Students as partners in redesigning assessment in Law

The Law Clinic within the School of Law and Social Justice provides free legal advice and services to members of the public. Students work alongside practicing lawyers to obtain applicable experience and practice prior to graduation, and can do so either as volunteers alongside their programmes in an extra-curricular capacity, or else opt to take the ‘Law Clinic’ module in their final year of study. This is a 15-credit module where students work in small groups of six or seven on real client cases as part of the Clinic’s work, and which focuses on peer-learning, peer-feedback, collaboration and teamworking, and preparation for professional practice for those who are seeking it. The module is very popular, with around 300 students per year opting to take part.

The module is assessed via end-point assessment, largely consisting of a 90%-weighted portfolio. The portfolio consists of an advice letter to the client outlining their options and legal processes open to them in the context of their case, a critical reflection on what the students have learned about access to justice over the course of the module, and a critical reflection on how they have developed their communication skills over the module. The students also submit a 10%-weighted group case file.

However, there is recourse to examine whether this approach to assessment is the most effective, appropriate or relevant. For one thing, Generative AI is potentially capable of producing these artefacts entirely, while for another, this assessment strategy focuses on the end point of the interactions the students have had with the client/the case, not the process of learning across those interactions. A new assessment strategy is therefore needed, devised in collaboration with the students for whom it is most relevant and authentic, which is robust to withstand scrutiny, which assesses the learning outcomes, and which can be applied in practice.

This project gathered several student interns who acted as student researchers and conducted focus groups with students undertaking the Law Clinic module. The focus groups examined students wider ideological perspectives on the purpose and format of assessment and feedback, and allowed participants to share their personal beliefs and thoughts about how the assessments on the Law Clinic module operated and how relevant they were. Participants also completed a ‘diamond exercise’, where they collectively discussed and ranked skills developed in the assessments from most to least important.  

Once the focus groups were conducted, the student researchers collated and coded the data to produce five distinct themes: stress, professionalism/authentic assessment, guidance and preparation, variety, and teamworking. Participants felt that assessments could be stressful, particularly when so heavily weighted at 90% or 100%, while more liberal or creatively free assessments were less stressful. They also felt that the professional environment of the Law Clinic was valuable to help develop their experience of ‘real’ practice and help develop their employability skills, as well as develop their capacity to work together and build relationships with clients. Participants felt that clarity in assessment instructions and guidance was of paramount importance, and that variety in format of assessment – as well as independence and choice – made for a richer assessment experience. Finally, students valued teamworking and relationship-building, but they were concerned over ensuring that everyone’s contributions were individually recognised.

These findings are being used to redevelop the assessment strategy on the Law Clinic module, and may also open up wider conversations around involving students and, crucially, what matters to them in assessment redesign.

This project has substantial potential to improve programme provision and student experience. Involving students in the assessment design process – particularly at the conceptualisation stage, provides students with agency, ensures that the assessments are meaningful to the students (and not something simply done to students), and makes sure that the assessment has buy-in from students before taking place. It also helps to make sure that students feel that the assessment has practical, applicable, and relevant to their post-graduation contexts.

The most significant challenge experienced was getting students to participate in the focus groups. Uptake was low, despite recompense being offered, and so it is difficult to say that the data gathered was representative of the entire student cohort, and only those who were invested already participated. Despite this, the data itself was very rich.

This is also a very resource-intensive process that may be difficult to replicate elsewhere, although that is more of a potential challenge, rather than one experienced here.

This experience has significantly helped to develop Confidence in both participants and student researchers – the participants were heard in terms of their opinions on the assessments and their voice will make a real difference, while the student researchers developed their skills at working together, running sessions and workshops, and working with complex data and research processes – all skills upon which they will be able to draw once they have graduated.

This experience also, naturally, ties closely to Authentic Assessment, as the findings will directly shape new assessments that will be tied closely to professional practice, but which are still relevant to students. Finally, the project is inherently tied to the concept of Research-Connected Teaching, as the entire project was student-led.

Ensure that there is adequate recompense for student participants and time the project appropriately to make sure that students are available, willing and not distracted by leave periods, holidays or other assessments (particularly dissertations or examinations). It may also be useful to ensure that this exercise is completed in a single-module case-study context and then widened out to a larger strategy – part of this project’s effectiveness was due to the fact that it examines a particularly industry-relevant module, which helps focus the students’ thoughts when considering new assessment approaches.