Using exemplars in an interdisciplinary law unit : listening to the students' voices

Students in interdisciplinary law units are expected to attain competence in skills specific to the discipline of law in order to satisfy assessment requirements. The answering of legal hypothetical problems, a common form of assessment in interdisciplinary law units, requires a specific methodology in answering a problem question, quite different from many students’ previous or concurrent experiences in other non-law units. Literature supports the idea of exemplars as a means of transmitting knowledge of criteria and standards, and of transmitting tacit knowledge of discipline-specific skills. There appears to be an absence of documented evidence that exemplars have been used in a systematic fashion in interdisciplinary law units. This paper reports on a project conducted with the Introduction to Business Law unit offered at the University of Western Sydney, which aimed to introduce exemplars in a systematic fashion to students in order to assist with their understanding of assessment requirements concerning legal problem solving. Students were surveyed twice as to their perceptions on the use of exemplars, both at the beginning and end of the semester. Changes in student perceptions of statistical significance between the two surveys were observed and reported.