The Logic Doctor Is In: Using Structure Training and Metacognitive Monitoring to Cultivate the Ability to Self‐Diagnose Legal Analysis Skills

• Published date: 01 August 2009
• Author: Roger J. Johns
• Date: 01 August 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1722.2009.01060.x

The Logic Doctor Is In: Using

Structure Training and Metacognitive

Monitoring to Cultivate the Ability to

Self-Diagnose Legal Analysis Skills

Roger J. Johns

n

I. INTRODUCTION

The call to teach critical thinking skills has a long history among educators

1

Fand for good reason. The various rationales advanced for cultivating

these skills seem to converge on the clearly important need to prepare

students to effectively, and independently meet life’s challenges.

2

Recog-

r2009, Copyright the Author

Journal compilation rAcademy of Legal Studies in Business 2009

357

Journal of Legal Studies Education

Volume 26, Issue 2, 357–397, Summer/Fall 2009

n

Assistant Professor of Business Law, Department of Finance, College of Business, New Mex-

ico State University. The Logic Doctor method was presented as a finalist in the 2008 Charles

M. Hewitt Master Teacher Competition at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Legal

Studies in Business, in Long Beach, CA. I thank those attendees at the competition who

offered constructive and instructive feedback on the method.

1

See, e.g., JAMES A. DRAKE,TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING (1976) (discussing the teaching of crit-

ical thinking, in general); Susan Denbo, Employee v. Employer: Integrating EmploymentL aw Issues

and Critical Thinking Skills into the Undergraduate Business Law Curriculum,15J.L

EGAL STUD.

EDUC. 107 (1997) (advocating the use of mock trials to help students develop ‘‘essential char-

acteristics of critical thinkers); Nim Razook, Leviathans, Critical Thinking, and Legal Philosophy: A

Proposal for a General Education Legal Studies Course,21J.L

EGAL STUD.EDUC. 1, 3 (2003) (listing

the acquisition of critical thinking skills among the goals of a law and legal reasoning course

offered as a core humanities course); J. David Reitzel, Critical Thinking and the Business Law

Curriculum, 9 J. LEGAL STUD.EDUC. 471, 471 (1991) (advocating that legal studies courses

should develop in students ‘‘a mode of thinking that will enable them, on their own, to de-

termine what is significant and what is not, to avoid being misled by personal biases and other

distractions, and to get to the heart of a matter and to a satisfactory solution as often as pos-

sible’’).

2

See, e.g., DeVee E. Dykstra, Integrating Critical Thinking and Memorandum Writing Into Course

Curriculum Using the Internet as a Research Tool,42C.S

TUDENT J. 920 (2008) (observing that

‘‘[f]aculty are charged with the requirements of conveying specialized topic content to stu-

dents, but also with developing student growth in a variety of other personal qualities useful in

a student’s future career and life. Communication skills and critical thinking are two of these

nizing the value of critical thinking skills, however, is not sufficient. It must

also be recognized that any useful response to the call for teaching critical

thinking must be based on some level of agreement as to what constitutes

critical thinking, accompanied by effective pedagogical methods.

Even though there are many definitions of critical thinking,

3

a number

of commentators from diverse disciplines consider problem analysis

to be part of the generally accepted set of critical thinking skills,

4

and it

life skills’’); Reitzel, supra note 1, at 471 (asserting that ‘‘our major responsibility as collegiate

educators is to develop in students those intellectual qualities that will serve them throughout

life’’); Ya-Ting C. Yang & Heng-An Chou, Beyond Critical Thinking Skills: Investigating the Re-

lationship Between Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions Through Different Online Instructional

Strategies,39B

RIT.J.EDUC.TECH. 666, 666 (2008) (stating that ‘‘critical thinking (CT) is vitally

important in workplace decision making, leadership, clinical judgment, professional success

and effective participation in a democratic society’’).

3

See, e.g., M. NEIL BROWNE &STUART M. KEELEY,ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:AGUIDE TO

CRITICAL THINKING 2 (4th ed. 1994) (defining critical thinking as ‘‘the process of reacting with

systematic evaluation to what one reads and hears.’’); Thomas A. Angelo, Classroom Assessment

for Critical Thinking,22T

EACHING OF PSYCHOL. 6 (1995) (describing the critical thought process

as ‘‘the intentional application of rational, higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, syn-

thesis, problem recognition, problem solving, inference, and evaluation’’); Robert H. Ennis, A

Logical Basis for Measuring Critical Thinking Skills,43E

DUC.LEADERSHIP 44, 46 (1985) (defining

critical thinking as ‘‘reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe

or do’’); Andrea Giampetro-Meyer & Nancy Kubasek, A Test of Critical Thinking Skills for Busi-

ness Law and Legal Environment Studies, 9 J. LEGAL STUD.EDUC. 501, 503–07 (1991) (identifying

the determination of the absence of significant information, the understanding of deductive

and inductive reasoning, the identification of issues, conclusions, and reasons for conclusions

as among the important critical thinking skills appropriately taught in a legal environment

course); Joanne G. Kurfiss, Critical Thinking: Theory, Research, Practice, and Possibilities, ASHE-

ERIC HIGHER EDUC.REP.NO. 2 (1988) (defining critical thinking as ‘‘an investigation whose

purpose is to explore a situation, phenomenon, question, or problemto arrive at a hypothesis

or conclusion about it that integrates all available information and that can therefore be con-

vincingly justified).

4

See, e.g., Wolfram Antepohl et al., A Follow-up of Medical Graduates of a Problem-Based Learning

Curriculum,37M

ED.EDUC. 155, 156 (2003) (noting that physicians ‘‘tend to perform well in

areas that are considered typical features of problem-based curricula such as critical think-

ing’’); Diane F.Halpern, Teachingfor Critical Thinking: Helping College Students Develop the Skills

and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker,80N

EW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING 69, 70

(1999) (defining critical thinking, from the education perspective, as ‘‘purposeful, reasoned,

and goal-directed . . . the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating infer-

ences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions’’); Reitzel, supra note 1, at 471 & 486

(1991) (describing critical thinkers, from the legal studies perspective, as those who possess,

among others, the abilities to ‘‘reason logically and systematically, . . . choose or develop an

effective problem solving approach, [and] . . . avoid decisional pitfalls.’’); Kin Wai Michael Siu,

Nurturing All-round Engineering and Product Designers,13I

NT’LJ. TECH.&DESIGN EDUC. 243,

243 (2003) (noting, from an engineering perspective, that ‘‘students in general have limited

358 Vol. 26 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education

is in this sense that the term is used here. With respect to teaching

methods, there is evidence to support the effectiveness of methods

that engage students in educational experiences that are focused, interac-

tive, and provide timely corrective feedback.

5

But there is also the

recognized concern that, because of time constraints, the inclusion

of skill-development methodologies might come at the expense of

content coverage.

6

Thus, a method’s technical effectiveness should

be augmented by its temporal effectiveness. The teaching method

demonstrated here was designed with both of these effectiveness criteria

in mind.

From a pedagogical perspective, the Logic Doctor–the teaching

method described and demonstrated here–is a discipline-specific and

skill-specific method developed and used by the author. It consists of a

systematic, feedback-laden, and repeatable method for teaching problem

analysis, in general, and legal problem analysis in particular. From a learn-

ing perspective, it is a way for students to learn to approach and analyze

legal problems in an orderly way, and for them to learn how to teach

themselves. These problem-analysis and self-teaching skills are based on

the accumulation of several contributory learning skills and strategies, such

as study-time management, thought-process monitoring, problem-struc-

ture recognition, and fact-significance recognition. These and other con-

tributory skills are fostered by structure training and metacognitive

monitoring, the pedagogical techniques that undergird the Logic Doctor

method andthat are discussed below. A complete list of the skills and strat-

experience in creative and critical thinking and analysis; for example, in identifying needs and

problems to solve’’); Swaleh Toofany, Critical Thinking Among Nurses, 14(9) NURSING MGMT.28,

29 (2008) (noting, from the nursing perspective, that some have adopted ‘‘systems of problem

based learning that help students develop critical thinking skills to understand and resolve

specific problems’’).

5

See, e.g., Angelo, supra note 3, at 6 (linking leaning success to interactivity and focus

in the learning environment); Diane Halpern, Teaching for Critical Thinking for Transfer

Across Domains, Dispositions, Skills, Structure Training, and Metacognitive Monitoring,53AMER.

PSYSCHOL. 449, 452–55 (1998) (citing the need for corrective feedback as essential to

learning).

6

See, e.g., Denbo, supra note 1, at 107–08 (recognizing the concern that time spent teaching

skill-development could consume time needed to teach content); Julie Reynolds& Cary Mos-

kovitz, Calibrated Peer Review Assignments in Science Courses: Are They Designed to Promote Critical

Thinking and Writing Skills?,38J.C.S

CI.TEACHING 60, 60 (2008) (same).

2009 / The Logic Doctor Is In 359