Impact of Covid – Perceptions of wellbeing in Law Teachers in the UK and Australia

Reader Caroline Strevens, Dr Colin James and Professor Rachael Field

An interim discussion of our survey – October 2020

There is now a significant amount of empirical evidence that establishes that tertiary students generally, and law students in particular, experience elevated levels of psychological distress (Stallman 2010; Larcombe et al, 2015-17)

Teaching staff at Law Schools are increasingly being called on to design curriculum and pedagogy that will support student wellbeing.  Indeed, Caroline and Rachael have argued that there is an ethical imperative to do this in our recent article co-authored with Professor Nigel Duncan published in Legal Ethics entitled ‘Ethical Imperatives for Legal Educators to Promote Law Student Wellbeing’.

However, university staff themselves are facing workplace pressures as a result of constant change, uncertainty, the impact of neoliberalism – and now Covid-19. The recent literature exploring the ‘neoliberal university’ has recognised the factors impacting all academic staff over the past few years as comprising: increased student numbers, consumer-driven approaches, enhanced scrutiny of research and teaching, a greater focus on commercial activity and the need to generate income and of doing more with less (Wray & Kinman, 2020).

Since 2015 our research team has been exploring the issue of the wellbeing of law teachers in the UK and Australia. Our thesis is that if Law School teaching staff are to have the capacity to work to support student wellbeing then their own wellbeing needs to be supported by their Law School and their University. However, this is only part of the story and we should in any event be concerned with law academic wellbeing as an end-in-itself.

Our 2017 data pools of about 150 participants for each iteration of the survey both in Australia and the UK have been analysed and the discussion disseminated in a number of recent outputs.

1. Clare Wilson and Caroline Strevens, ‘Perceptions of Psychological Well-Being in UK Law Academics’ (2018) 52(3) The Law Teacher 335-349.

2. Colin James, Caroline Strevens, Rachael Field and Clare Wilson, ‘Fit your Own Oxygen Mask First: The Contemporary Neoliberal University and the Well-Being of Legal Academics’ in Judith M Marychurch and Adiva Sifris (eds), Wellness for Law: Making Wellness Core Business (LexisNexis, 2019) Ch 7.

3. Colin James, Rachael Field and Caroline Strevens, ‘Student Wellbeing Through Teacher Wellbeing: A Study with Law Teachers in the UK and Australia’ (2019) 10(3) Student Success 76-83.

4. Colin James, Caroline Strevens, Rachael Field and Clare Wilson, ‘The Changing World of Legal Education and Law Teachers’ Quality of Working Life in Australia and the UK: What Do Law Schools Need to Change?’ in J Chan, M Legg and P Vines, The Impact of Technology and Innovation on the Well-Being of the Legal Profession (Intersentia, 2020).

The survey in the UK was open throughout July 2020 just as the number of covid cases fell to its lowest after the initial wave and as restrictions eased. At this time, competition between Universities for students increased. Student number controls were removed to assist Universities who would struggle financially due to the lack of international students. This context has clearly impacted the data.

The 2020 Covid-19 survey of law teachers in the UK and Australia asked questions about demographics and three open questions:

• Please explain what you think your University could do to address any concerns you have about personal finances
• Please explain what you think your University could do to improve staff quality of working life
• Is there anything arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic and responses to it that your university should implement or change to improve staff quality of working life in the long-term?
• In the demographic questions we asked about caring responsibilities.

UK results: There were 117 responses and of those who disclosed gender 70% female (n72) and 30% (n32) male. The substantial majority worked full-time in public Universities.  59 female respondents disclosed a caring responsibility as opposed to 21 male respondents. A substantial number did not answer the finance related question. Unsurprisingly, due to the month that the survey was open there were few concerns expressed about personal safety.

We have been able to conduct a preliminary and interim analysis of the following open question:  Is there anything arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic and responses to it that your university should implement or change to improve staff quality of working life in the long-term?

• 28% welcomed the opportunity for flexible working from home. Some commented on how this was positive for carers and also resulted in more engagement in virtual meetings. Loneliness/reduced collegiality were raised as an issue, and more was being asked of Universities to promote staff to staff and staff to student engagement.
• 13% mentioned overwork resulting from Covid-19 and the move to blended learning.
• 11% asked for more trust in staff who had demonstrated they work well remotely.
• Very few mentioned the need for more safety measures, but the survey ran in July when plans for return to campus were in their infancy.

Unlike our 2017 survey there were substantially more positive comments from respondents.  Some of these indicated that a few institutions were taking steps to address academic staff overload whilst others praised clear and regular communication.

In our recent presentation to the Centre for Professional Legal Education online conference, and at the Advancing Wellness in Law webinar, in October we enjoyed a discussion around some of our interim thoughts using SDT factors of autonomy, competence and relatedness to explore what can we learn from these results?

• Positive learnings: management support has been forthcoming and is recognising the need for flexibility and good communication. Our results indicate that to be even more effective these approaches should address the needs of different groups, for example, carers.
• Less positive learnings: perceptions of trust in staff working from home need to be strengthened; there needs to be a clearer balance in terms of making demands (to changes to teaching to support students) with job autonomy and control (staff know how to teach). We ask whether students are being supported at the expense of staff?
• We have also learned that for the less technologically proficient, online teaching may impact their sense of competence and be a source of stress and anxiety.

The Australian Survey currently remains open:

• It was distributed via the Australasian Law Academics Association, the Wellness Network for Law and the ADR Research Network in September 2020.
• To date we have 42 responses.
• The survey is still open and we would be very grateful if Australian Law Teachers who have not yet responded would take time to participate.
• The link to the survey and participant information is here: https://bond.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bsb9QQDcnUrfQd7 (Please don’t hesitate to to contact Rachael Field directly at rfield@bond.edu.au if you experience any issues with the link).

This preliminary and tentative analysis of our small scale survey indicates that now, more than ever, academic staff in Law Schools in the UK and Australia need structural, cultural and management initiatives in their Universities to support their work in curriculum and pedagogy design that in turn supports student wellbeing. 

COVID-19: An Authentic Learning Opportunity

Kylie Fletcher, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Bond University

It has been over three months since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. It is now apparent that the effects of COVID-19, and the related restrictions, trigger a myriad of legal issues. Like many of my colleagues, I am endeavouring to acknowledge and integrate COVID-19 into my teaching of a doctrinal law subject. I am attempting to do this in a way that enhances authenticity. This post outlines my journey to date.

I teach contract law. In this discipline, much of the discussion surrounding COVD-19 has focused on COVID-19 related force majeure and frustration triggers. In an effort to maintain a contemporary subject, I included these topics in my previous semester of teaching. As COVID-19 had not reached pandemic proportions until part way through the semester, these were unplanned inclusions. Consequently, they did not form part of the formal assessment program. Instead, I included them as discussion points in the weekly tutorial program. The students responded very well and appeared to enjoy the topical dialog. They seemed to connect with the idea that, once in practice, these types of matters might occupy their time.

I have been planning my next semester of teaching. While doing so, I wondered how I might continue teaching the same topics in a more engaging way. Given the encouraging impact on student engagement, I was drawn towards designing a more authentic learning experience (Hart, Hammer, Collins & Chardon, 2011). This could be done by incorporating real-life professional experiences and competencies (Hart, Hammer, Collins & Chardon, 2011; McNamara, 2017). Outlined below are the steps that I followed in designing such a learning experience.

1. Conducted research

While well versed on the law in these areas, I was not sufficiently familiar with its application in this particular context. In order to bridge this gap, I conducted the usual legal research. In addition to the typical search tools, I referred to Melbourne Law School Covid‐19 Research Network’s Annotated Bibliography of Covid‐19 Legal Literature (Melbourne Law School Academic Research Service, 2020). I also consulted legal practice bulletins and law firm publications so as to better understand the practitioner’s perspective.

2. Consulted authenticity framework

Dr Kelley Burton provides a framework that enabled me to assess the authenticity of last semester’s learning experience (Burton, 2011, 2015). This framework is based on the scholarship in the field, including the work of Herrington and Herrington (Herrington & Herrington, 1998, 2006). Burton’s Authenticity Framework poses questions that enable educators to survey their assessments for the typical traits of authenticity. Upon my doing so, it was evident that there was limited authenticity in hosting a guided tutorial discussion about COVID-19-related force majeure and frustration. The exercise provided students with an opportunity to collaborate with each other and use some limited thinking skills in the context of a real-life topic.

Burton makes the point that authenticity is scaffolded across a whole program (Burton, 2011). For this reason, an educator is not expected to include all traits within an individual learning experience or subject. With this in mind, I focused on identifying and enhancing the traits that aligned with my subject curriculum.

3. Ensured curriculum alignment

Having regard to the Burton’s Authenticity Framework, I decided to enhance authenticity by, among other things, integrating the need to use higher-order thinking skills, creating the potential for ‘a novel or diverse responses’ and requiring students to ‘produce a valuable, polished product’ (Burton, 2011, p.25). I decided to focus on incorporating these particular traits as they assist students to realize the subject learning outcomes. Further, with the scaffolding of the entire law program in mind, these traits are an appropriate fit for contract law.

In order to incorporate these traits, I was naturally inclined to ask students to research and advise on a hypothetical legal problem based on these COVID-19-releated topics. However, in an otherwise busy subject, this might be overly burdensome. In an effort to balance student workload, my preference was to integrate these topics into an already scheduled assessment task.

The Bachelor of Laws at Bond University incorporates an integrated skills and professionalism program. As part of this program, core legal skills are scaffolded throughout the law degree. Dispute resolution and collaboration is taught and assessed at an intermediate level in my subject. Among other things, I typically focus on the negotiation of contract law related problems. Using the assessment structure that was already in place, I decided to incorporate an authenticity-enriched negotiation problem based on COVID-19-related frustration. I also decided to include an exercise that requires students to work with force majeure clauses.

4. Designed for authenticity

I drafted the assessment (and its accompanying rubric) to include the traits that I had selected from Burton’s Authenticity Framework. In devising the negotiation scenario, I was able to draw on my experience as a practicing lawyer advising on frustration issues and force majeure clauses. I was also able to derive inspiration from the resources accessed when I undertook the research (described above).

The negotiation scenario is set between two parties who regularly contract together via a standard form contract. The parties are disputing the frustration of the contracts that were due to be performed in the first half of this year. One party is claiming that the contractual obligations under these contracts have been discharged by frustration through COVID-19-related delay. The scenario has been drafted to accommodate the potential for creative solutions, so students have the opportunity to present ‘a novel or diverse responses’. The scenario also requires students to draft, propose and negotiate a force majeure clause for inclusion in the standard form contract for future use. Students will also be required to submit a negotiation planner. In order to further promote authenticity, this planner is modelled on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s Conciliation Preparation Toolkit (Administrative Appeals Tribunal). In drafting a clause and preparing a planner, students will ‘produce a valuable, polished product’.

5. Was mindful of potential for distress

It has been reported that telephone calls to Lifeline have increased by 25% (Willis, 2020). It is fairly clear that a range of COVID-19-related topics have the potential to cause distress. For these reasons, I carefully considered the appropriateness of all COVID-19-related inclusions. Before presenting the assessment to students, I will also consider the other matters that educators ought to consider when introducing potentially distressing content (Baik et al, 2017, p.26). While the need may not arise in my subject, it is also worth my mentioning that trigger warnings may be appropriate in certain circumstances.

If not already, I am sure that most legal educators are planning to incorporate COVID-19-related topics into their subjects at some stage. In doing so, many will be seeking to create authentic learning opportunities. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues about the various ways in which this is achieved. 

References

I would like to thank Professor Nick James for his comments and editorial suggestions.

Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Conciliation Preparation Toolkit. https://www.aat.gov.au/AAT/media/AAT/Files/ADR/Conciliation-Preparation-Toolkit.pdf

Baik, C., Larcombe, W., Brooker A., Wyn, J., Allen, L., Brett, M., Field, R., & James., R. (2017). Enhancing student mental wellbeing: a handbook for academic educators. https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2408604/MCSHE-Student-Wellbeing-Handbook-FINAL.pdf  

Burton, K. (2011). A framework for determining the authenticity of assessment tasks: Applied to an example in law. Journal of Learning Design, 4(2), 20–28.

Burton, K. (2015). Measuring and enhancing the authenticity of an examination and other assessment tasks. Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association, 8(1), 25–33. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlALawTA/2015/4.pdf

Hart, C., Hammer, S., Collins, P., & Chardon, T. (2011). The real deal: using authentic assessment to promote student engagement in the first and second years of a regional law program. Legal Education Review, 21(1), 97–121.

Herrington, J., & Herrington, A. (1998). Authentic assessment and multimedia: How university students respond to a model of authentic assessment. Higher Education Research & Development, 17(3), 305-22.

Herrington, J., & Herrington, A. (2006). Authentic conditions for authentic assessment: Aligning task and Assessment. Research and Development in Higher Education: Critical Visions Thinking, Learning and Researching in Higher Education, 29, 146-151.

McNamara, N. (2017). Authentic assessment in contract law: legal drafting. The Law Teacher, 51(4), 486–498.

Melbourne Law School Academic Research Service. (2020). Annotated Bibliography of COVID‐19 Legal Literature. https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/hlen/covid-19/scholarship 

Willis, O. (2020, April 30). Mental health toll of coronavirus to create ‘second wave’ of pandemic, experts warn. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-30/coronavirus-mental-health-second-wave-impacts-of-pandemic/12197930

Readapting Assessments in Response to COVID-19: Bond Law Perspective

Dr Umair Ghori

There was a time when we as academics used to love debating about online exams, its nuances, pros and cons…and then like all academics we went back to our favourite pastime: answering emails! And, of course, marking research essays and conducting our own research. The thought that we will ever depart from our comfortably set routine of traditional end-of-semester exams was limited to seminars and staff meetings… and then a one-in-a-hundred-year event jolted us into action. What was once an interesting option suddenly became the only viable way forward.

All over the world, universities encountered the challenge of readapting to the changing circumstances with some institutions, such as Imperial College London holding their medical exams exclusively online. In Australia and New Zealand, Monash University and Victoria University of Wellington have adopted a series of measures that saw examinations move to an online medium.

However, what may be true in the case for larger institutions might not necessarily be true for smaller institutions that prize their more hands-on learning environment. While the transition to online teaching and assessment is all but inevitable, what will be its iteration within law schools that emphasise a personalised learning experience such as Bond University’s Faculty of Law?

Faculties often have their own teaching approaches that meld with the requirements and the dynamics of the underlying disciplines. At Bond, the Faculty of Law emphasises purposive learning and the teaching of skills through a strong student-teacher interaction in lectures, tutorials and a private, one-on-one consultations. It is simplistic to assume that the Bond “feel” will remain the same with Collaborate, Zoom or Microsoft Teams platforms. The transition, therefore, must be such that our character and peculiar advantage must remain intact.

At the academic level, instructors will have to come to grips with multi-layered challenges. For example:

1. Email stress: where communications with students, colleagues and support staff will impose an increasing strain. Dorie Clark writing for the Harvard Business Review states that an average professional spends approximately 4.1 hours answering work emails. I am sure some of our colleagues easily meets or exceeds this estimate! One useful resource has been produced by University of Michigan which provides a great refresher for many of us struggling to cope with heightened email traffic. Email stress features here because the closer the assessment dates draw close the frequency of emails from students to instructors increases exponentially. Delay in responding to student emails due to sheer volume of messages in the inbox is quite obviously a challenge that has to be resolved going forward.    
2. Re-adapting the skills exercise program to make it such that remote conduct is qualitatively equivalent to actual skills exercises in our moot courts and skills room: Bond Law has its own unique way of doing things, hence there is no exemplar that can be used effectively. For mooting based, skills exercises, one challenge is to cultivate the student’s preparation and readiness levels to wean them away from script reading from the screen. Another challenge is to manage the scheduling of exercises for students in different time-zones or where internet is not reliable. Essentially, this means that if students are unable to conduct their skills exercises we must have a fall-back plan for them that meets the university assessment standards and any other external benchmarking.
3. Credibility and integrity of the assessment process: The traditional exams are gone! Even after COVID-19 crisis is over, the era of end-of-semester, sit down exams is coming to an end. This shift offers both challenges and exciting opportunities. Our solution this semester at Bond was to allow 24 hours to do an exam that normally would have taken much less. Clearly, this cannot be made the basis of assessments going forward. If take-home exams or assignments are going to be the new norm then the emphasis on quality of legal analysis increases. For the instructors, this means that legal analysis has to be explicitly taught within the four-corners of every subject instead of leaving it on the students to figure it out. Practically, this may also mean acknowledgment of the fact that what may be appropriate as legal analysis in one subject might not be suitable for adaptation in another subject. One possible solution to this is that the assessment design should be used as the basis of teaching – a task that is easier said than done. Traditionally, in the subject of law there has been a strong emphasis on summative assessment whereby student proficiency is judged against pre-determined benchmarks. Under a revised paradigm, instructors would have to consider pre-deciding their assessments and then teaching legal analysis within that framework.

We cannot assume that transition towards online learning will be universally popular. On the contrary, we may see a digital divide between regions and demographics where certain students or staff will struggle to adapt to new technologies. Such individuals may be tempted to view their negative experience of online learning during the Covid-19 crisis as representative of online learning on a more general scale. The silver lining is that the next few months will afford us, the academics, to experiment and try new things which can later form the foundation of the law school experience in a new era.