LEVERAGING CASE BRIEFING TO FOSTER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS OF LEGAL ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS

Abstract

Critical thinking is a quintessential 21st century skill for individuals to thrive in the rapid evolving world where information is abundant and discerning its validity is increasingly troublesome. Inculcating strong critical thinking abilities for the next generations has therefore never been more crucial. This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of case briefing on fostering legal English-major students’ critical thinking capacity. A quasi-experimental research time series design was utilized to gauge the development of students’ critical thinking skills at different time points. The participants included 63 fourth-year legal English-majors who were divided into 15 groups to practice briefing three cases in groups at equally spaced intervals over the period of 15 weeks. The written summaries of the assigned cases were collected and marked using the researcher-made scoring rubric. Students’ scores were treated using IBM SPSS 26.0, where General linear model-repeated measures was run to compare the results within groups at each point of time. The findings reveal that the implementation of case briefing had positive effects on students’ critical thinking abilities. The worth-noticing improvement is the students’ capability to critically evaluate the cases through challenging the court’s reasoning, detecting biases and suggesting alternative solutions to the legal issues. The most difficult part is the reasoning which is complicated and requires labour to cut through. The pedagogical implication of the research is the advocacy for using case briefing technique to elevate students’ critical thinking skills in legal English classes.