Implications and Conclusion

Vernellia R. Randall , The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, First Year Law Students and Performance , 26 Cumb. L. Rev. 63 - 101 (1995)

The findings of this research provide some information for suggesting change in various aspects of legal education. The first implication is that it is urgent that law schools recognize, accept, and understand the diversity of students with regard to learning styles. Law schools and the legal profession are made up of diverse learners.

A second implication is the need for faculty to know and teach about learning style. By doing so, the faculty will help students to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. Such understanding will contribute to increased self- esteem and ultimately to achievement. It may also contribute to decreased feelings of frustration and cognitive dissonance among first year law students.

A third implication of the research is the need for faculty to use a variety of teaching techniques. The traditional pseudo-socratic teaching style fits the learning style of only some learners.⁽¹⁸⁰⁾ More importantly, this style is misleading. Since it relies on thinking while acting, it may lead extraverts to believe that they are actually doing better than they really are. Extraverts need activities that will require them to engage in reflective thinking and to communicate that thinking in writing rather than orally. Furthermore, it is important that faculty develop teaching methods that address the full range of learning styles.

Since learning styles tend to guide teaching styles, counseling styles, and communication practices, a fourth implication is the need for law schools to hire faculty with diverse learning styles. Obviously, by having a faculty and support staff with diverse learning styles, law schools will provide students with a selection of instructors and other personnel from which to learn and seek advice.

A final implication is the urgent need for further research on learning style. There is a need for research on learning style throughout the law school experience and even into practice. There is a need for research on the different aspects of learning style and academic performance. For instance, what impact does learning style have on first year grades, upper division grades, and bar passage? Another important question that needs further research is how learning styles affect the performance of students of color and how it may have different implications for whites. Also, a study needs to be made of differences based on gender.

IV. CONCLUSION

While all types may perform well in law school, it is predictable that (I), (N), (T), and (J) types may have a relative, if not significant, advantage. Introverts (I) deal intensively with concepts and ideas. Intuitives (N) work with abstraction, symbols, and theory. Thinkers (T) prefer logical analysis. Finally, judges (J) plan, focus, and organize their work. Consequently, the study of law matches the interests of those preferences. However, grades are much more than a matching of interest. They are the end product of the interaction between aptitude, application, interest, and persistence. While type theory and data can help explain achievement, it is not a full explanation. Consequently, it would be a mistake to use type theory for either admissions or to predict success of particular students. However, information on type can help professors in their choice of teaching methods and in the variety of study aids they choose to make available to their students. It can help students become better self-learners by helping them to plan their learning to maximize their abilities and interests.

If law schools are serious about conforming legal education to known educational theory, law schools must do more than to take a "sink or swim" attitude toward student success. Law schools must understand which factors contribute to student learning and which do not. While understanding learning styles is not a cure-all for the ills of legal education, it is a start toward helping the student become a better self-learner. Legal educators could use the MBTI to help students maximize the learning experience by: (1) helping them to understand how they learn best; (2) by helping them to understand how the learning environment differs from their preferred learning modes; and (3) by helping to determine activities and behaviors to maximize their learning, notwithstanding any learning style differences. Understanding learning styles can help legal educators understand the thought processes of law students who are quite different from themselves. Despite the favoring in legal education of a particular type, the practice of law needs: people who prefer acting without getting bogged down in reflection (extraverts); people who prefer giving attention to details, facts and reality of the situation (sensing); people who prefer making judgments based on the underlying value implications (feeling); and people who prefer spontaneous and flexible environments (perceptive). It is the responsibility of legal education to assure those characteristics in the profession by facilitating the learning of all types.

180. FN180. See Duncan Kennedy, How the Law School Fails: A Polemic, 1 Yale Rev. L. & Soc. Action 71 (1970) (arguing that the Socratic method promotes hostility among law students); Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Feminist Legal Theory, Critical Legal Studies, and Legal Education or "The Fem-Crits Go to Law School," 38 J.Legal Educ. 61, 67 (1988) ("[T]he law school form of Socratic dialogue occurs in so large a group that little reciprocity, genuine communication, or exploration is possible. Students are often glad that someone else is 'on the hook,' and, while 'out there,' each student feels alone, unsupported, alienated, fearful, and grows increasingly apathetic. Thus, the metamessages of such classes are that teachers know it all, that students must guess at what is temporarily 'right,' and that learning is highly individualized"); Jenny Morgan, The Socratic Method: Silencing Cooperation, 1 Legal Educ. Rev. 151 (1989) (describing teaching as encouraging an environment of cooperation); Andrew S. Watson, The Quest for Professional Competence: Psychological Aspects of Legal Education, 37 U. Cin. L. Rev. 93, 119-24 (1968) (describing some of the negative aspects of the method: increasing a student's feelings of inadequacy in the face of even gentle questioning, turning the teacher into an adversary, offering little "overt" reward for good performance, distorting the importance of intellect over emotion, and fostering an unemotional response).