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‘Engagement' is critical to law student success
When we talk about law student ‘engagement' with the law school we are not only talking about academic investment, motivation, and commitment, but also the psychological connection, comfort, and sense of belonging that the student feels towards his/her institution, peers, teachers, and administrators. Engagement with the school can be affected by how a student views and accepts the pressures of grades, the eccentric behavior of others, the acceptance or rejection by groups and individuals, and myriad other things. A student cannot change most of these factors, but he/she can change how he/she views or perceives de-motivating factors and thus can increase his/her chances of success.
‘Person'-centered variables that affect law student engagement
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Research has shown that how law students individually engage with their institutions or curricula depends largely upon three factors and individual differences with respect to these three factors. These are:
- Competence beliefs
- Concerns and expectations of bias around social identities
- Perceptions of and coping with contextual stress
The three factors mentioned above are critical for success as a law student. While in broad categories minority and gender bias can affect groups, individuals can break out of the situation and forge ahead if they could recognize the roots of their problems and learned to handle contextual stress.
Analyze your personal beliefs and tweak them
It is natural for individual law students to create belief systems around perceptions of individual abilities and personal characteristics vis-à-vis benchmarks or peer standards established in the law school eco system. Our personal belief systems provide the framework upon which we understand and value interpersonal experiences as well as academic experiences. Whether we see the system biased for us or against us, or whether we perceive something as stressful or not, depends largely upon our individual belief systems. Personal belief-systems determine whether we would withdraw and disengage in the face of academic difficulty, or re-invest and increase our efforts to cope with setbacks and failures.
So, tweaking our individual belief systems can spell success or failure in law school. To clarify, let's say many, if not most, of us believe that we are born with a certain IQ or level of intelligence and that ‘quantum' of intelligence is immutable and unchangeable. Holding such beliefs can prevent success, in as much as, such a student may conclude his/her natural abilities are not up to the task. On the other hand, if the same student believed that intelligence and the application of intelligence is something that can increase with time and use, they may not give up, even when faced with insurmountable odds, and just pile up efforts and keep going.
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References:
Bonita London, Geraldine Downey, and Shauna Mace, "Psychological Theories of Educational Engagement: A Multi-Method Approach to Studying Individual Engagement and Institutional Change," Vanderbilt Law Review 60, no. 2 (2007)