‘First they tell us to ignore our emotions, then they tell us to reflect’: The development of a reflective writing pedagogy in clinical legal education through an analysis of student perceptions of reflective writing.

Abstract

The use of reflective writing has long been recognised as an important component of clinical legal education pedagogy, not least because it provides an important link between the twin pillars of CLE. However, current literature about reflective writing exposes a gap about student perceptions of reflective writing.

This article provides an analysis of the results of formal research that was conducted into student perceptions of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The research was designed to investigate whether students perceived any benefit from reflective writing and what difficulties they actually encountered in writing in a way that is particularly different to other forms of academic assessment.

This article focusses on student perceptions of the benefits of reflective writing.  A further aim of the research was to develop an improved pedagogy of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The article concludes that students perceive limited benefits from reflective writing and offers several suggestions and recommendations as to how this limited perception might be enhanced.