Larcombe, W et al --- "Law students' motivations, expectations and levels of psychological distress: evidence of connections" [2013] LegEdDig 14; (2013) 21(1) Legal Education Digest 51

• Law students’ motivations, expectations and levels of psychological distress: evidence of connections

---

Law students’ motivations, expectations and levels of psychological distress: evidence of connections

W Larcombe, I Malkin and P Nicholson

Legal Education Review, Vol. 22, No 1, 2012, pp 71-98

It is now well established that Australian law students, like their North American counterparts, experience high rates of psychological distress. While US studies identified the impact of law school on student wellbeing as a serious concern more than 25 years ago, it was thought for some time that ‘the Australian situation is quite different’. The research initiated by the Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation and undertaken by the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) has conclusively dispelled that vain hope. More than 740 final year law students from 13 Australian universities participated in the BMRI study of mental health literacy, experiences and behaviours. The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) was used to assess participants’ risks of experiencing depression. Results showed that 35.4 per cent of law students reported high or very high levels of distress, compared with only 17.8 per cent of final-year medical students and 13.3 per cent of a general population sample aged 18–34.

US research has established that law students enter law school with levels of depression no different from, or even lower than, the general population, and that the negative impact on students’ wellbeing occurs during the first year of law school. A subsequent study at the Australian National University (ANU) has confirmed that this finding applies to Australian students.

The ANU study suggests that one contributing factor is the change in thinking styles that learning to ‘think like a lawyer’ entails. It established that first year law students exhibited a greater propensity for rational thinking and a lower propensity for experiential thinking at the end of the year than they had at the beginning.

However, further research is needed to understand the mechanism by which changes in thinking styles impact on law students’ psychological health: there may be a direct impact from underutilising experiential thinking or, as others have suggested, changes in thinking styles may impact psychological health because training students to ‘think like a lawyer’ in effect ‘train[s] students to ignore their own values and moral sense’.

The connection between wellbeing and law students’ motivations and values was explored in a landmark study by Kennon Sheldon and Lawrence Krieger. Their longitudinal research with law students at two different schools found that declining levels of law-student wellbeing were associated with declining levels of intrinsic motivation (that is, engaging in an activity because it is interesting or enjoyable) and intrinsic values (such as community service goals) over the first year of law school. These declines were accompanied by corresponding increases in external motivation (engaging in an activity to obtain an external reward or avoid a penalty) and extrinsic values (such as according importance to being seen as socially popular and having an appealing appearance).

According to Self-Determination Theory (‘SDT’), external motivations and values tend to reduce or impair people’s experiences of autonomy, competence and relatedness to others. Experiences of autonomy, competence and relatedness are known to be basic psychological needs, essential for positive wellbeing. Internal/Intrinsic motivations and values, on the other hand, tend to facilitate experiences of autonomy, competence and relatedness to others; they are consistently associated with higher levels of subjective wellbeing. Sheldon and Krieger’s research was designed to test SDT’s capacity to explain high levels of psychological distress among law students and their findings confirm the soundness of the underlying theory: that ‘psychological-need deprivation appears to be a principal source of human distress’.

Research in Australia by Massimiliano Tani and Prue Vines provides additional insight into the connection between levels of wellbeing and law students’ goals and motivations. Where Sheldon and Krieger’s research investigated changes in law students’ values and motivations across the first year, Tani and Vines compared law students’ reasons for their choice of course with those of students in other faculties. Significant differences were identified: most notably, law students’ decision to pursue a university degree was influenced by parents more often than for any other degree type. In addition, law students’ expectations and experiences of tertiary education were distinctive in certain respects: law students were ‘disproportionately concerned about their grades, less interested in teamwork, and had different ideas about employers’ preferences for graduates when compared with students from other disciplines.’ Tani and Vines posited that these differences may point to factors contributing to the disproportionately high rates of psychological distress experienced by law students, particularly as the distinctive expectations and motives of law students may be interpreted as undermining students’ sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness.

The present study contributes to our understanding of the relation between law students’ motivations and their expectations about law school on the one hand, and their low levels of psychological wellbeing on the other. We analysed data from two surveys — one administered to commencing LLB and JD students in 2007 and 2008 respectively and the second administered in semester two of 2011, when even first year students (in the JD program only) would generally have completed at least five law subjects or units.

A purpose-designed 73-item questionnaire was administered to the commencing LLB cohort in week one of semester one of 2007, and to the commencing JD cohort at the end of their orientation program in February 2008. The ‘Studying Law’ questionnaire elicited information regarding students’: (1) interests in studying law, including their intended use of the degree; (2) expectations of academic success, study and support; and (3) academic readiness for study in law, including use of effective learning strategies.

Of the 431 students enrolled in the LLB in 2007, 415 (96 per cent) participated in the survey; of the 74 students who commenced study in the JD in 2008, 72 (97 per cent) participated.

How are law students’ motivations and academic expectations affected by the experience of studying law? This question was able to be investigated through a comparison of the 2007–08 Studying Law data and data collected in 2011 through the Law Student Wellbeing Survey, also undertaken by the authors. A number of items from the Studying Law survey were included in the 2011 Wellbeing Survey to enable comparisons and identification of significant changes in students’ reasons for studying law and their expectations of academic performance.

The Wellbeing Survey collected information about students’ levels of wellbeing and psychological distress, as well as their experiences of law school. A total of 327 respondents, or 37 per cent of all eligible Melbourne Law School (MLS) students, participated in the online survey. Seventy-four per cent of respondents were in the JD program and 26 per cent in the LLB, meaning that JD students were over-represented in the respondent sample: more than 40 per cent of each JD year level participated. Almost all of the LLB students were in their fifth year of the program. The survey was administered over weeks two to four of second semester, 2011. The Wellbeing Survey included the DASS-21 (or Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21) to measure negative mental health. The DASS-21 is a 21 item, self-report measure comprising three subscales with seven items each for depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms.

The Studying Law and Wellbeing surveys collected information from students in both the Melbourne LLB and JD programs. It must be emphasised, however, that in the case of JD students, the findings are not longitudinal – that is, almost all those who participated in the 2011 survey will not have participated in the 2008 survey. In the case of LLB students, by contrast, almost all those who participated in the 2011 survey will have participated in the 2007 LLB survey, although it is not possible to connect responses in order to identify changes at an individual level. The data collected thus provide only a snapshot of the motivations and academic expectations of commencing and ‘experienced’ law students in both programs.

In light of the findings from research by Sheldon and Krieger and Tani and Vines discussed above, we were interested to know whether law students’ reported reasons for studying law changed as they progressed through law school – in particular, whether intrinsic values and objectives were undermined, as Sheldon and Krieger found, and external motivators were highly ranked by law students, as Tani and Vines found.

Both our surveys asked students ‘What are your reasons for studying law?’ They were instructed to select all options that applied from a list of eight reasons (including ‘other – please specify’). With reference to the SDT classification of motivations and values, which identifies three distinct types of motivation, we were able to classify the stipulated reasons as ‘Internal/Intrinsic’ (I) if they reflected the individual’s intrinsic interests or internal values (self-motivation); ‘External/Extrinsic’ (E) if they relied on an external locus of causality such as contingent rewards, penalties or approval from others; or as ‘Amotivated’ (A) if they reflected a lack of motivation or sense of personal causation. On this basis, we had two reasons that reflected ‘External’ goals or rewards (‘Financial’ and ‘Professional status’) and one that reflected the ‘Intrinsic’ value of helping others (‘Social justice’). We also had an Intrinsic motivation, ‘Interest and aptitude’, and an External motivation, ‘Parental advice’. ‘Best option available’ and ‘Achieved required marks’ we considered as reflecting lack of intentionality (Amotivation). Within SDT, amotivated people ‘go through the motions’, lacking intentionality because they do not value an activity, feel competent to complete it satisfactorily, or believe it will yield the desired outcome.

As we had data from law students in two separate programs – LLB and JD – we were able to compare the reasons for studying law of these distinct cohorts. For example, ‘Achieved required marks’ is among the top five reasons for LLB students but not for JD students. Also, ‘Parental advice’ is at least twice as likely to be nominated by LLB students as by JD students. This indicates that students’ circumstances, including age and prior tertiary experience, are important factors informing their reasons for studying law and that the JD and LLB cohorts could not be collapsed into two combined categories of ‘commencing’ and ‘experienced’. As a result, we analysed data on four cohorts: commencing LLB students (LLB 2007), experienced LLB students (LLB 2011), commencing JD students (JD 2008) and experienced JD students (JD 2011).

Importantly, in both the LLB and JD programs, the Intrinsic reasons – ‘Interest and aptitude’ and ‘Social justice’ – were nominated just as frequently by the experienced students as by the commencing students. However, the External reason of ‘Professional status’ was nominated more frequently by experienced students than by commencing students in both the LLB and JD programs, and the External reason of ‘Financial’ was nominated more frequently by experienced students in the JD program.

What is most noteworthy from the data is that experienced students were significantly more likely than commencing students to nominate ‘Best option available’ and ‘Achieved required marks’ as reasons for studying law. Indeed, for the experienced LLB students, ‘Achieved required marks’ jumped from being the fifth most frequently nominated reason to the second, only slightly behind ‘Interest and aptitude’. Given that ‘Best option available’ and ‘Achieved required marks’ were coded as Amotivated (A), this noted difference between commencing and experienced students’ reported reasons for studying law supports Sheldon and Krieger’s thesis that non-Intrinsic motives and goals gain prominence as a result of students’ experience of law school. However, Sheldon and Krieger did not include any measures of Amotivation. Our data suggest that Amotivation may increase even more than External motivation as students progress through law school, although further research would be needed to establish this point.

Our Wellbeing Survey found that close to 30 per cent of students in both the MLS LLB and JD programs were experiencing moderate to extremely severe rates of psychological distress. Respondents’ reasons for studying law were cross-tabulated with DASS levels to investigate whether particular reasons for studying law were associated with increased levels of psychological distress. For this purpose, the five DASS levels were collapsed into three categories: normal; mild/moderate; and severe/extremely severe.

It is worth noting that the profile of normal-range students included both Intrinsic and External reasons for studying law. However, when we compared the reasons of students experiencing psychological distress with those of normal-range students, three trends emerged. First, students experiencing severe or extremely severe depression, anxiety or stress were more likely than other students to select ‘Best option available’. Given that the frequency of nomination of ‘Best option available’ was higher for experienced students than for commencing students, the association between nomination of this reason and high levels of psychological distress provides support for the thesis that increases in psychological distress are associated with increases in non-Intrinsic reasons for studying law.

Second, students who nominated ‘Parental advice’ were twice as likely as those who did not select it to be in the severe/extreme range for depression. The odds ratio of 2.2 (p=0.06) did not achieve statistical significance at a 95 per cent confidence interval (p<0.05), but an association is evident between nomination of ‘Parental advice’ and higher levels of depression. There was no association, however, between ‘Parental advice’ and higher levels of anxiety and stress. Finally, selection of ‘Interest and aptitude’ was protective against high levels of depression (OR=0.3, p=0.04). This finding achieved statistical significance at a 95 per cent confidence interval (p<0.05).

As noted above, Sheldon and Krieger’s research found an association between changes in students’ motivations and values in the first year of law school and their increased levels of psychological distress. Krieger has subsequently argued that law students’ typical preoccupation with academic results and cohort position is both a cause and consequence of the reorientation toward external values that many students experience and many law schools promote. Tani and Vines similarly reported that the law students in their study were ‘disproportionately concerned about their grades’ when compared with students in other degrees, and the authors posited that this would undermine students’ connectedness with others, with consequent negative impacts on mental health.

On this basis, we were interested to investigate students’ expectations about their academic performance and any differences between the expectations of commencing and experienced law students. Two questions on our surveys were relevant to this topic: ‘What is the lowest mark you would be happy with for a law assignment?’, and ‘What is your level of agreement with the statement ‘I expect my results to be in the top one-third of my class’?’.

Students experiencing high levels of psychological distress did not appear to adjust their self-expectations about academic performance. Most respondents, irrespective of distress levels, indicated they would not be happy with a mark for a law subject below 70 per cent: that is, they wanted an ‘above average’ mark. Moreover, students in the severe/extreme range were more likely than students in the Normal range for anxiety and stress to expect their grades to be in the top one-third of their class. This expectation may be contributing to the students’ distress levels; it certainly does not make any allowance for the impact of high distress levels on daily functioning and learning. By contrast, students in the severe/extreme range for depressive symptoms were more likely than students in the Normal range to expect that their results would not be in the top third, yet more than 50 per cent of students in the severe/extremely severe range for depressive symptoms still expected to achieve grades in the top one-third of their class. High self-expectations of academic performance are likely to be placing an additional burden on students who are experiencing severe and extremely severe levels of depressive, anxiety or stress symptoms.

What suggestions for legal educators flow from this research? SDT predicts that non-Intrinsic reasons for studying law would be associated with lower levels of motivation and wellbeing because they inhibit students’ experiences of autonomy, competence and relatedness. By implication, law schools might attempt to reduce and prevent high levels of law student distress by supporting students to identify and maintain their intrinsic motivations and goals. Facilitating students’ experiences of autonomy is one aspect of this broad objective – for example, by providing meaningful choices in curriculum and assessment that enable students to express themselves and pursue their interests. Providing meaningful rationales for lack of choice, when necessary, may also help students to internalise the reasons for required activities or behaviours, with the result that students are more likely to experience those activities as self-motivated. Experiences of relatedness, or connection with people who share similar values and interests, can be facilitated by fostering interest groups, peer and professional mentoring schemes, and opportunities for student–teacher interactions inside and outside class. ‘Grade orientation’ is typically contrasted with ‘learning orientation’ and so may be able to be moderated by an increased emphasis on, and valuing of, the skills and competencies that students acquire through study in law, and a reduced emphasis on grades and comparative measures of academic performance. In this vein, experiential and work-integrated learning is likely to be supportive of students’ experiences of competency as well as relatedness. A broad focus on lawyers’ roles in dispute resolution may also be of benefit in establishing a positive professional identity for law students – one that connects with and supports their internal values and goals.

If such roles and their associated skills and contexts feature in legal study, especially in the first year curriculum, legal education may become ‘humanised’ and the traditional training to ‘think like a lawyer’, with its associated analytical rationality and win–lose paradigm, may be de-emphasised. This may also assist students to maintain their intrinsic motivations and goals for studying law, and to focus on the competencies and skills they are developing.