Learning outcomes of simulation of insolvency proceedings inspired by the US Mock trials

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to quantify students' learning outcomes from a pilot project inspired by Mock trials developed in the USA and applied into the Czech system of law education of students of business disciplines. The pilot project involved a simulation of insolvency proceedings where the students played roles of various participants. The learning outcomes were evaluated in accordance to Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives and findings support previous studies on this topic. Our results generally confirm the findings of various studies saying that the teaching of basic concepts and terminology is more effective in the form of lectures and that main simulation as a pedagogy outcomes are in the affective and psychomotor domains. However, the differences in cognitive results of our students are very small as measured by an anonymous final test, which suggests that there are more factors to be considered and further studied. The results also show that the students prefer the simulation method to the traditional lectures and perceive it as an efficient learning experience with long-term impact on their learning as well as attitudes and skills. Such a study has not been done in the Czech environment and the findings enrich both business and law education theory and practice.