Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2012
Abstract
Part I describes the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and reviews the negative effects of business and educational models assuming extrinsic motivation to be most effective rather than seeking to stimulate intrinsic motivation. Part II describes the Carnegie Foundation's Preparation for the Professions project's call for law schools to focus on law students' sense of identity and purpose as part of their professional education, as well as noting the similar goal that students learn "how to be" as articulated by the Tuning Project of the Bologna process regarding higher education in Europe. Part III provides basics on the theory of human needs for a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose on which the rest of the article is based. Part IV applies work contrasting autonomy-supportive teacher behaviors with controlling instructional behaviors to the clinical context. Part V of the article draws on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory to suggest four methods useful for assisting novice law students on the steep road to mastery of lawyering competence within the time constraints of clinical programs and the professional demands of client service. Methods identified also contribute to satisfaction of students' need for relatedness, which too often is undermined in other parts of law school. Part VI extends the discussion of clinics' potential contribution to the need for relatedness and focuses on clinical education's capacity to support development of students' sense of how a career in law can contribute to their sense of life purpose in being part of something larger than themselves.
Recommended Citation
Leah Wortham et al., Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses to Enhance these Critical Goals, 17 INT’L J. CLINICAL LEGAL EDUC., no. 2, 2012, at 105.