Knowing and being: A narrative inquiry into undergraduate students’ experiences of learning law at a post-1992 university

Wood, Rachel

Abstract

This thesis presents a narrative inquiry into students’ experience of learning law during a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme at an English, post-1992, university. It arises out of twenty years’ experience of teaching law and developing curriculum on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, which led to my curiosity about the ways in which students perceive and experience the law degree. The focus of the inquiry is to examine what it means to students to engage with law as a discipline, focusing on their formation of epistemic understanding, or ‘ways of knowing’ across their years of study. I also inquire into the ways in which study of law impacts on their wider intrapersonal and interpersonal development, examining the ways in which it impacts upon their approach towards their future, professional trajectories. I look to identify connections between their perceptions of ‘ways of knowing’ with their experience of ‘ways of being’.

I adopt a qualitative methodology, narrative inquiry, to structure my research and explore the use of poetic representation to represent my participants’ voices. I foreground the experiences of the student participants within a three-dimensional inquiry space of time, social relationships and place. I draw on theoretical literature in the field of personal epistemology which explores cognitive ways of knowing and the concept of self-authorship across cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of development.

I claim an original contribution in my choice of narrative inquiry as a methodology and in the use of a form or poetic representation. My theoretical perspective also provides an original viewpoint on the law student experience. Taken together I suggest this thesis presents a new perspective on the experience of law students during the LLB which has value in informing development of legal education pedagogy.

My inquiry has had positive impact on my own professional practice in my work on the redesign of the LLB programme at my own university, I hope that the reporting of my study has potential to resonate and prove useful to other lecturers involved in teaching the LLB in other university settings in England and Wales who face similar challenges.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 11, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 27, 2023
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9968274
• Award Date: Feb 27, 2023