Document Type
Article
Publication Title
The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
This article builds on our prior research about metacognition and its importance for law students’ learning. We hypothesized that given our past findings about the relationship between metacognition and academic performance during the first year of law school, it was possible that metacognition might also play an important role in success with a third-year bar preparation course and/or on the bar exam.
Our current study documents law students’ metacognitive skills during a final-semester bar prep course and examines the relationship between those students’ metacognitive skills and performance in the course and bar passage. We found that students are capable of gaining metacognitive knowledge and regulation skills during law school and even as late as the last semester of law school. We also found evidence that instruction and prompts to practice metacognitive regulation during the first year of law school had a long-term impact on students’ continued use of those skills in their final semester. This evidence is important because we also found, as we have in prior studies, that students’ success The authors would like to express their appreciation for Professors Nicole Lefton, Cara Caporale and C. Benjie Louis for the essential involvement with brainstorming, data collection, instructional intervention, and support in connection with our research, as we truly could not have done it without them. In addition, we greatly appreciate the invaluable research assistance provided by Hofstra Law students Brittany Sider and Nicholas Tramposch. We are also grateful to the AccessLex Institute for awarding us a Bar Success Research Grant in support of our study. 2024 Metacognitive Skills and Bar Passage 101 in a final-semester 3L bar preparation course, as well as their cumulative law school GPA, is associated with their level of metacognitive knowledge and regulation skills. While we did not find evidence of a direct relationship between metacognitive skills and bar passage, there was a relationship between bar passage and both course performance and cumulative GPA. Accordingly, we contend that metacognitive skills are an indirect support of bar passage given that they contribute to academic success, which in turn supports success on the bar exam. We conclude that, based on the relationship between metacognitive skills, academic success in law school, and bar passage, law schools have an ethical obligation to support law faculty in explicitly and intentionally incorporating metacognitive skills instruction into the law curriculum.
Recommended Citation
Jennifer A. Gundlach and Jessica R. Santangelo,
An Empirical Study of the Relationship Between Metacognitive Skills, Performance in a Bar Prep Course and Bar Passage, 1 J. Law Teaching & Learning 100
(2024)
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship/1571