyancing (or probate and landlord and tenant) on Monday, revenue on Tuesday, commercial law and practice on Wednesday, practice and procedure (criminal and civil) on Thursday, accounts and financial management (or professional practice) on Friday, and advocacy (criminal and civil) on Saturday. For most of the subjects, there were lectures in the morning and tutorials (or small group sessions) in the afternoon. These tutorials in the afternoons consolidated students’ knowledge and skills taught in the morning lectures.

The two branches of the local legal profession also had their input into the “old” PCLL curriculum. For example, the Law Society preferred that the subjects of conveyancing and probate be taught at the “postgraduate” level, while the Bar Association expressed a similar view on the subject of practice and procedure.34 Apparently, the “old” PCLL incorporated the views of the local profession into its curriculum.

Some Issues of “Old” PCLL Over the Years

Staff Issues

As indicated, the Working Party preferred the HKU’s Department of Law, rather than its Department of Extra-mural Studies, to provide professional legal education. In retrospect, the choice was correct as the Department of Law provided a better work environment in terms of research, undergraduate teaching and career promotion within the university than the Department of Extra-mural Studies. As pointed out by Peter Willoughby, the first director of PCLL course at HKU, very few who joined the rank of PCLL teachers wished to be seen merely as “legal practice course instructors”. Many of them wanted to see themselves as university academics, and were interested in doing some undergraduate teaching and research in addition to PCLL teaching.35

Therefore, there was limited attraction to the HKU Department of Extra-mural Studies for competent practitioners if the latter were only recruited as instructors of practice skills. In contrast, the HKU Department of Law was better able to recruit competent legal professionals to join the ranks of PCLL teachers. HKU needed to “compete” with the high-paying private sector for legal talents when it was set up in the early 1970s, a time when Hong Kong still suffered from a shortage of lawyers and most local practitioners were trained in the UK.

However, in recent years, the HKU Law Faculty has been able to recruit more experienced practitioners to join the rank of PCLL teachers, many of whom were working as partners of major international and local law firms prior to their joining. This new profile of PCLL teachers can be partly attributed to the change in the diversity of the legal profession in Hong Kong. When the PCLL was first established in the early 1970s, the pool of legal talent remained small, mostly local practitioners trained overseas. As the HKU Law Faculty has trained generations of local lawyers, the pool of local legal talent, and hence potential PCLL teachers, has become larger. Moreover, as the legal profession continues to grow in Hong Kong, more lawyers consider law teaching as a viable option for their second career. This also adds to the pool of potential PCLL teachers. In fact, most of the PCLL teachers recruited in recent years possess local practical experience, which testifies to the change in profile of PCLL teachers at HKU.

Curriculum Issues

It is noteworthy that the curriculum of HKU’s PCLL remained largely in the original design throughout the 1980s and 1990s, notwithstanding the radical changes that took place in other professional legal education courses around the world in the same era. There were many possible explanations for such “inertia”. Transition to a “skill-based” course required a staff profile comprising teachers with a wealth of local practical experience. However, recruitment of such experienced practitioners as PCLL teachers in the 1980s and 1990s proved extremely difficult, as private legal practice in Hong Kong was very lucrative in those days.

The unique political history of Hong Kong in the early 1990s also contributed to a preference for the “status quo” over professional legal education in Hong Kong. In June 1989, the Tiananmen Square Massacre took place in China. This had a devastating effect on the confidence of Hong Kong people, and the legal profession was no exception. Any radical change to the legal system, including the model of professional legal education, would be viewed with scepticism by the local legal profession and possibly the government of the Peoples Republic of China.

RLET’s Criticisms of the “Old” PCLL

As mentioned above, the RLET was released in 2001. The Report criticised the “old” PCLL on nine grounds:

1. An unclear purpose. The Consultants concluded that the PCLL at HKU was “in reality, an additional year of law studies – with a distinct academic emphasis in its goals, content, teaching methods and assessment”.36 They took the view that the PCLL course should be reformed to fold back its “academic” components into a reformed four-year LLB course. In this way, the PCLL would be developed into an entirely new course teaching skills.37
2. A lack of coherence. The Consultants opined that the “old” PCLL was a “subject-centred” program. In other words, the teachers taught different subjects and developed their expertise in different subject areas. There was no integration between different subjects and they did not form part of a coherent course or program imparting lawyering skills.38
3. The PCLL’s placement within the universities. The Consultants took the view that the PCLL should not be located within universities as the program was vocational in nature. Moreover, PCLL teachers saw themselves as academics and therefore were expected to research and publish. The university environment was not conducive to teachers providing a form of vocational preparation for legal practice.39
4. Inadequate teaching and assessment methods. The Consultants criticised the PCLL for its inadequate teaching and assessment methods due to the shortage of resources. They perceived that the teaching and assessment methods of world standards could be adopted if the legal practice course was removed from the university setting.40
5. Inconsistent treatment of those seeking a PCLL place. The Consultants criticised the PCLL for its inconsistencies in fees between the PCLL programs run by HKU Law Faculty and SPACE. They also criticised the HKU and SPACE PCLL programs for giving priority to their own students, thereby jeopardising the interests of those students studying law at overseas law schools. The Consultants felt that such inconsistencies and inequities could be overcome by an independent legal practice course set up outside the university.41
6. Artificial division of the law program into the LLB and the PCLL. The Consultants criticised the university law program for artificially dividing into LLB and PCLL, which was largely a result of the historical development of HKU Law Faculty over the years. They therefore recommended that those “academic” courses in the PCLL program, such as revenue, conveyancing, probate and commercial law, should be taught as part of the undergraduate LLB.42
7. The need to have a common entrance standard for those entering the profession. The Consultants criticised the failure of the PCLL to ensure that the local and overseas law graduates had a common body of knowledge. For example, those returning from overseas did not receive any education in the basic law; the most important constitutional law document of Hong Kong. They therefore recommended the establishment of a conversion course catering for the needs of overseas law students.43
8. Availability only as a full-time course. The Consultants criticised that the PCLL was available largely as only a full-time program. They recommended that the program be made available to the public on a part-time basis in the interests of access and equity. The consultants also considered it viable to deliver the PCLL on a “distance-learning” model in future. 44
9. An inability to manage the process as a whole and to enable reform on an ongoing basis. The Consultants made the general assertion that the HKU’s PCLL was “frozen in time” and had “no way of reforming itself”.45 They felt that the only way to resolve the problem was for the profession to create a separate institution responsible for vocational training outside the university.46

Distinct Features of the “New” PCLL

In response to the RLET, the HKU Law Faculty started to reform its PCLL in 2001. It established a core design team consisting largely of PCLL teachers who were experienced practitioners in different practice areas, such as conveyancing, litigation and commercial practices. The core design team was commissioned to design a new curriculum and course materials for a “new” PCLL that would reflect the concerns of the RLET, incorporating the best professional legal education practices of other common law countries to meet the needs of the local legal profession.

It was advocated that the curriculum of the “new” PCLL would have seven characteristics: general framework for legal practice, problem-centred, systematic skills teaching, feedback culture, professional attitude towards learning, training groups, guest instructors, programmed instruction, and end-of-semester assessment.47 In this article, I wish to analyse four salient features of the curriculum, namely, problem-based learning, skills teaching, programmed instruction and training groups.

Problem-based Learning

“Problem-based learning” is not something new. Barrows and Tamblyn provide a definition of “problem-based learning” as follows: “The problems, not a set syllabus, provide the stimulus and framework for learning. Knowledge is acquired through self-directed study and small group discussions, rather than through lectures.”48 In the “new” PCLL, students are encouraged to learn by way of solving legal problems presented to them, rather than by way of traditional lecture attendance. This is a mode of active learning and students are expected to read cases and statutes assigned to them, and conduct further legal research they consider necessary to solve the legal problems presented to them.

The “new” PCLL curriculum reflects such an emphasis on legal problems. The curriculum consists of two components. The first is called “non-contentious”; the other is “contentious”. Such a demarcation is based on the nature of the legal work undertaken by lawyers in Hong Kong.49 Generally, lawyers in Hong Kong undertake two types of legal work. The first type of legal work is “non-contentious” in nature and facilitates business transactions in Hong Kong, such as property and commercial transactions. This usually consists of a series of legal problems on drafting agreements for sale and purchase of land property, business joint ventures, share acquisitions and letters of advice on the effects of security documents. These legal problems facilitate student learning in such practice areas as conveyancing, probate and corporate in context, familiarising students with common legal documents that they will encounter in these areas of practice.

The second type of legal work undertaken by lawyers in Hong Kong is “contentious” in nature. This mainly involves civil and criminal litigation. A series of legal problems is designed on the drafting of pleadings and affidavits for use in litigation, and many court advocacy practices. These legal problems facilitate student learning in the law and practice of civil and criminal litigation in context to familiarise the students with various court documents that they will encounter in civil and criminal litigation.

While problem-solving plays a prominent role, there are still lectures in the “new” PCLL. However, their functions are quite different from traditional lectures. In the “new” PCLL, the lectures serve a variety of functions, including equipping students with “core” knowledge in different practice areas and providing demonstrations on applying this “core” knowledge to solve practical legal problems. The format of such lectures enables students to learn the law and practice in context to prepare them to solve legal problems in small group sessions.

Thus, the curriculum of the “new” PCLL is different from its “old” counterpart. Under the curriculum of the “new” PCLL, teaching methods rely heavily on traditional lectures and small group sessions. This follows a traditional academic structure. The RLET criticised such traditional methods because the small group sessions, in their view, can easily become “a review of the lectures, rather than essentially an opportunity to acquire the skills of a practicing lawyer”.50 In comparison, the problem-based curriculum in the “new” PCLL enables students to learn law in context strengthening their problem-solving skills that are crucial to their future success in the legal profession.51 This deals with the criticism of “inadequate teaching and learning methods” in the RLET.

Skill Learning

As HKU established the “old” PCLL at a time when Hong Kong was still a UK colony, its curriculum largely mirrored the UK counterpart.52 It inherited the “knowledge-based” feature of UK professional legal education courses prevailing in the 1970s. However, radical changes have taken place in the UK professional legal education since HKU introduced the “old” PCLL in 1972.53 For example, the UK Bar introduced a “skill-based” Bar Vocational Course in 1989. Similarly, the UK Law Society adopted a “skill-based” Legal Practice Course to replace the “knowledge-based” Law Solicitors Finals in 1993. These represented developments of the so-called Legal Skills Movement in the UK.54 In other common law countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, skills training in professional legal education took place even much earlier.55

Following the trend of “skill-learning” in professional legal educational courses in the UK and other common law countries, the “new” PCLL emphasises the teaching of various legal and lawyering skills. The “non-contentious” practice areas focus on teaching such skills as document analysis, document drafting, letter writing and negotiation. We teach these skills in the contexts of different practice areas such as conveyancing, probate and commercial practices. The “contentious” practice areas focus on teaching skills of court advocacy, drafting of court pleadings and opinion writing. The “new” PCLL teaches these skills in the contexts of civil and criminal litigation. These skills are largely the same as those recommended in the Marre Report in the UK. The emphasis on skill teaching is also a response to the RLET’s criticism of “unclear focus” in the “old” PCLL.

Programmed Instructions

In response to the RLET’s criticism of “lack of coherence”, the “new” PCLL adopted an approach of “programmed instructions” in its teaching methods. In the “new” PCLL, the HKU Law Faculty uses a significant number of “activity plans” as tools for teaching and learning. These activity plans comprise legal problems, instructions to students and notes to teachers. All activity plans are identical in their format. The activity plans lay down clear objectives so that students can know in advance what knowledge and skills they are expected to learn and practise before they come to class.

To facilitate and promote skill transfer in the Activity Plans, the “new” PCLL also prepares “skill guides” in different practice areas so that students know the objective standards and criteria of the different skills expected of them. “Skill guides” are widely used in “skill-based” professional legal education courses in other common law countries and have proven to be useful tools for teaching legal skills.56

The activity plans also integrate legal knowledge and legal skills. This “integrated” approach reinforces students’ skills in solving realistic legal problems and promoting more effective learning and retention of legal knowledge. For instance, students will learn joint venture laws more effectively if they have had the experience of drafting a joint venture agreement. However, they cannot draft a joint venture agreement properly if they do not acquire the skills of document drafting. By designing an activity plan on the drafting of a joint venture agreement, the “new” PCLL “kills two birds with one stone”, teaching the students the legal knowledge in joint venture laws and the legal skills of document drafting. The students should retain more legal knowledge by such an integrated approach, rather than learning through traditional lectures and tutorials.57

The activity plans also adopt a “building block” approach. For example, a series of activity plans is prepared on the preparation of loan documents, advising clients on the terms of specific loan documents and enforcement of such documents to teach students the law of credit and security in context. In the same activity plans, students learn the skills of document drafting, document analysis and letter writing. In this way, students can build upon and integrate their knowledge and skills in one activity plan with what they learnt in preceding activity plans. Moreover, students can transfer the skills and knowledge that they learn from one factual context to another. Such a “building block” approach creates a more “realistic” learning environment for students who can build up their legal knowledge and skills incrementally.

Finally, the “new” PCLL emphasises a feedback culture.58 In small group sessions, teachers give feedback to students either on their written work or oral presentations. This motivates students to learn and improve their performance. Students are also encouraged to give “peer feedback” on each other’s work in small group sessions. This strengthens and improves their skills of communication and teamwork.59 In addition, practitioners experienced in different areas of practice are invited to teach part-time and give feedback on student work on a regular basis. This is an important form of feedback that motivates students to learn and improve their performance.

Training Groups

Training groups are an important design feature of the “new” PCLL. Traditionally, lawyers work as individual legal experts but they are increasingly expected to work in teams, with either other lawyers or other professionals, such as accountants. Moreover, they must communicate effectively with their colleagues, clients and judges in their legal practice. Through training group arrangements, the “new” PCLL strengthens the training of two important interpersonal skills of teamwork and communication skills.

The “new” PCLL divides students into groups of 16 (or less) based on different mixes of age, gender, education and working backgrounds. All students remain in the same group throughout the course. In other words, they meet the same group of students on a daily basis and work closely with one another. These training groups promote peer feedback and establish mutual support among students throughout the course, as well as enhance their interpersonal skills. Similar training groups are used in professional legal education courses in other common law countries. They prove to be effective in promoting group learning skills and building strong friendships within the training groups.60

Progress and Issues in Implementing the “New” PCLL

Progress

The HKU Law Faculty started to implement the “new” PCLL in September 2002. Starting from September 2003, revenue law was taught in LLB instead of PCLL. Moreover, trial advocacy was introduced in the PCLL in the academic year 2003 and the HKU Law Faculty enlisted the assistance of a team of four specialist advocacy trainers from the Australian Advocacy Institute to run this new course of trial advocacy.61

Implementation Issues

Involvement and Collaboration with Legal Profession

At present, there are several issues in implementing the “new” PCLL. First, the HKU Law Faculty needs to deal with the issue of involvement and collaboration of the legal profession in the “new” PCLL. It needs to work closely with the local profession on the form and content of the “new” PCLL curriculum. As the “new” PCLL represents the most important reform in postgraduate legal education in HKU since its inception in 1972, the local legal profession is understandably concerned with the design and quality of the new course in terms of educating and training better lawyers for Hong Kong.

Throughout the history of HKU’s PCLL, the local legal profession has played an important role. In the “old” PCLL, the legal practitioners were mainly involved as external examiners. For each subject, the two branches of the legal profession appointed their representatives to be external examiners. They were involved in monitoring the standards of the PCLL course by approving the examination papers and “re-marking” selected samples of the examination scripts.

In the “new” PCLL, local practitioners have played a more active role. They were heavily involved in the design and delivery of the course. For instance, the small group exercises were designed jointly by the academic staff of HKU Law Faculty and outside practitioners in the courses of Civil Procedures and Civil Advocacy.

Many experienced practitioners also participated in the “new” PCLL as part-time tutors in various subjects or as external assessors in the courses of Civil and Criminal Advocacy. In order to enhance the teaching skills of these practitioners, the HKU Faculty organised a number of “training the trainers” workshops. In these workshops, the practitioners were taught the new skills required of teachers in the “new” PCLL and the techniques of leading small group discussions. In some workshops, practitioners were taught specific teaching skills. For example, the abovementioned team of specialist advocacy trainers from the Australian Advocacy Institute conducted a series of workshops in April 2004 for local practitioners who acted as tutors in the PCLL advocacy course.62 In most workshops, practitioners were also taught on a “learning-by-doing” model with the attendance of practitioners consistently high, demonstrating their commitments to the “new” PCLL and the perceived usefulness of the workshops.

The HKU Law Faculty also introduced a Law Mentorship Scheme for its students, starting from September 2002. In this scheme, outside practitioners serve as mentors to HKU law students. This scheme enables PCLL students to interact closely with outside practitioners, learning professional attitudes and values from them. Although the Law Mentorship Scheme does not form part of the regular curriculum of the “new” PCLL, it enriches the learning experience of PCLL students by bringing them into close contact with outside practitioners. These experienced practitioners are also ideal “role models” for imparting professional attitudes and values to our students through the Law Mentorship Scheme. In a way, this scheme can be considered as part of the “informal” curriculum of the “new” PCLL.63

It is also noteworthy that the two branches of the profession set out their benchmarks for the “new” PCLL. The Law Society focused on skills like problem-solving, applied legal research (including computer-aided), communication (including writing, drafting, interviewing, counselling, plain English), fact investigation and analysis, advocacy, litigation management and strategies, negotiation, legal analysis, organisation and management of legal work, recognising and resolving ethical dilemmas and ethical formation.64 The Bar Association focused on skills like legal research, fact management, opinion writing, conferencing, drafting, negotiation and advocacy. However, the Bar Association also emphasised knowledge in the law of evidence, civil remedies, criminal litigation and sentencing, professional ethics and conduct.

In the future, one possible area of collaboration between the HKU Law Faculty and the local profession is the integration of the “new” PCLL with the mandatory continuing legal education schemes of the local profession. At present, the Law Society has established a Continuous Professional Development Scheme for local solicitors. Similarly, the Bar Association has established an Advanced Legal Education Scheme for local barristers. In the RLET, there was no discussion of possible collaboration between the HKU’s PCLL and the continuing legal education courses provided by the two branches of the profession. However, as the reform of “new” PCLL continues, collaboration seems possible in this regard. As the HKU Law Faculty introduces more “electives” in the “new” PCLL, it is possible that these “elective” courses will be designed and implemented in collaboration with the continuing legal education schemes run by both branches. Courses like “case management” and “practice management” can be planned and implemented together by the HKU Law Faculty and the two professional bodies so that students can learn the skills in these two areas both during and after they study the “new” PCLL. Such collaboration should be viable, taking into account the strong alumni network of HKU Law Faculty in the local legal profession. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bar Association is an alumnus of the HKU Law Faculty.65

Academic Board

However, the most important involvement of the local legal profession in the “new” PCLL has been the creation of an Academic Board. In early 2002, the HKU Law Faculty established an Academic Board to oversee the reform work of the “new” PCLL.66 Apart from representatives of HKU Law Faculty, representatives from the two branches of the legal profession also participated. The Board enables the legal profession to give their input and to participate in the reform work of the “new” PCLL. When HKU first established the “old” PCLL in the early 1970s, it was already recognised that the effectiveness of legal education in Hong Kong would only be ensured through mutual trust and understanding between HKU and the legal profession.67 To this end, the Academic Board plays an important role in promoting mutual trust and understanding in the reform and implementation of the “new” PCLL.

The Academic Board also established three sub- committees: the Human Resources Sub-Committee, the Curriculum Sub-Committee and Admissions Sub-Committee. These three sub-committees are composed of members from the Department of Justice, the Judiciary, the two branches of the legal profession and staff from the HKU Law Faculty. The Human Resources Sub-Committee is responsible for formulating the human resources policy of the “new” PCLL, establishing the recruitment criteria and skills set of teachers. The Committee also deals with the recruitment of both full and part-time teachers for the “new” PCLL. The Curriculum Sub-Committee is responsible for the design and implementation of the “new” PCLL curriculum. The Admissions Sub-Committee is responsible for the future admission of PCLL students. It establishes the admission criteria, including standards of academic performance and skill requirements for students applying for admission to the “new” PCLL.

Since their establishment, the Academic Board and its three sub-committees have played an important and effective role in the reform of the “new” PCLL. Since members of the Academic Board and its three sub-committees are all senior and respected members of the two branches of the profession and reflect the Department of Justice and Judiciary, they represent the views and interests of all stakeholders in the local legal education.

Reform of Teaching and Assessment Methods

As the “new” PCLL is developing into a “skill-based” course, the HKU Law Faculty needs to reform the teaching and examining methods to reflect such change. As the Marre Report correctly asserts, practical skills need to be taught by using modern examining methods. In terms of assessment, the “new” PCLL is moving towards an “open-book” format in most courses to reflect the change in course emphasis from “knowledge-based” to “skill-based”.

While both the RLET and many local practitioners find favour with continual assessments, hitherto, the “new” PCLL has not adopted this as the primary assessment method for two reasons. First, the problem of plagiarism may undermine the effectiveness of continual assessment as an examining method. Second, students may shift their focus and attention to obtaining good grades in the continual assessments, rather than participating actively in the small group session. This will undermine the learning effectiveness of PCLL students. However, the HKU Law Faculty is now considering continual assessment for selected PCLL courses like Advocacy and Professional Practice in the future.

The “new” PCLL course also tries to be modelled on “real” legal practice. For example, it emphasises the concept of transferable skills, which means that legal skills in one context can be transferred to another. For example, the skills of letter writing in the context of “non-contentious” legal practice can enhance the skills of drafting of pleadings in the context of “contentious” legal practice. However, it must be acknowledged that the “new” PCLL cannot wholly “imitate” real legal practice. For example, students in “PCLL” are not expected to work on several assignments at the same time. While some may criticise such course design as portraying an “unrealistic” picture of legal practice, students learn more effectively by focusing on one single assignment rather than requiring them to do a diverse range of assignments at any one time.

Some people have advocated that PCLL students should be placed in law firms outside the university during their PCLL year to hone and enhance their skills learnt on the PCLL. This is not viable, given the large number of students studying on the HKU’s PCLL program, as it is unrealistic for local law firms and barrister chambers to provide sufficient vacancies for “in-house” training of students during their PCLL year.

Changing the Learning Culture of PCLL Students

In the years to come, the HKU Law Faculty needs to change the learning culture of its PCLL students. There has been criticism that Hong Kong law students could not learn law “pro-actively” and adapt to a “non-lecture-based approach to learning and teaching”.68 Moreover, it was felt that “Hong Kong’s law graduates had for too long been ‘spoon-fed’ and only acquired information by rote learning”.69 As the “new” PCLL is based on students’ active-learning, the HKU Law Faculty needs to effect a change in the learning culture of its PCLL students. In fact, “active-learning” is one of the essential skills that students must acquire for their success in the “new” PCLL and for their future legal career. As the RLET rightly pointed out:

[I]f the legal education and training system is to meet the challenges of legal practice and the needs of Hong Kong society into the 21st century, and is to be one which equals best international practice, the aim of learning and learning in law should be to have students engage actively with the course material so that the learning experience is one of active and not passive learning.70

In this regard, the reform experience of the Commercial Law and Practice course of the “old” PCLL gives reason for optimism. The Commercial Law and Practice course was “re-designed” in the late 1980s based on principles of problem solving and skill learning. It was well received by students and has remained one of the most popular courses over the years.71

The “new” PCLL curriculum is centred around “realistic” legal problems and the use of training groups serve as useful catalysts in effecting a change of the learning culture from passive learning to active learning. In fact, the experience of the “new” PCLL in the past two years confirms that such a change of learning culture is attainable. As Professor Michael Wilkinson, the current Head of Professional Legal Education Department of HKU, pointed out recently, students are generally receptive to the new style of teaching. Most of the students are keen to participate in classes and class atmosphere has become livelier. These trends reflect that the new teaching methods introduced by the “new” PCLL are successful in inducing a change in student learning culture.72

Training of PCLL Teachers

In the next few years the HKU Law Faculty also needs to deal with the issue of teacher training. As the new PCLL emphasises skill learning, it requires different teaching abilities and skills sets. To tackle this problem, PCLL teachers have undertaken a series of teacher training sessions in the past two years to strengthen their skill-teaching abilities and techniques. For example, the HKU Law Faculty invited Professor Philip Martin Knott, Department Head of Professional Legal Studies, Nottingham Law School, England, to conduct training sessions for its teachers on skill-based teaching in February 2003. Similarly, Professor Judith Smith, Director of Professional Legal Education and Training program at University of Queensland, Australia, conducted training sessions on skill-teaching for PCLL teachers in May 2003.

Future Reform Direction of “New” PCLL

Four-year LLB Reform

The “new” PCLL reform is only part of the legal education reform package at HKU. When the HKU Law Faculty started its radical reform of PCLL in 2002, it also embarked on a fundamental reform of its undergraduate program and would convert its LLB program from a three-year program to a four-year program in September 2004.73

Starting from September 2003, the HKU Law Faculty started the process of “folding back” the “knowledge-rich” PCLL subjects into the LLB curriculum and the revenue course was introduced as an elective course in the LLB curriculum in the same year. This process will continue until September 2008 when all “knowledge-rich” PCLL subjects like conveyancing and civil litigation will be taught in the LLB curriculum.

“Streaming” and “Electives”

From the academic year 2004, the HKU Law Faculty will introduce “streaming exercises” and “electives” into its PCLL. The former is a compromise between the two branches of the profession so that the PCLL students intending to join the solicitor and barrister branches would attend the same lectures but different small group sessions, based on the branch of the profession that they intend to join. The “electives” will include the subjects that serve to enhance the specialisation of intending pupils and trainee solicitors in specified practice areas. At present, the “electives” most likely to be introduced in the academic year 2004 include advanced litigation and corporate finance.

Part-time PCLL

In the academic year 2005, the HKU Law Faculty will introduce a part-time PCLL. This is in response to the RLET and the growing demand for PCLL studies on a part-time mode in Hong Kong. It also creates more flexibility for students interested in studying PCLL after finishing their undergraduate legal studies both inside and outside Hong Kong. The part-time students will have their classes on week days and weekends; the course content, teaching methods and assessment methods will be identical to the full-time mode.74

Conversion Course for Overseas Law Graduates

The reform of the “new” PCLL at HKU will be completed in 2008 when most of the substantive law subjects will be folded back into the undergraduate LLB stage. By that time, the “new” PCLL can focus on the teaching of legal skills as most of the “knowledge-rich” courses will be taught in the four-year LLB. However, those law graduates returning from overseas will need to study certain conversion courses for up to a maximum of one year. These conversion courses will cover subjects peculiar to the Hong Kong legal system and laws, such as the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This is in response to the RLET’s criticism that the PCLL did not have a common entrance standard for all students entering the local legal profession.

Conclusions

The PCLL at HKU has played an important role in training and educating future lawyers in Hong Kong throughout the past three decades. The reform of the PCLL will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the future development of professional legal education and the rule of law in Hong Kong. As one can see from the table below, all the criticisms of the RLET have been dealt with by the “new” PCLL, either by reforms hitherto undertaken or reforms that will be implemented in the next few years. With the strong support of the local legal profession and concerted efforts of the HKU Law Faculty, there are grounds for optimism that the HKU’s “new” PCLL will develop into a professional legal education course that meets the best international practices in the years to come.

* BA (Hons), LLM (Monash); Lecturer, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University, Australia; Barrister at Law (Vic). The author would like to thank Andrew Coleman, Emma Gloury, Brendan Sweeney and Alison Winstanley for their assistance in the preparation of this article; the participants in the “Law in Non-Law Schools” section session who participated in a presentation and discussion of the material presented in this article at the Australasian Law Teachers Association Conference in Brisbane, July 2003; and also the 506 students who completed BTF1010 Commercial Law in Semester 1 2002 and in so doing provided – albeit unwittingly – the raw material for this article. The author is also grateful to Roslyn Edwards for her comments on the statistics included in this article, and to Mark Hastings and his colleagues in the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics at Monash University for their assistance. The author is solely responsible for the material presented in this article – statistical or otherwise.

1 “I am still learning” attributed to Michelangelo (1475–1564). The motto of Monash University: see http://www.monash.edu.au/about/motto.html (accessed 20 August 2003).

2 Or “WebCT site” – described as such after the name of the company which provides the software. There are many other software packages which can perform the same tasks as those discussed here. WebCT simply happened to be the platform adopted by Monash University. Further information can be obtained from the manufacturer’s own website at http://www.webct.com.

3 Fortunately, at the time of writing, the author has not actually seen any examples of lecturers repeating the actions of the original “Luddites”, who were members of the new English working class who, in the early 1800s set about breaking machines which they saw as making their own skills obsolete, and causing their wages to plunge. They took their name from their leader Ned Ludd. See A Briggs, The Age of Improvement 1783-1867 (London: Longman, 1979) 182.

4 See discussion in Conclusion below.

5 “Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant”, stated Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), British Prime Minister, speaking at Edinburgh in relation to the passing of the second Reform Act which increased the electoral franchise in Great Britain: The Times (30 October 1867).

6 John Man identified the coming of the Internet as the “fourth revolution” or turning point in 5,000 years of “human contact” (meaning communication). He identified the first as the invention of writing; the second as the invention of the alphabet; and the third as the invention of printing: J Man, The Gutenberg Revolution (London: Review, 2002) 1.

7 The author has heard senior staff describe the adoption of some of the technological teaching aids discussed in this article as “spoon feeding”, preferring to lecture with little more than a textbook at hand and a microphone amplification as the only concessions to the modern age of lecturing over 100 students at a time.

8 Socrates in conversation with Theaetitus, quoted in H F Carlill, The Theaetetus and Philebus of Plato (London: Macmillan, 1906) 148–151, reproduced in John Ferguson (ed), Socrates: A Source Book (London: Macmillan, 1970) 101.

9 Viva voce evidence from Mr Brendan Sweeney, Lecturer in Charge of Commercial Law, in conversation with the author, about August 2002.

10 The evidence shows that it was sometimes an uphill battle to persuade teaching staff to examine the system. One communication from a proponent stated: “I am only suggesting you try a piece of a few cakes before buying any”. Private email from the Flexible Teaching Consultant/Web Designer, Technology Services Group, Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, to the Manager of Web and Internet Facilities, Information Technology Services, Monash University, dated 19 September 2000.

11 Other applications of the WebCT package not utilised in BTF1010 Commercial Law have been utilised in other units. These tools include tools for receiving assignment answers submitted by students, email facilities, bulletin boards, and discussion sites.

12 For an interesting discussion of the various arguments for and against the virtues of “online learning”, see “The Digital Degree”, produced by Joe Gelonesi, a radio news report broadcast on Background Briefing, ABC Radio National (Sunday 20 January 2002), transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s444980.htm. See also C Allport, “Educating and Organising Globally: Perspectives on the Internet and Higher Education” (2001) (1 & 2) Australian Universities Review 44 at 21 for a discussion on the “virtual university” which examines some of the extreme arguments on this issue.

13 Y Du and C Simpson, “Effects of Learning Styles and Class Participation on Students’ Enjoyment Level in Distributed Learning Environments”, Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Library and Information Science Education Association (New Orleans: LA, January 2004), 15-18.

14 J L Merron, “Managing a Web-based Literature Course for Under-graduates” (Winter 1998) (1)4 Online Journal of Distance Education: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jwin14.html.

15 J Curtin, “WebCT and Online Tutorials: New Possibilities for Student Interaction (2002) 1 Australian Journal of Educational Technology 110-126; see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet18/curtin.html.

16 T Murphy and J Linder, “Building and Supporting Online Learning Environments Through Web Course Tools: It is Whippy, But Does it Work?”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists: Agricultural Communications Section (2001), full text available at http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas/Murphy.htm.

17 D Henley and A Reid, “Use of the Web to Provide Learning Support for a Large Metabolism and Nutrition Class” (2001) 29 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education.

18 A Basile and J D’Aquila, “An Experimental Analysis of Computer-Mediated Instruction and Student Attitudes in a Principles of Financial Accounting Course” (2002) Journal of Education and Business 137 at 137-143.

19 National Office of the Information Economy, The Current State of Play: Australia’s Scorecard (Canberra: National Office of the Information Economy, April 2002) obtained at http://www.noie.gov.au (accessed on 29 October 2002).

20 For example: “Computers: Computers are an important aspect of university life. If you don’t have your own computer, there are computer facilities at all Monash campuses providing student access to word processing, the Internet and email. Dial-in Internet access from home is also available to all enrolled students”: Monash University International Undergraduate Course Guide (2003) 20.

21 As is apparent from the figures, students were permitted to give more than one response, explaining why the tallied figures total more than 100.

22 In light of this situation, copies of course materials and lecture overheads were placed on Reserve in the University Library for the use of these students.

23 The responses to the question “If any, what sorts of costs discourage you from accessing a computer?” indicated that students were conscious of computer cost. The responses were: transport costs (5); printing costs (55); internet access costs (27); other costs (4).

24 The “Other” responses were divided almost evenly between accessing the WebCT page to access tutorial problems assignment notes. It is significant to note that over the semester there was one assignment set. Although a complete book of tutorial questions to be used during the semester was placed on the WebCT page at the commencement of the semester, anecdotally students reported downloading the questions required for a particular weekly tutorial week by week.

25 This can be found under the “Student Tracking” function.

26 A mark of 80 or greater.

27 Distinction, 70–79; Credit, 60–69; Pass, 50–59; and fails 40–49. Students recording a final mark of less than 40 were not tallied as such students would include those who had withdrawn from the unit, discontinued the unit, or somehow remained on the system through some other administrative occurrence. For the purpose of the study, the presence or lack thereof is inconsequential as any trends should be apparent – or not as the case might be – across the remainder of the student body.

28 The student who recorded the highest number of hits (271) scored a pass mark of 57.

29 No totals or entries of any kind sought before the week 6 total. In other words, no week 3 total was sought. This was due to a recognition that a large number of students would not be able to physically access the WebCT page in the first three weeks of semester. Past experience had attributed this to administrative problems which had prevented students’ user names being loaded onto the system, late enrolments, and system failures which had made use of the site very limited in the first couple of weeks of semester. Thus, it was considered that any tallies recorded for week 3 could carry little compelling weight.

30 Figures for after week 6 were determined by subtracting the total number of hits from hits recorded up to week 6.

31 These tests were administered by Mark Hastings of the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Monash University. A non-parametric test was required because the statistical population distribution of the data set is unknown (ie supra note 30 above). Readers seeking further explanation of the Kruskal-Wallis test and non-parametric tests should consult A Selvanathan, B Selvanathan, G Keller and B Warrack et al, Australian Business Statistics (3rd ed, Victoria: Thomson, 2004), Ch 16: “Non-parametric techniques: Comparing two populations”. The test was applied through the Minitab software program version of 14 produced by Minitab Inc, and available at http://www.minitab.com. The purpose of this test is to determine if at least one median is statistically different from the other medians. To this end, the semester was split into two 6-week periods. The application of the Kruskal-Wallis test on grading and median hits resulted in an overwhelming rejection of the hypothesis that the medians are the same. To explain, for the first six weeks it was found that at least one median was different. This was supported by the p-value for the first six weeks being 0.000. Therefore, it was concluded at the 1% level of significance, at lease one median was different. Similarly, in the second six-week block, it was also found that at least one median was also different. The p-value for the second six weeks was 0.023. Therefore, it was concluded at the 5% level of significance, at lease one median was different. This is also in support of the descriptive statistics noted in the averages above, and the discussion below. In other words, the Kruskal-Wallis test as applied to this data set supports the cogency of the material forming the basis of this discussion in this article. Note that the figures in these tables have been rearranged from the order in which the Minitab program produced them. Specifically, Minitab produced the data beside each mark in alphabetical order of the marks (ie “C”, “D”, “HD”, “N” and “P”). They have been rearranged in the order High Distinction, Distinction, Credit, Pass and Fail so as to be consistent with the other tables produced in this article. This information should be considered for those readers seeking to test this data.

32 The author does recognise that this similarity is frequently due to the fact that the law teacher is frequently a “moonlighting” practitioner.

33 N O Stockmeyer of the Thomas M Cooley Law School, Lansing, Michigan, USA, upon reading a brief summary of the author’s results as presented in the bulletin of the North American based Institute for Law School Teaching, The Law Teacher (referred to in note 34 above), undertook a similar survey which confirmed the results presented in this paper. See “Link Between Use and Grades Confirmed” (unpublished paper, August 2003).

34 Although written over 20 years ago, a substantial survey of this literature is provided by R E Clark, “Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media” (1983) 53(4) Review of Educational Research 445.

35 Id at 445.

36 R Dubin and T C Taveggia, The Teaching-Learning Paradox (Centre for Advanced Study of Educational Administration (Eugene: University of Oregon, 1968).

37 J Kulik, C Kulik and P Cohen, “Effects of Computer Based Teaching on Secondary School Students” (1983) 75 Journal of Educational Psychology 19, cited in Clark, supra note 38 at 450.

38 Id.

39 Id at 445.

40 W Schramm, Big Media, Little Media (California: Sage Publications, 1977) 275.

41 Id at 273.

42 Indeed, as if to confirm this possibility and defy the trends of the group of 506 students as a whole, it is perhaps pertinent to note that the student who finished first in BTF1010 in Semester 1, 2002 with a High Distinction recorded only 66 hits on the WebCT site – a tally just above the average for a Fail student! This is, presumably, the “exception which proves the rule”.