Students' perceptions on teaching styles within public international law curriculum: A case of Russia

Abstract

The topicality of the research is stipulated by the challenges the legal education faces due to the controversial trends toward globalization and national legal system preservation, toward comprehensive legal training on the one hand, and the market increasing demand for narrow-field practitioners. The aims of the research are to study law students' perceptions regarding teaching/learning formats of studies in progress, to follow the development of students' perceptions regarding their legal studies at different levels of higher education. The research methods included theoretical analysis, law students' survey, statistics data processing. The empirical studies included two surveys: the entry survey of second year students of LLB and the same students' survey when they have moved to the second year of their master studies. The research enhances the awareness of the specific characteristics of public international law teaching within national system of legal culture and its values. The empirical data contributes to teachers' understanding of students' needs and raises awareness of learner-centered education within legal domain. The article had both theoretical and practical value as the theoretical background and the proposed methodology can be applied to developing training courses for legal faculty.