A recent poll found that Oxford legal students expect to use more digital study material in the future. In order for this to happen, much needs to change.
Current digital legal study material has a long way to go for it to become truly worthwhile. The benefits of digital media are clearly under-exploited.
Digital legal study material is treated as if we still learn in ways that were popular 20 years ago. The digital material is focused on the quality of the legal content. That is essential but not enough. Learning is a cognitive process that runs on motivation inspired commitment
Currently, there is little consideration for the need for pedagogical expertise including cognitive and motivational processes.
Cognitive processes cover issues like how do people analyze, process, store and retrieve information during learning time. Motivational factors deal with questions what does people motivate to continue reading the material at hand? How is the material visibly structured? Why would they become active learners?
One can hardly expect much result from current “digital material”. More attention for developments like TPACK (see diagram below) would enormously advance digital forms of legal learning. This may actually deliver to the Oxford legal students what they hope to expect.
