Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Library and Information Science) in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2014 / Information seeking skills are important for students who are preparing to embark on information intensive professions such as the legal profession. Despite law libraries being available in all the Nigerian universities offering law as an undergraduate programme, law students generally do not seem interested in making optimal use of the available facilities and sources to find relevant information for their studies and to prepare them for their chosen career. Though many information behaviour studies relating to students do exist it is important to establish how and why students, especially those who have to rely on information to perform their duties as legal practitioners, seek for information and how they use the available information facilities and services to satisfy their information needs. The specific objectives of this study were to: investigate the information behaviour of law students in Nigerian university law libraries, determine the purposes for which law students retrieve information in Nigerian university law libraries, investigate the library information resources available to law students in Nigerian university law libraries, examine how law students utilise information resources in university law libraries, specifically ICT resources, determine the challenges faced by law students in the use of law library electronic resources and other law sources in the process of information retrieval in Nigerian university law libraries, provide recommendations for improving law library systems in Nigerian universities and to develop a theoretical model that suits the information seeking behaviour of law students in Nigerian university law libraries. The research paradigm followed a positivism and interpretive perspective using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study adopted a survey research design. The study targeted all the law students in Nigerian universities. Out of the 30 universities offering law as a course of study in Nigeria, a total of 12 universities were chosen for the study namely: Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma; Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti; Imo State University, Owerri; Kogi State University, Anyigba; Nasarawa State University, Keffi; Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; University of Benin, Benin; University of Calabar, Calabar; University of Ibadan, Ibadan; University of Ilorin, Ilorin: and University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. From the 12 chosen universities, 1,534 law students were randomly selected; this represents the sample for the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire, an interview and observation methods. The findings revealed that the surveyed law students generally exhibited a positive attitude towards patronage of law libraries, and that printed information sources are the main information sources utilised by respondents in law libraries. Digital libraries found in the law libraries were found not to be optimally used. Reasons given were the unavailability and inaccessibility of computers and the lack of Internet connectivity. The majority of the respondents indicated that they possessed the ICT skills required to search for information using electronic information resources in the law libraries. The Internet facilities provided in the law library where only used by 33% of the respondents when it was necessary to find academic related information. An ability test showed that only 47% of the respondents tested had the Internet skills to effectively retrieve applicable information sources/databases on the Internet. It was revealed that access to ICT facilities in the law libraries was poor, and the existing electronic libraries and other sources like the Internet and law databases were underutilised by the surveyed law students for a variety of reasons, such as a lack of access to the electronic law libraries, lack of ICT resources, or the fact that the existing ICT sources were not intended for law students’ use. Observations showed that only three law libraries provided access to law databases out of the twelve law libraries. Other challenges identified concerning the use of the law libraries included: erratic power supply; Internet connectivity problems; slow downloading speed; non-subscription to law databases; lack of qualified staff to manage and maintain the electronic law libraries; inadequate amount of computers for student utilisation; unhelpful library staff; and inadequate funding to provide quality ICT resources in the universities’ law libraries. The study recommended that law students should be allowed access to all law library resources and be provided with current and relevant library sources, electronic sources and ICT equipment that will encourage them to frequent the law libraries and use its information resources. Additionally, the libraries need adequate support and enough funds to facilitate the purchase of current legal material; upgrade ICT equipment; subscribe to legal databases; upgrade Internet connectivity; and improve their power supply. The study also recommended that library sources (print and electronic) should be aggressively advertised to attract students’ attention and more library orientation and ICT training courses should be provided.. / Nigerian Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND)

Gender and risk are both components of our everyday life, put in a context of occupational segregation, they become increasingly interesting. Does risk-assessment and ontological security affect occupational choices and does those aspects differ between the genders? These are some of the questions that this study aims to examine. The relevance of these questions is the possible contribution to occupational gender segregation and continued immanence for women in the labour market. Through semi-structured interviews, this study will target last year's law [in 2022] students whose future occupational choice is approaching. The interviews include both males and females, the males are primarily for comparisons between the genders and the females of the study are of main interest. The collected material was analysed with the theoretical framework of Anthony Giddens theory regarding risk and Simone de Beauvoir’s conceptualisation of immanence. The result of the thesis indicates that women assess risks and prioritise safety to a much greater extent than their male counterparts which directly influenced their occupational paths, values, and choices. Further conclusions include the notion of underlying immanence; visible in the female participants arguments and self-doubt which permeated their occupational goals and choices.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Many law students are required to take first-year writing courses. With the increased emphasis in legal education on practical skills training (Sullivan et al. 2007), legal writing scholars have begun exploring how these writing courses equip students with practical skills (Felsenburg and Graham 2010; Cauthen 2010). However, these scholars have not explored how summer internships serve as opportunities for students to practice the skills they gained in the classroom. Following the lead of writing studies scholars who examine the transition from classroom and workplace writing (Russell and Fisher 2009; Devitt 2004, Wardle 2004; Winsor 1990), this study explores how the genres students learned in legal writing classroom prepared them for internship writing. This study reports results from interviews of eight students who completed 15 internships during the 2014 and 2015 summers. The main findings indicate that students who performed well in the legal writing course eventually served in litigation-based internships. These students perceived a high rate of transfer from classroom to workplace writing. By contrast, students who struggled learning the legal writing classroom genres eventually accepted non-litigation internships where their writing tasks bore little resemblance to those of the classroom. Tellingly, both groups of students were not trained or mentored on how to write during internships because they were expected to be strong writers already. Therefore, these findings suggest that legal writing scholars need to better prepare students who are not pursuing litigation careers or who accept non-litigation internships. This support is vital because students' future internship and career options were deeply connected to their performance in the legal writing course.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The purpose of this study was to investigate the significance of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach for the first year Law Degree students at the University of Limpopo. Qualitative, ethnographic research was conducted to determine the views and perceptions of the participants. Data was collected through interviews and questionnaires with a selected sample of respondents, and the data was analysed using thematic analysis. Themes were generated to present the data based on the objectives of the study, which were aligned to the literature review. The study has highlighted how the ESP approach could be used in the existing English module drawing from the participants’ conceptions. The findings revealed that even though the English module is considered important in the law degree by students and lecturers, the content of the module should be designed in a manner that fits the Law field. The study recommends that relevant content be designed to develop essential skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking and the module content should be designed with the specific content that fits the law degree.

Most of today's college students perceive higher education as the most critical element to their future success, quality of life, financial security, and general well-being. Consequently, more and more students entering colleges and universities choose to major in professional or pre-professional programs such as business, engineering, pre-med or pre-law. The majority of past research has concentrated on student attrition and retention in undergraduate education for the majority population. These studies have not enabled scholars to obtain a deeper understanding of the factors relating to minority populations -- especially those from the Hispanic community. In addition, the majority of these studies have not provided an understanding of students' progress and eventual success in legal education. The purpose of this study was to determine which variables from commonly accepted foundational theories on higher education retention, attrition, and student development are applicable to the first-year experiences of Hispanic students enrolled in a Juris Doctorate Program at an accredited law school at a public institution who are the first in their family to attend. Using both a survey instrument and narrative interviews, the study revealed that first-generation Hispanic students are disadvantaged compared to their peers when it came to understanding important law school financial, cultural, and academic issues. While family support, faculty relationships, law school study/support groups, academic mentoring, and academic advising positively influenced first-year progress; the respondents' cultural identity and race negatively impacted faculty and peer interactions both in and out of the classroom. The lack of need-based financial aid, higher tuition costs associated with legal education, tuition deregulation, increased debt from borrowing, and poor information about financial assistance all negatively affected their success. The negative effects of stress and anxiety permeated numerous first-year experiences including law school orientation, law school classes, final exams, grades, and figuring out how to pay for school. These results should help key stakeholders associated including faculty and administrators to better understand minority student issues and the impact of stereotype threats specific to the legal education context in an effort to reduce first-year attrition rates and improve minority access to the legal profession. / text

The purpose of this study was to better understand the educational practices used in first year law school and the impact of these practices on students. Prior research showed that students are negatively impacted during first year and that educational practices are somewhat to blame. This study is consistent with this literature and provides new and important information about the extent to which teaching methods; content and curriculum; assessment and grading; learning theory and aims of law school all contribute to the experiences of law students. The research method in this study consisted of in-depth interviews of 19 University of British Columbia law school graduates who had completed law school a few months earlier. Graduates were questioned about their perceptions of both the first year law school educational practices and their impacts, specifically in relation to the five core courses taught in first year law school. This study revealed that students found first year law school problematic in many ways. This research supports the literature that suggests the case method and the lecture method used in first year are not entirely effective or efficient for student learning. The case method seems to makes learning more difficult and slower than it needs to be. As suggested in the literature the lecture method was useful in providing information to students and this information helped students focus their studies. However, these typically didactic lectures did not appear to engage students or encourage deeper learning. The question and answer technique used in some lectures intimidated students and appeared to interfere with their learning. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Cette recherche vise à étudier le rôle que peuvent jouer les parajuristes et les étudiants en droit dans le processus d'accès à la justice des citoyens. Face à la crise d'accès à la justice que nous constatons, il nous apparaît pertinent d'évaluer quelles contributions peuvent fournir d'autres détenteurs de connaissances juridiques, comme les parajuristes et les étudiants en droit, dans le processus d'accès à la justice des citoyens, en complément des professionnels du droit que sont les notaires et les avocats. Afin de répondre à cette question, nous comparons la situation québécoise avec deux ressorts qui ont réformé leur système professionnel juridique afin de laisser une plus grande place aux parajuristes ou aux étudiants en droit, soit la province d'Ontario, au Canada, et l'État de Washington, aux États-Unis. Nous étudions ces deux initiatives et évaluons les impacts qu'ont eus celles-ci à la fois sur l'accès à la justice et sur la protection du public. Nous concluons qu’il serait souhaitable de s'inspirer de ces initiatives dans le contexte particulier du Québec. Nous tentons de postuler quel pourrait être l'encadrement réglementaire qui s'appliquerait, en tentant de concilier l'accès à la justice et la protection du public, assurée par les monopoles professionnels. / This research is aimed at studying the role that paralegals and law students can play in the access to justice process for the general population. Considering the access to justice crisis facing our judicial system, it seems appropriate to evaluate which contribution other people with some law training, like paralegals and law students, can have in the access to justice process, in addition with the other legal professionals, namely lawyers and notaries, in Québec. To answer that question, we compare the situation in the province of Québec with two jurisdictions that reformed their legal professional system and allowed for paralegals or law students to play a greater role in the delivery of legal services. Those jurisdictions are the province of Ontario, in Canada, and the State of Washington, in the United States of America. We study these two initiatives and evaluate the impacts they had on access to justice and on the protection of the public. We conclude that it would be a good idea to import some of those ideas in Québec’s particular context. We try to determine what a new regulatory model could look like, while trying to reconcile access to justice and public protection imperatives and considering the existing professional monopolies.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-04T18:27:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Laudemir Alves.pdf: 1210451 bytes, checksum: 116e35693fa919bc8b665be1962cfa0c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-09 / This search was conducted from the historical-cultural perspective, valuing the descriptive aspects and personal perceptions of 10 students of law, focusing on the individual as part of the social totality, seeking to understand how to conceive: concrete situations of social inequality, and the criminalization of social movements. We sought to understand whether students prepare future projects of action for reducing social inequality. The study was conducted at a particular university in a little city of Sao Paulo. This study was grounded theory based on three pillars: a) an analysis of the conditions of life under capitalism, b) a discussion on the role of education in capitalist society influencing law degree, and c) from the intersection of psychology and law aimed to understand: social inequality and social movements. The historical materialism dialectical was used as methodological perspective in qualitative research. Were structured as material for analysis in this study: 2 Instrument Information Search (IIS), containing identification data and socio-demographic data, as well as written answers for each participant, produced from two texts of popular movements. Were performed two Focal Groups meetings. The considerations, reflections and notes on the information obtained, were produced from a dialectical analysis as a way to understand the conflicts between individuals and society, resulting summaries, the researcher developed from an interpretative analysis of the contradictions expressed in texts written by participants. As this study indicated the main considerations: I) need to broaden the discussion about what are the social movements and their forms of collective expression in daily life; II) the importance of more research that seeks to understand the characteristics of law students, their specificities, and their cultural universe, and III) the need to develop a linked network between psychology and law, which favors original practices with creativity, flexibility and methodological foundation to integrate the knowledge of both areas, to enable a mode of action against social inequalities. / Essa pesquisa foi realizada a partir da perspectiva hist?rico-cultural, valorizando os aspectos descritivos e as percep??es pessoais de 10 universit?rios de Direito, focando o particular como parte da totalidade social, procurando compreender como concebem: situa??es concretas de desigualdade social; a import?ncia ou n?o e a criminaliza??o dos movimentos sociais. Buscou-se entender se os universit?rios elaboram ou n?o projetos futuros de atua??o para redu??o da desigualdade social. O estudo foi realizado em uma institui??o universit?ria particular do interior de S?o Paulo. Esse estudo foi fundamentado teoricamente a partir de tr?s eixos: a) uma an?lise das condi??es de vida no capitalismo; b) uma discuss?o sobre o papel da educa??o na sociedade capitalista influenciando a forma??o em direito; e c) a partir da intersec??o entre psicologia e direito, buscou-se entender: desigualdades sociais e movimentos sociais. O materialismo hist?rico dial?tico foi utilizado como referencial metodol?gico em uma perspectiva qualitativa de pesquisa. Foram estruturados como material para an?lise nessa pesquisa: 2 Instrumentos de Busca de Informa??o (IBI), contendo dados de identifica??o e dados s?cio-demogr?ficos; bem como, respostas escritas por cada um dos participantes, produzidas a partir de dois textos relativos a movimentos populares. Foram realizados para tanto 2 encontros Grupo Focal. As considera??es, reflex?es e apontamentos sobre as informa??es obtidas, foram produzidos a partir de uma an?lise dial?tica, como forma de perceber os contrastes existentes entre os sujeitos e a sociedade; resultando s?nteses, que o pesquisador desenvolveu a partir de uma an?lise interpretativa das contradi??es expressas nos textos escritos pelos participantes. Como principais considera??es esse estudo apontou: I) necessidade de se ampliar ? discuss?o sobre o que sejam os movimentos sociais e suas formas de express?o coletiva no cotidiano; II) a relev?ncia de mais pesquisas que busquem a compreens?o das caracter?sticas dos estudantes de direito, suas especificidades, e seu universo cultural; e III) a necessidade da constru??o de uma rede articulada entre psicologia e direito, que favore?a pr?ticas originais com criatividade, flexibilidade e fundamenta??o metodol?gica que integrem os conhecimentos das duas ?reas, a fim de possibilitar um modo de atua??o frente ?s desigualdades sociais.